“But this is an artillery bunker. Wouldn’t they have to fire some kind of solar missile? I don’t recall any of those around the temple ruins.”
“Maybe they aren’t using the batteries, just a place to launch it from.”
Ogho nodded, then waved him on.
“I will watch your back.”
Fangix slid down the ladder, his tiny body light flashing from his chest. He switched to infrared mode on his eyes, and looked for the power source. The power conduits lined up like an air landing strip in the middle of the night, and he traced it towards the light switches. He flipped on the switches, and the artillery bay lit up. Fangix grimaced.
“We have her. The Queen is safe. I will not be able to keep the machines dormant anymore. Have you found the weapon?” Stargazer’s artificial voice echoed in his ear.
“I think we may have a problem,” Fangix replied. He took a few quick pictures and sent them upstream.
The four plasma artillery guns had been dismantled and were no longer in the bay. Instead, the bay was lined wall to wall with nearly thirty solar probe drones, a ground based missile generally used to fire probes at incoming objects, like comets and asteroids. They could easily reach the sun of a system, and many were mounted with Hausen drives. They could easily be modified to reach other systems.
Each rocket were phallic in shape, with a large warhead section that carried the drone probe or the weapon, mounted on top of a slim tube that housed the drive. A small ring went around the middle and expanded once in space to focus the drive. Each one was mounted on a frame tripod, and the whole contraption was nearly twenty feet high. At the base of each tripod was a small pull down screen for diagnostics and on site firing. It didn’t matter though, as they were all tied in. A cable ran out from every mount that Fangix could see.
His first thought was to simply run and start cutting cables. The AI warned him, though, that since they were all built with a remote launcher, simply cutting the cables wouldn’t do it. The spy wasn’t carrying nearly enough explosives to deal with the entire launch chamber with any certainty. He was running out of options when Stargazer asked him to go over to one of the rockets.
“I need to verify the weapon is on board.”
Fangix climbed up the tripod until he was sitting up next to the warhead. He typed in the command prompt on the remote override that slid open a tiny panel just underneath where the warhead compartment sat atop the drive shaft. The access panel was about the size of Fangix’ hand wide open. He reached inside, per the AI’s instructions, and felt around for a small switch. When he forced it to the opposite position, he heard a click. The top of the warhead shifted just slightly, then spun and swung open, revealing the inside.
Lifting himself a bit higher to look inside, he was stupefied by what he saw. He immediately began taking pictures and sending them back to Stargazer. Amid the electronics was a glass cylinder holding some kind of energy reaction. Two small bright spheres of light swirled in perfect unison around each other, like a binary star system contained in the space of two feet. Fangix didn’t even attempt to understand the mechanism that supposedly had the power to destroy a star, and the spy had a very thorough scientific background with all the tech he’d stolen in the past. Instead, he allowed the AI, the creator, in part, of the weapon, to confirm it for him.
“Can I disable it?” Fangix asked.
“I could walk you through it, but it would take too long. I am almost at the Harmoa with the Queen, and it would take hours to disable all thirty. I don’t believe you have that much time.”
An explosion echoed through the launch chamber and Fangix looked back up through the windows into the console room. Flashes of light were followed by shattered glass, and the spy knew the soldier was engaged in a fight. He began to study his surroundings, looking for any solution, when he looked up.
“What would happen if these things exploded here?” Fangix asked into his mic.
“The warhead would implode, but otherwise do nothing, unless you were on the rocket.”
“I think we both know what needs to be done. How long until the mass driver is in position,” Fangix asked.
The giant asteroid tugging ship had entered orbit several minutes ago, and was now preparing to enter into high orbit. The AI told him a few minutes were needed to lock on target.
“Then as soon as it can, you have that ship drop its entire payload on this valley. Preferably, the first rock should land right here, on the launcher. But try to hit that large beast coming up to meet you as well.”
A new image appeared on his eye. It was an updated map of the valley, showing impact zones for the asteroids and explosion ranges. As the image continued to update, two more explosions completely removed all glass from the console windows above him, showering tiny pieces down below. Smoke began to roll out of the right hand corner of the windows and up towards the artillery bay doors. Fangix got down from the rocket and rushed over to the far wall, where an access ladder led up to a walkway on the sides of the walls. He began to scramble up.
“You will need to leave now. It will take you nearly fourteen minutes to clear blast zone,” the AI warned.
Fangix looked at his updated map, then nodded slowly.
“I don’t think we will be going anywhere.”
He ran up past a large hydraulic lift, and removed one of his three blast door explosives. He jammed one right into the fluid reservoir for the lift, and ran off to do the same on the opposite side of the artillery bay.
“You will not survive the strike,” the AI warned.
“Every mission I undertook had the possibility of no return.”
Fangix ran back to the ladder and began to slide down. Heavy gunfire erupted again from the console room. Big red lights on the ceiling of the room, where the bay doors opened, came to life, swirling. They were joined by an alarm, and Fangix heard the hum of power coming to the bay doors. He found the command in his eye prompt, and set it off. The two explosives went off simultaneously, and the bay door lifts came to a halt.
“Throw that rock down now. The missiles won’t get out of this bay door, but the machines just may come in here to get them once they realize the doors won’t open,” Fangix hollered into the mic.
There was a smashing sound, and when Fangix looked up, a Doomguard was leaping through the destroyed windows, and landing on his feet on the floor below. It looked behind and spotted the spy, giving him a thumbs up. It had a plasma rifle in each hand and turned to point them back up at the opening he had created. As he back stepped, he fired back up into the hole just as two Doomguard, these automated, appeared. The smoke billowed out heavily through the busted windows, blocking the robot’s vision. Ogho hit them in the chest, smashing right through their primary controls. The two mechs came crashing down to the floor.
As Ogho retreated back through the first layer of rockets, Fangix ran up to meet him.
“Are these the weapons?” the soldier asked.
“Yeah. Got the bay doors shut, permanently. Now we need to keep them from taking them out before the Harmoa fleet drop a huge rock on our heads.”
“Will they drop one on that thing as well?” Ogho asked, motioning upwards.
“Most, I hope.”
Fangix rushed out towards the downed mechs and picked up one of their rifles. He scattered back into the rockets just as more Doomguard started to pour out through the opening in the windows above. Ogho fired with great precision, but despite how many he hit, they kept coming. Some survived the plasma shot and moved forward anyways. Their only benefit in staying among the rockets was that the ancient one didn’t dare fire into his weapons and risk destroying them.
So they came, wave after wave, four or five at a time. Ogho and Fangix fired back, hitting legs and torso. All they had to do was wait now. A tiny screen popped up inside the already small screen on his eye, showing an orbital telemetry range for the mass driver. One rock was on its way.
Several new explosions blasted through the
cavernous room, and Fangix saw three more holes form in the wreckage of the console room. More mechs, not just Doomguard, started to fall through. Fifteen to twenty at a time, and now the soldier and the spy couldn’t keep up. They came in a zombie wave, running at them through the rockets, forcing them deeper and deeper among the framework of the missiles. One of Ogho’s rifles ran out of charge, and then the second, and it was down to hand to hand combat.
Ogho fought fiercely, and Fangix could hear his grunts and cries echoing through his ear. He used his brute strength, amplified by the Doomguard suit that was being destroyed. He tore off heads and limbs, and used them to smash into incoming mechs. He was stabbed multiple times, and the silvery suit began to shine red with blood. Two mechs came running at him at once and knocked him several feet back. Fangix leapt forwards with his rifle and fired at their legs, cutting them down.
As more mechs jumped down and walked through the smoke filled room, Fangix knelt beside Ogho. Amidst his labored breathing, he slid the face mask open and spat out blood.
“Can our friend in the sky hear me?” the soldier said, amid a gargle of fluids.
Fangix nodded.
“Please. Tell the Queen, thank you.”
“Won’t be long now,” Fangix replied, looking at the trajectory of the asteroid. There were several others coming in behind it. He removed the last blast explosive pack he had, and handed it to Ogho. As the smoke continued to build up, they could make the shapes of several mechs coming slowly through, looking for them. In that final moment, when peace should have settled in him, he despaired. Through the thick haze, he saw several of the Doomguard pick up two of the rockets, and rush towards the staircase.
His heart sank.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
“Don’t allow it,” he said, taking the explosive pack.
Fangix put his hand on the soldier’s chest, the nodded. He flipped on his stealth, and saw the counter come on. He had seventeen seconds.
As he rushed out through the smoke as fast as he could, making sure he didn’t run into any of the mechs, he came to the staircase. Rushing past two mechs who might have heard him, a loud blast erupted from behind him. Rockets came tumbling down like dominoes, and Fangix smiled. The soldier had gone as he’d wanted.
Fangix rushed to the outside and almost stopped in shock. The ancient one in its giant carcass, was much far up in the sky. In any other time, Fangix would have stood in awe, but his last two rockets were getting away from him, and his stealth was running out. He broke out into a dead sprint. Ten seconds left and he saw the mechs setting up the first of two rockets. The second, they took further ahead. With his timer ticking down to zero, he reached the first rocket and opened fire with the remaining charges in his rifle. He melted off the heads of each of the three mechs, dropping them.
The second rocket was much further ahead, in an opening between parked trucks. Fangix took one step towards it when the rocket he was standing next to hummed with power. The other rocket was out of the range of his rifle, and the one next to him was powering up for flight. He made the choice then.
He climbed up onto the rocket, and as he’d done earlier, reached into the tiny access panel and found the switch. The top of the warhead came open when the probe began to rise up into the sky. As the ground fell away from him, Fangix removed a small claw glove he used for climbing buildings from his side, and slipped it on. He dug into the metal of the rocket just as it began building up speed. It would be in orbit in a minute.
He pulled himself up with the arm, with the full force of the atmosphere blowing down on him. The air stung his eyes, and he could barely make out anything, so he felt along with his other hand. He could feel the air thinning and frost begin to form around his body. He moved his hand inside of the warhead until he felt the smooth cylinder. Holding on to it with his free hand with all his might, he unhooked the claw, and swung his arm around, smashing into the cylinder.
The implosion was instant. Both of his arms vanished from the elbows down and he was thrown clear of the rocket. For a moment, he floated there, miles above the atmosphere, until he began to feel the familiar tug of gravity. He managed to turn his body and caught an amazing sight of Coran. The curvature of the planet melded into the storm clouds, somewhere to the northwest.
Warmth returned to his body, along with air into his lungs. He fell through the sky, and now, he finally felt the peace he’d always wanted. He gathered what little strength he had left, and caught his breath.
“I missed one. They fired one of the rockets.” Fangix had no idea if he was anywhere within reception. He would not live to see what that weapon would do. But in that moment, as his end came screaming up from below, he hoped that he had earned the freedom the Queen had given him.
Thunder crashed through the clouds. Fangix turned his back to the ever closing ground, and gasped as the first asteroid from the mass driver came exploding through the atmosphere. He closed his eyes, the image of fire streaking through the sky the final thought in his mind.
3127 – Orbit over Coran
She stumbled out of the DGX and onto the Harmoa hanger number three and nearly fell if Ragula hadn’t caught her. A small lift had driven down to come meet her, and two marines ran forward to help her. Clelin, rushed forward as well, but the Queen held up her hand and stopped him.
“My Queen, you need medical attention,” he clamored.
She sat down next to him on the lift and brushed her hair aside.
“I need to go to the main Hausen drive core now,” she ordered. Turning to the Marine seated behind her, she asked, “Do you have your comm earpiece?”
He nodded, and the Queen asked for it. She slipped it into her ear.
“Comm central, this is Magyo. Please confirm,” she said.
A surprised comm officer responded on the other end. He was expecting the marine, not the Queen.
“I need a direct comm link to the Captain, the Admiral, and the ship computer. Please advise when all links are established.”
“Yes my Queen,” the comm officer responded.
The lift took off and sped down one of the main throughways inside the Harmoa. It was a highway within a space ship. Deespa sat back a bit, taking the moment to feel the cool air rush past her face. A grand dream of a free empire was slipping away, and there was nothing she could do. Instead, she had awoken an ancient beast, a demon from beyond time. She was angry, but she was also afraid.
“My Queen, link confirmed and locked.”
“Stargazer, you found the subspace link?” she asked.
A voice asked from within the comms, “Subspace?” It was the Admiral.
“I have found it, Queen,” the AI responded.
“Subspace. It is how this being communicates, and travels. Think of it as a layer of space, under space. Time and energy work differently in that layer. It is how our enemy controlled the machines,” Deespa attempted to explain.
“My Queen, we detected two missiles fire from the planet. One was destroyed by unknown means, but the other has left the planet and is on a flight path for the sun. It is traveling at speeds we cannot hope to intercept.” That voice was the Captain of the Harmoa.
“Our world is lost gentlemen. That weapon will destroy our sun and this system,” Deespa said plainly.
She thought she heard someone say, ‘all those people’, but couldn’t place who. Maybe it had been her own voice.
“Have the entire fleet do an emergency thread jump. Send a system wide broadcast that any ship still in the Coran system get away now, from wherever they are,” she continued.
As they sped down on the lift, a klaxon sounded around her.
“I will prepare the Harmoa,” the Captain said, but Deespa interjected. “No, move the Harmoa towards the enemy vessel.”
“My Queen?” the Captain replied. “That vessel is beyond our capabilities. We hit it with four rocks, and it barely dented it.”
“We cannot allow it to escape,” Deespa said, “Th
is being doesn’t have only our home prepared for destruction, but every home mankind resides. It aims to leave this system in ruin and fly to the next. I cannot allow this.”
“As you wish,” the Captain replied, “Moving the Harmoa into intercept vector.”
“How much time do we have?” the Admiral asked.
Deespa asked the AI to answer.
“At the departure speed, the probe will hit the sun in nearly three minutes. At that point, the weapon will trigger, and the sun will go supernova. The first expansion will reach Coran about thirty minutes after that.”
“That’s not much time,” the Captain said quietly.
The lift stopped outside the engineering section of the Hausen reactor core. The Queen and her advisor got off and walked into the complex housing the reactor.
“How long till the being is in orbit?” the Queen asked.
“Seven minutes,” Stargazer informed.
Clelin stood by while the Queen began to engage with the engineers. Along with the AI, she gave instructions on rerouting and configuring the reactor for more precise power flow. Further instruction was given to engineers who were scrambling to work her new readings along the beam’s gravity tube. They were fine tuning the Harmoa’s primary weapon at the expense of all other systems on the gigantic ship.
Nearly one hundred million miles from Coran, the small probe, shielded to withstand the immense heat of the star, reached the chromosphere of Coran’s sun. A tiny reactor inside the warhead sprung to action, generating an immense bubble of gravity within the warhead. A tiny but powerful explosion shot it like a bullet into the sun itself. The tiny weapon sped into the depths of the sun, its own immense gravity tugging against the tiny artificial bubble the probe had created, until it was too much. Ripped apart, the probe vanished into atoms, releasing the glass cylinder into the mass of the sun. Once exposed, the two subgravital masses slammed into each other, creating, for the tiniest fractions of a second, a black hole. The gravitational field that generated into being took a few atoms of the sun’s mass and fused them together, bypassing all the other elements the sun created. What was left behind was an iron core and an immense amount of energy. As the wave of energy spread out, the sun began to fuse onto an iron core, starting a chain reaction that would shut down its fusion, while releasing energy on a scale known to man, as a supernova.
Ghost of an Empire (Sentinel Series Book 3) Page 25
