‘We found it,’ he said, gasping.
Shocked, it took her a second to respond. ‘Where?’
‘Here.’
‘On Earth?’
‘No, Madam President,’ he said, a little steadier now. ‘It’s here. In EarthDome.’
July 6th 2263, White Star Intrepide, Sol
Far beyond the orbit of Earth’s moon, a jump point shimmered blue and the vortex briefly coalesced to allow the purple spearhead form of the Intrepide to enter realspace. With a brief course correction, it aimed straight for Earth, speeding towards its programmed destination. On board, the bridge crew were aware of the increased ‘chatter’ throughout the system’s communications networks and the elevated level of security that interrogated the transponders of the White Star.
‘It’s here,’ said Badeau. ‘They’ve found it. Get me President Luchenko, quickly!’
The Minbari crew quickly sent out coded requests to EarthDome, negotiating a dozen communications protocols but even so, it took several minutes to receive a reply. Badeau spent the time agonising over the possible targets, and even Shaw felt concern for those in danger--even if they were the same Earthers who had opposed the independence of his own world for so long.
Eventually, the Intrepide’s main display was activated and, flowing from the ceiling once again, it produced the image of President Luchenko. Badeau immediately noticed her harrowed expression, then realised she was on her feet bent over her own display rather than seated, as would have been normal.
‘White Star 31,’ Luchenko said, her voice fast and hard.
‘Madam President,’ said Badeau with a tip of her head. ‘You have found the Centauri weapon?’
‘Yes, it is here in EarthDome, shipped in as part of a supply run from Io. We have a bomb disposal team working on it now.’
‘Have you ordered the evacuation?’
‘Already started,’ said Luchenko. ‘Though it will not be complete in time. Our people have never seen a device like this before, but they have already hacked into the first stage of the Centauri fuse. It will detonate in less than twenty minutes.’
Badeau quickly made a mental calculation. ‘We can be there in ten. Give us clearance to land. Do you know the potential damage yet?’
‘No,’ Luchenko shook her head. ‘We have a shuttle on standby though. Stay clear. We’ll talk again when this is over, one way or another.’
‘Madam President,’ Badeau said before Luchenko could end the link. ‘I don’t imagine you will leave until the very last moment, and there is no shuttle or ship in EarthForce as fast as a White Star. I insist, for your own safety, that you allow us to evacuate you and your staff
Luchenko glanced beyond Badeau, apparently listening to someone out of view in her office, and then nodded. ‘Very well. We will prepare for your arrival.’
The communication ended and Badeau spoke quietly to her helmsmen. ‘All power to engines. Get us there fast.’
July 6th 2263, EarthDome, Sol
Firing manoeuvring thrusters, the Intrepide touched down lightly on the tarmac of the landing pad, one of several dotting the towering structures of EarthDome. It shared space with three shuttles, each with all hatches open, ready to accept the stream of personnel that funnelled from the senatorial offices. Badeau and Shaw ran down the boarding ramp of the Intrepide and pounded into the tower, their Anla’Shok robes streaming behind them. Inside they heard a cry through the slowly panicking crowd and turned to see an EarthForce officer waving to get their attention. Following the man, they hastened through corridors and a transport tube before arriving at the Office of the President of the Earth Alliance.
Taking in the plush meeting area and wide window with a single glance, Badeau walked straight up to the desk of the President. Luchenko was surrounded by EarthForce brass, an even mixt of both fleet and ground force uniforms evident. She looked up to acknowledge the Rangers.
‘You got here in time. Good,’ Luchenko said.
‘Sabine, Michael,’ Badeau said, indicating both herself and Shaw. ‘Any progress?’
A fleet officer--an admiral, Badeau noted--turned to face her. ‘The Centauri fuse is the only realistic route we have into the device, given time constraints. We can tell it started a countdown as soon as it reached EarthDome, but it is hardwired into what we can only presume is the device’s detonation circuits. Our team is trying to separate the fuse from the device to render it inert, but they have been unsuccessful so far. If they cannot defuse the trigger, the device will activate as the fuse is removed. We don’t know the effects of the device but concur with the ISA’s assessment of its magnitude.’
‘How long until detonation?’ asked Shaw.
The Admiral glanced at a datapad in his hand. ‘Four minutes, forty seconds.’
‘Madam President,’ said Badeau forcefully, expecting resistance. ‘We must leave now.’
‘There is no more time, Madam President,’ said another EarthForce officer, a four-star general.
Luchenko scrolled through a report in her screen. ‘How many have we evacuated so far?’ she asked.
‘Nearly 60%. Madam President, we knew we would not get everyone out in time,’ the general said. ‘I must insist we leave now.’
‘How many senators have evacuated?’ she persisted.
‘We believe they have all left. Madam President, I am sorry.’ The general nodded to two EarthForce soldiers who were standing to one side. With determined purpose, they pushed through the crowd and, firmly grabbing the President, began marching her from behind the desk.
Luchenko gave a strangled cry of anger but quickly relaxed and accepted the inevitable. Her Presidential Guard had performed this drill enough to make her realize she had no option. Sensing her acquiescence, the soldiers released their grip of her arms but stayed close. Seeing the President was ready to leave, Badeau and Shaw led the way to the landing pad, where all but one shuttle had departed. EarthForce soldiers surrounded the remaining vessel, forcing the milling crowd to form orderly queues before being permitted to board. By the time the Rangers, President and EarthForce officers reached the Intrepide, a sense of very real urgency sank into even Luchenko, and they all boarded the White Star at a flat run.
Inside, Minbari crew quickly directed the EarthForce personnel to temporary quarters, but they allowed Luchenko to follow the Rangers to the bridge. As she ran to her captain’s chair, Badeau shouted the order to leave.
‘Get us out of here!’
The violent motion of the Intrepide, attitude thrusters straining to vault its mass skywards, was dampened down by the gravitic drive, but Shaw still had to take a step back to steady himself. The Minbari helmsmen held the White Star on a flatter trajectory than normal, trading altitude for simply putting as much distance between the ship and EarthDome without having to fight gravity.
‘Time to detonation?’ called Badeau.
A Minbari dutifully summoned the holographic display, charting their progress across a three-dimensional map of the surrounding terrain. A counter on the right hand side of the screen registered 33 seconds and began ticking at what seemed an impossibly fast rate.
President Luchenko, standing at Shaw’s shoulder, whispered what the bridge crew where thinking. ‘We’re not going to make it, are we?’
Hopelessly outclassed, the EarthForce bomb disposal team worked hard on the Centauri fuse until the last second. The three members had volunteered to stay until the end, knowing that EarthDome could never be fully evacuated in time. The regular staff had left as soon as the threat had been revealed, and the docking bay was eerily quiet. In his last moments, the leader of the team, Captain Perry, had time for one last cliché.
‘Been a pleasure working with you guys.’
The fuse counted down to zero. Within a micro-second, the Dilgar weapon detonated.
In the blink of an eye, reactions took place within the capsule as it drew upon the Earth’s own magnetic field to generate the power it hungrily sought. If the other two capsules
had been placed in their precise positions elsewhere on the globe, the weapons would create a grid of energy running through crust, mantle and core. Lacking this boost, the weapon turned in upon itself and a blinding white light expanded from the capsule, vaporising all matter within fifty metres. Captain Perry and his men, along with a sizeable part of the loading bay, simply ceased to exist. For several seconds, a ball of unstable energy roared with deafening effect as, outside, lightning thrashed down into EarthDome, generated by the magnitude of power swirling inside. As the sphere finally lost all stability, it detonated, reaction following reaction to create a shock wave that flattened every building within EarthDome and smashing the life out of every living creature it touched. This was followed an instant later by a slow-moving wave of fire that roiled and grew, pouring out across the country, a hungry beast that consumed everything in its path.
Any building that still stood was scorched to its core as the intense heat of the flames rolled over it. Lake Geneva posed no barrier to the fire and most of its water was vaporised though this, at least, would later be replenished naturally. Satellite images of the disaster later revealed the expanding shock wave travelling for over sixty miles with lethal effect, though the seismic vibrations were felt the world over. The expanding fire wave appeared to move at a snail’s pace in comparison, as if it could be outrun, though no one in the immediate area would survive its devastating effects. The reactions that drove it expired quickly; perhaps the Dilgar weapon required its counterparts for greater effect or maybe it had been dormant for too long. The flames finally abated after travelling twenty miles to the east, consuming Montreux, La Comballaz and a dozen other towns. To the other compass points, the effects of the weapon were hemmed in by the Alps, reaching only a few miles and not crossing the mountain range. An area of natural beauty that had remained unsullied for centuries lay in ash.
Shaw opened his eyes and looked up at the underside of his station. Beyond that, he saw a sky darkened by rapidly thinning clouds. That’s not right, he thought. A heavy weight lay across his abdomen, but a pain in the small of his back made him consider remaining immobile for the moment.
He closed his eyes again to focus and remember. The countdown on the screen. The President’s comment on the inevitability of their situation. Then a resounding smack on the hull of the Intrepide as a shock wave struck it with ruinous force. He remembered one of the Minbari crew shouting something about losing one of the wings. The White Star had lurched at that point, and suddenly they were all looking at a looming mountain range growing ever larger in the viewport. Sabine rattled off commands and suggestions to the crew until the last moment and they, to their credit, had obeyed. Everything had been tried. Shaw, with little to offer, had braced himself and the President. He remembered rock flashing past the viewport at incredible speed and then nothing else. He hurt all over.
Raising his head, Shaw looked down at the weight trapping him.
‘Ah,’ he said, realising what it was. ‘Madam President? Are you alright?’
She moaned, giving the indication that she was at least alive. Shaw studied what was left of the bridge. Towards the viewport, hunks of metal plating and crushed parts of the ship’s superstructure twisted around one another. He held little hope for the two helmsmen stationed there. Above him was sky, and it continued towards the back of the bridge. Shaw dimly realised the bridge was no longer part of the Intrepide’s hull. At some point during the crash, the two had parted company.
Movement to his right caused him to stir, and he saw a blackened and scarred Badeau struggling to sit upright, clutching her side as she did so.
‘Michael,’ she said, wincing in pain. ‘You still with us?’
‘Never left,’ he paused, as he suddenly found the need to swallow. ‘The President is alive too.’
‘Can you move?’ Badeau asked as she lay back to a prone position. Luchenko’s stirrings indicated consciousness too.
Shaw moved his extremities one by one to see if anything had stopped working or been torn off. It hurt, but he decided he was more or less intact. Helping Luchenko, Shaw sat up, groaning as he did. It was some effort, but strength started to return.
After checking the President for breaks and then resting her to one side, Shaw began to fish around in his robes for the small first aid pack all Rangers carried. Pulling out a small syringe from the brown case, he began administering it to Luchenko, hoping to remove any pain, before repeating the procedure for Badeau. He saw immediately that the Ranger was far worse off than the President.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
Badeau suppressed a groan as she shifted position. ‘I don’t think it’s good. That helps,’ she said, nodding at the syringe in his hand.
‘Did anyone else make it?’ asked Shaw finally.
‘I don’t know,’ said Badeau grimly, after a pause. ‘I think most bridge crew were sucked out of that,’ she said, weakly gesturing to the open ceiling. ‘Or are buried under that,’ indicating the crushed forward section. ‘Either way, I don’t give much hope, even for Minbari.’
Standing a little shakily, Shaw leaned against what remained of his station. Looking towards the rear of the bridge, he saw mountains and little else. He was also aware of his captain’s injuries.
‘You should look for survivors,’ he heard her say behind him.
‘I can’t. Your injuries--’ he started.
‘There will be others in the crew worse off than me. I have the President here to help me. We have to get a commlink to EarthForce working--they’ll send a shuttle.’ She paused for a moment before steeling herself to continue. ‘When it arrives, I don’t want to report that we are the only survivors.’
Shaw was not sure whether it was loyalty to his captain, a growing bond between the two of them or an outdated chivalrous desire to not leave a wounded woman, but he found himself disagreeing with her and began to shake his head.
‘Be back in thirty minutes,’ she said flatly, mustering enough strength and determination in her voice so Shaw would not mistake her authority and the direct command.
After a further split second of indecision, Shaw nodded and began to pick his way painfully from the bridge. He began to reach for his first aid kit again, intending to use the same stimulant and pain suppressant combination on himself that he had administered to Badeau and the President. As soon as he put his hand on the pouch, he thought better of it. He could soon encounter someone who needed it far more than he.
Outside the air seemed burnt, the stench of ozone thick in his nostrils. He scanned the area but his sight was blocked by mountains on all sides. The thin vegetation at the foot of the towering rock faces was either burning or already blackened. What he had taken for clouds earlier was actually thick smoke. It seemed the sky itself had caught fire. What remained of EarthDome and the great lake, he could not tell. The bridge of the Intrepide had indeed separated from the main hull, and its ruin had come to rest a quarter of the way up the mountain.
Looking down, he saw scattered wreckage of the White Star, though nothing large enough to be the main hull. Shaw guessed that lay beyond one of the mountains around him, though whether it would be behind the bridge or in front, he could not guess. Seeing a large fragment of purple armour plating a few hundred yards from him, perhaps from the drive systems, Shaw began a painful climb down toward it. He was grateful they had not ended up higher in the mountain ranges, where treacherous terrain and thin oxygen would have added to his difficulties. It did not take long, however, for him to realise that many of the crew might be stranded in just such a place. So long as they were not badly injured, he knew the Minbari would be tough enough to survive for at least a little while, but he did not have such hopes for the EarthForce officers who had evacuated with them.
It took Shaw several minutes to reach his target, but he was rewarded with sounds of movement from behind the wreckage that towered above him. It was from the rear section of the Intrepide, he could tell now, where it had broken away fro
m the core of the gravitic drive. Trying not to think of injured crew lying too close to the ship’s fusion reactor, he limped round the wreckage, peering inside. He immediately saw a line of Minbari bodies in a shattered corridor, all arranged in a neat row. He did not know whether they were unconscious or dead but his heart lightened as someone had obviously placed them thus.
A groan of supreme effort sounded just beyond the prone Minbari, and Shaw called out. A pause hung between him and the unknown crew member, then a hesitant voice returned to him.
‘Mr Shaw?’
A surge of relief swept through him as he recognised the light tone, and he redoubled his efforts to clamber through the twisted supports framing the corridor.
‘Tilanna!’
He found the small Minbari just beyond what had once been a junction that split service panels around the drive system. Looking at her, he thought she looked a real mess. She favoured her left arm and the robes around her legs were soaked through with blood. Her face, normally so delicate and precise in its features, had a deep cut running across the back of her head and blood dripped from her bone crest. Still, she had been trying to force open a wedged door with brute force. In spite of the situation, Shaw could not help but admire her Minbari fortitude and resilience. A human in her condition would have been out for the count, if surviving at all.
‘Help me,’ she said simply, then went back to straining on the door. ‘I heard movement inside.’
Shaw cast his eye about, seeing the door was open by an inch or so--either jammed that way or moved through Tilanna’s incredible efforts. He spied a loose pipe jutting from the floor and wrenched it free. Stepping up to Tilanna, he wedged it in as a lever, and the two of them strained together. Gradually, an inch at a time, it yielded to their efforts. Finally a pair of hands from the other side gripped the edge of the door and aided them. The work easier now, the door was soon forced open, and they looked inside to see a darkened chamber crushed to a third of its original size. On the floor were three Minbari. The first looked up as the others began to move slowly.
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