---
The Blackship had obviously enveloped not only itself, but also the entire Larger Moon in one of its force fields and it was soon apparent that nothing was getting through.
For its part, the alien was not returning fire. Still, everyone was starting to realize that if the aliens intended to slam the moon into Amular, there was seemingly not a lot anyone could do about it.
However, Donnelly had realized that the alien was doing something else.
The moon had been tidal locked, the same side always facing Amular. The alien had kept it that way and now where the Blackship had anchored itself was the closest point to Amular.
“It’s unbelievable that nothing's getting through,” Wicker said as he slammed his fist down on the console. He was sitting in his central command seat. Burnwall and Donnelly were on either side of him. On the big center screen was the Larger Moon, the Blackship a disfiguring black dot on its surface.
Donnelly said, “Well, if they were going to drive the moon into Amular, they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing.”
None of them had had any sleep in days and they all looked it.
Burnwall got up and walked toward the railing that surrounded their elevated position and watched all the monitoring screens for a moment. “They have a reason for everything they do. I just wish we knew what it was.” He turned toward Donnelly, “If they wanted to just drive the moon into Amular, what would they have to do?”
“Slow it down for starters,” Donnelly said, “or alter its course more radically than they are currently doing…or both. And both would take time…weeks, if not more.”
“Why would it take them that much time?” Wicker asked.
“Do either too quickly and the moon would break up,” Donnelly said. “It’s not easy to force a moon out of orbit and cause it to crash into a planet—you have to break the orbit by radically altering its course and you have to slow it down. It’s far easier to speed it up than slow it down and it’s easier to force it out of orbit by causing it to fly away from the planet. Right now, they’re subtlety changing its orbital vector and speeding it up a little, presumably to bring it into a new lower yet faster orbit. They can do this in just days instead of weeks.”
Burnwall returned to his seat, “Let’s bring in Battle Group Four.”
Wicker was shaking his head, “They’re our last ace in the hole. I can’t use them yet.”
As the Larger Moon moved closer to Amular, it grew to massive proportions and became a swollen horrifying monstrosity. No words could describe the utter terror and panic it struck into the billions of souls who saw it. Amular’s highways became clogged, then slowed to a stop, as millions attempted to get out from under the sight. A small percentage of the population cracked. Some went screaming though the streets while others hid curled up in the fetal position. They all believed the moon was falling.
At the Dark Mountain control center, the unbelievable reports kept coming in. The entire planet seemed to be falling apart.
Wicker, Burnwall, Donnelly and a half dozen others bundled up and took the elevator to the upper caverns, then climbed seven flights of stairs to the platform at the top of the crater rim to see it with their own eyes. It was dark and cold. The Larger Moon was on the horizon in the west, three-quarters of it showing, and because it was on the horizon, it appeared even larger.
It seemed to fill the entire night sky and it made Wicker sick and dizzy. He squeezed the railing with both hands as his heart pounded, and even in the freezing temperatures, sweat broke out on his face.
“My God,” he whispered.
The black sphere of the alien ship was clearly visible—impossibly large. Four long threads—the ship’s arms—stretched away from the sphere encircling the grossly swollen moon. Tiny flashes continuously bombarded the Blackship and the moon’s surface around it in total silence. Two of the orbital fortresses were visible in the sky. The other two were below the horizon.
He turned to Donnelly, “Even if we somehow survive this, what will we ever do with that thing so close? I mean, it can’t stay up there, can it? Won’t it…”
“Fall,” Donnelly finished for him. “We won’t know until the alien stops moving it. Theoretically it can be even closer and maintain a stable orbit.”
As if orchestrated, Donnelly’s com unit sounded. He answered it. After listening for a moment, his eyebrows went up, “Really…well keep a close eye on it and keep me posted.”
“Well, how’s that for timing,” he said. “For the last twenty minutes, the moon has maintained a position directly over the equator and directly between the day/night terminus. They think the alien has the moon where it wants it. One bright note…the new orbit seems to be stable.”
General Burnwall had been talking on his com unit a short distance away. Now he had finished and he walked over to them. “I heard what you were saying. Leewood was just reporting the same thing. It looks like they’re done moving it. Also, he’s decided to change tactics.”
“Again?” Wicker asked. Leewood had been trying different weapon combinations and strategies since he’d engaged the Blackship.
“Yes, but we’re all a bit more hopeful this time.”
It had been a great concern all day. They had wanted to damage the alien enough so that it would back off and leave, for if they destroyed the ship, almost certainly the black hole it was holding in some alternate dimension would return to normal space and literally consume everything in the star system. However, moving the Larger Moon as it was doing created another danger. If they managed to damage it and it lost control of the moon, the moon could do anything, including crashing into Amular. The eventual impact might be weeks or months away but, of course, such an event would destroy Amular.
As it was, they had decided that the only reason the alien wasn’t doing just that was that, for some reason, it didn’t want to wait that long. None of this was at all comforting, but nothing else made sense.
Burnwall continued, “It appears that repeated hits in one area may be eating away at this force field. Leewood is going to concentrate everything on a single spot in the hope that…” Burnwall stopped talking and pointed at the bloated silver moon. They all turned and looked. The continual bombardment had stopped. “I guess this is it. He’s going to try focusing all his fire power on one area.”
Then a new volley of tiny bright specks came from both the visible fortresses. As they neared the Blackship, more tiny specks appeared from the horizon coming from the two fortresses below it. They converged on a single spot on the black sphere. They continued bombarding the same spot relentlessly.
“Oh, my God, look…the arms,” Donnelly yelled. They all saw it then. The four arms of the Blackship were moving—they were unwrapping from around the moon. They were moving incredibly fast. Then they whipped outward and came to an abrupt stop. Two were pointed directly at the two fortresses that were visible, the other two at the unseen fortresses below the horizon.
What happened next happened at the speed of light and was only visible due to the large distances involved. Balls of green energy emerged from the base of each arm, traveled along the arms to their end then flew off, striking the fortresses. The two fortresses they could see turned into white spheres that expanded and faded. Minutes later, thousands of meteorites could be seen burning up as they fell into the atmosphere.
---
President Wicker stood by his elevated seat in the underground command center. His senior military staff was gathered around him. All of them watched the large monitors at the front of the room. All five showed different angles of the Slayers’ ship, its arms no longer pointed toward the destroyed fortresses, but stretched straight out from the central sphere. It was now attached to the Larger Moon by only the dozens of spikes thrust into the moon’s surface.
Admiral Leewood had come from the virtual control center from which the orbital fortresses had been controlled. All four had been destroyed.
President Wicker looked around
at his senior staff, “Tell the damn arks to lift off now. Burnwall, it’s time to bring Battle Group Four into the fray. Let’s do it now while we still can.”
---
Battle Group Four split up and came around the planet evenly spaced so that they could attack the Blackship on all sides.
As the terminus between night and day worked its way around Amular, the Blackship and Larger Moon followed. The moon had taken up a geostationary orbit with its arms extended straight out toward the planet. The moon took up one-eighth of the sky; half the moon brightly lit, half in ghostly darkness. It was devoid of all craters and perfectly smooth. Rock and dust, thrown up by the shockwaves from the pounding by the fortresses, had covered the familiar craters completely.
Seeing that the Blackship’s arms were free and that it might use them to create another energy wave, Admiral Katheryn Tulsa Horn commanding Battle Group Four came up with a plan to deal with it. Then she ordered her battle group to launch all missiles. Most were aimed at the base of the spikes in hopes of dislodging the Blackship.
Then, as Horn had expected as well as feared, the Blackship moved its long deadly arms. As they started coming forward, the ends trailing, Horn recognized the motion from the energy wave seen at Echo Charlie Seven and she was ready. “All ships, evasive pattern, Shuffle-One. Execute!”
All 100 battleships radically changed course. Half of them arched away from Amular and dove for a position behind the arc of the expected energy wave, the other half arched toward Amular and its atmosphere, which they had heard would protect them.
However, the Blackship fooled them. First, the thousands of missiles struck an invisible barrier about five miles from the Blackship as well as the moon’s surface. They did no damage at all. Then it barely waved its arms and instead of an energy wave heading outward from the Blackship’s sphere toward the planet, it created a wave that radiated outward from the Blackship’s sides and the fifty ships that had headed for positions behind the expected wave were doomed. Horn’s flagship heading into Amular’s atmosphere escaped.
“Damn you, demon, damn you,” she cursed as she watched half of her battle group turn to ash. However, this left an opening and she took it. The Blackship’s arms were not in a position to direct a forward energy wave until they could cycle back into position. “Attack pattern Hard-Alpha and execute.”
Immediately the fifty battleships now skimming Amular’s atmosphere turned directly toward the Blackship and went to military power. As soon as they were in range, they fired their particle and maser cannons. Again, whatever invisible shield the Blackship was using held.
There was now only one option that Horn could see, but she would let each ship’s captain decide for there was something to be said for ‘live to fight another day’. “All ships, at your discretion…pattern For-Amular or pattern Another-Day.”
'Another-Day' meant peeling off…in the hope of fighting another day. ‘For-Amular’ meant ramming the Blackship at full speed…killing anyone who chose to stay aboard. However, no one needed to stay onboard.
Horn walked to the front of the bridge and stood between the navigation station and the sensor control station. She turned and faced her bridge crew then keyed her com unit to broadcast ship wide. “Attention all crew. This is Admiral Horn. It has been an honor and a pleasure serving with you. I will see you back on Amular. Now, all hands…abandon ship. You have twenty minutes from…” she glanced at her watch, “now.” She signed off then turned and placed her hand on the navigation officer. “John, get to an escape pod, I’ll take this.”
The navigation officer stood and saluted the admiral who simply nodded back then sat down and started programming the ship. She knew as they all did that just building up as much speed as possible and ramming the alien ship was not good enough. The ship needed to self-destruct a fraction of a second after impact. With luck, the ship would penetrate the alien shielding to some degree and, as it did, at that point the massive self-destruct detonation would have the most effect.
As the escape pods began ejecting, the engines fired at full power and the battleship, Star Driver, the flagship of Battle Group Four, hurled toward the Spiral Slayer’s Blackship. All ramming ships would impact the same spot—they would fly through the lower front opening aiming at a spot between four of the skyscraper-like structures within.
The program entered, Horn stood and turned. Her first officer, Commander MacAfee, was standing behind her. He smiled, “After you, Admiral.”
“Is everyone off?” Horn asked.
“Except for us.”
They proceeded to the Captain’s lifeboat, entered and ejected.
As they flew away from Star Driver, they watched through the forward viewport.
MacAfee said, “All fifty battleship captains chose ‘For Amular’.”
Horn looked over at him and smiled, “Of course, they did. We’ve got to take this son of a bitch out.”
They both turned back to the viewport and watched as all fifty battleships, their engines firing at full power, flew toward the black alien sphere. However, the Blackship was so large that it was like watching the 50 battleships crash into a planet.
Unbelievably, the battleships did not make it through the opening. They hit the alien shield above the opening. Although the explosion was massive, the gallant effort was wasted. It looked like 50 fireflies crashing against a mountain rather than any kind of Amularian divine wind.
After the explosion, Horn and MacAfee’s mouth fell open in shock. Seemingly, no damage had been done to the alien ship.
However, several seconds later, the Blackship looked like it was emitting a fine mist, and for one moment, they dared to hope that they had caused some damage after all. But, when they zoomed in, it looked like the ship was ejecting its black surface, which was turning into thousands of objects that were shaped like staples.
As they watched, the black staple-shaped objects fell into formation. Then, with mathematical precision, the alien ships dove toward the planet. As they went down, they spread out into a long line that continued to expand. Watching their progress, projecting their courses, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that when the ships reached the planet’s surface, they would form a line from Amular’s North Pole to its South Pole. Eventually, at ground level, it would work out to about one staple-ship every five miles.
As they descended…one of the Blackship’s long thin arms began to move.
---
The History Station was still in deep space millions of miles above the star system’s elliptic plane. However, from that vantage point, they had a perfect view of everything…the fortresses 14 hours of pounding the alien on the captured moon and then the Blackship destroying all four of the fortresses in 12 seconds. Then they had watched Battle Group Four’s two-and-a-half hour run ending in their destruction.
Everything had failed and until the dozen battleships that had survived Echo Charlie Seven arrived—over a day at best speed—Amular was out of space assets. There was the Star Cannon, but so far, it had had no effect on the alien ship.
The crew of the History Station had all been shaken and a hopelessness had set in. Taking a break to get something to eat, they had finished in silent gloom and then returned to the observation bridge.
Harrington had just taken her seat and looked back at the Tachyon scope. “Hey, Floyd…Jan…something’s happening,” she called out. Everyone gathered around to watch.
One of the Blackship’s arms was swinging south at what looked like a leisurely pace.
“It’s moving incredibly fast,” Woodworth said.
Jan gave him a strange expression, “Fast?”
“You’re being fooled by the scales you’re looking at. Those arms are almost three thousand three hundred miles in length…it just looks like it’s moving slowly.”
Her mouth shaped an ‘o’ and her eyes widened as she looked back at the screen with new appreciation.
“Oh my God,” Harrington said. “Look at the base of
the arms.”
The point at which the arms connected to the Blackship were somehow magically moving up the surface of the sphere and doing it so fast that you could actually see them moving. They maneuvered around the three openings as needed and, as they watched, made their way to the top. Now all four arms were connected to the top of the Blackship’s sphere centered between the three large openings. The three stationary arms had maintained their position pointed at the equator.
“Tell me again, how big is that…round part…the sphere?” Jan asked.
“The central sphere is about one hundred and eighty miles in diameter,” Woodworth said.
“That’s so big I can’t even imagine it,” Jan was rubbing her temples with her hands. “I mean…how big is the Loud’s Umbrella Ship?”
“Seven miles.” Woodworth looked over at her, “Try to imagine it next to that sphere.”
“It would look tiny.”
Woodworth nodded.
The one arm had continued moving south, its end trailing behind. Now the base of the arm slowed and stopped while the end kept moving, catching up. Finally, the arm extended straight out, pointing at the South Pole.
“Look at the base of the arm,” Harrington said.
“It’s reversing, heading north,” Woodworth observed. The arm was now reversing directions, the base of the arm bending back north while the end still pointed at the pole lagging behind.
Woodworth jumped up and checked some readouts. “I thought so. It’s moving faster than it was…it’s accelerating.”
The other three arms had remained motionless coming out of the sphere’s top more or less pointing at Amular’s equator. When the moving arm reached them and started to pass, a second arm began moving in the opposite direction heading south.
“What in the world is it doing?” Jan asked.
No one had an answer.
It took over an hour before the two arms extended toward opposite poles. As the bases of each arm began to reverse directions, the other two arms started moving—one north, one south. Now all four arms were moving…waving back and forth, then extending toward the North and South Poles—all evenly spaced apart. All of them were accelerating.
Countdown Amageddon (The Spiral Slayers Book 2) Page 36
