Starfist: Kingdom's Fury

by David Sherman

  The Great Master looked dispassionately at the corpse, then spoke one word to the Over Master in command of defense, the closing of a crypt door: “Die.”

  The Over Master in command of defense reversed his sword, held it by the blade, with the point against his abdomen just below his ribs, and fell forward onto it. An involuntary gasp escaped his mouth as the blade went deep, severing major blood vessels and carving vital organs. He took long minutes to die.

  The Over Masters and more senior of the Senior Masters who knelt before the Great Master remained silent and expressionless during the proceedings. None dared remind the Great Master that it was he who had authorized such profligate use of the greater rail guns.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  Three light-years from Kingdom, the starship SS Fundy’s Tide, a commercial freighter, popped out of Beamspace. Navigation went to work immediately to find out exactly where they were. As soon as Navigation was oriented, the location was passed to Helm, who then aimed the starship toward a nearby planetary system. The inertial drive kicked in and the Fundy’s Tide began the Space-3 portion of its transit to the uninhabited world known formally as Society 362. A dozen years or so earlier, the Bureau of Human Habitability Exploration and Investigation had abandoned Society 362 as unsuitable for human colonization. The scientists and technicians who declared it uninhabitable had dubbed it “Quagmire.” BHHEI had left an array of video, audio, seismic, and atmospheric recorders behind.

  Ten years after the abandonment of Society 362, the Explored Worlds subcommittee of the Congress of the Confederation of Human Worlds, as part of an investigation of possible budget irregularities of BHHEI, decreed that a survey be made of all planets the Bureau had investigated and determined were unsuitable for human colonization. BHHEI had few ships of its own; it mostly relied on contract ships, commercial vessels it could charter or book space on. As all of BHHEI’s ships were engaged in the exploration of other worlds, it put to bid contracts for shipping companies to make stops at the eight hundred or so worlds it had explored and abandoned. In most instances, starships could simply drop out of Beamspace long enough to go into orbit around the world and signal the recorders—such as those the BHHEI had left on Society 362—to upload the data they’d collected.

  In the normal manner of governments, the contracts went to the lowest bidders, which meant in most cases the contracts weren’t very lucrative, which in turn meant they were low priority. So, quite naturally, the survey took longer than anticipated. Even though starships regularly ported at the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles, none of the shipping companies that made those runs had a BHHEI contract. Thus, it was two years before a ship owned by low-bidder Southern Seas Cargo and Freight, a minor player in interstellar trade, made a voyage that took it in the vicinity of Society 362. The small payment from BHHEI for this side trip was expected to be the biggest chunk of the profit for the voyage.

  Navigation between stars isn’t a precise science. No matter how exactly a Beamspace course is plotted, the reentry point into Space-3 can be off by several light-minutes. Since reentry inside a gravity well would destroy a starship, reentry points were always plotted with a great enough margin of error to guarantee that the ships would reenter Space-3 outside a gravity well. The Fundy’s Tide reentered Space-3 eight days’ travel from Society 362.

  On orbit minus seven, the radar section reported a difficulty with its equipment.

  “What’s the problem?” the captain asked.

  “It’s reporting an object approaching us at point one C,” Radar said.

  The captain couldn’t think of anything that could travel at .1C in Space-3. “Find and fix the problem,” he said.

  “Skipper, according to the diagnostics, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “There must be something wrong, nothing moves at point one C in Space-3.”

  “Ah, it’s heading straight for us, Skipper. Collision course.” Radar’s voice had a rising edge.

  “Where’s it coming from?”

  “It’s coming from the direction of Society 362.”

  The captain considered this for a few seconds. Just because nothing traveled at .1C in Space-3 didn’t mean nothing was on a collision course with the Fundy’s Tide. “Course deviation,” the captain said to Helm. “Move us ten kilometers to the left.”

  “Aye, Skipper.”

  The Fundy’s Tide was out of the path of the object when it went through the space the starship would have been in had the captain not ordered the course deviation. Every instrument that tracked or observed the unidentified object insisted that it was traveling at an unbelievably appreciable percentage of the speed of light. Nobody had any idea what it was or how it might have attained that speed.

  On O–6, or six days prior to orbit, radar reported another .1C object heading toward the starship from the vicinity of Society 362.

  Once more Fundy’s Tide sidestepped.

  “The navy has a starship at Kingdom, doesn’t it?” the captain asked Communications after the second object passed harmlessly by.

  “Sure does, Skipper. There’s some sort of war going on there. Hey, they’ve got Marines and everything!” Communications had wanted to enlist in the Marines but failed the physical and so joined the Merchant Marine as a way to “see the universe.”

  “Good. I want to send a drone to Kingdom. Two messages, both telling about those point-one-C objects. One message goes to the Confederation ambassador. Tell the ambassador that if another object comes toward us at that impossible speed, we’re aborting this mission. Second message to the navy: tell them if they’ve got something in orbit here, they should put up warning signs for starships that might come nearby; those things are dangerous. Add that if the objects aren’t theirs, they should send someone to check out the situation.”

  Shortly after sending the drone, the captain said, “Radar, are you picking up any ships in orbit around Society 362?”

  “Checking, Skipper.”

  It was nearly a half hour, standard, before Radar completed its check and had sufficient resolution on the returned signals. “Skipper, there are several blips. None are transponding identification signals.”

  “What kind of information do the blips give?”

  “One seems to be about the size of a Ragnorak-class vessel. The others appear to be smaller.”

  The captain thought long and hard about that; Ragnorak was the civilian cruise ship version of the Confederation Navy’s Crowe-class amphibious battle cruiser. He asked, “Could they be navy, testing a new weapon?”

  “Yessir, could be.”

  “Communications, try to raise them, tell them they’re endangering a civilian freighter.”

  No object came toward Fundy’s Tide at an impossible speed on O-5, five days before the planned orbit. Neither did a reply come from the ships in orbit around Society 362, so the crew spent the day in idle and unproductive speculation about what the objects were and who was in orbit. The captain ordered Communications to send another drone to the navy at Kingdom asking about the ships in orbit around Society 362.

  On O-4, Radar picked up another object.

  “That’s it!” the captain said. “Abort, we’re getting out of here. Damn navy!”

  Navigation began plotting the next jump while Engineering spun up the Beam drive engines and Helm sidestepped the oncoming object.

  That was when Radar shouted, “More objects! We have to jump now!” Helm tried desperately to sidestep the next object, but it was too close, and the Beam drive engines were still warming up. Long before they reached jump power one of the objects struck Fundy’s Tide and it disintegrated, spilling its atmosphere, cargo, and crew into the cold vacuum of space.

  The hop from Society 362’s system to Kingdom was short, only three light-years, and Beamspace transit took hardly more than twelve hours, standard. As soon as it jumped back into Space-3, the drone began transmitting a Come get me signal. It checked the stars and headed towar
d the one that showed a large disk. En route, it searched for and found its destination planet, and adjusted course for it. After two days it closed on the fast frigate CNSS Admiral J. P. Jones, the Grandar Bay’s sole escort ship, which had been sent to intercept it. The J. P. Jones transmitted the appropriate command sequence, and the drone fired breaking rockets to match velocity with the starship, which scooped it up. The J. P. Jones then returned to Kingdom at flank speed. Four and a half days after being dispatched, far too late to have any chance of helping Fundy’s Tide, the drone gave up its messages to Grandar Bay’s Communications Division.

  The message, addressed to “The Ambassador, Confederation of Human Worlds,” was sent unopened planetside on the next Essay.

  The message addressed to “Confederation Navy in orbit around Kingdom” went to Captain Maugli, the Grandar Bay’s executive officer. The XO was extra busy coordinating the activities of the starship’s departments because of the campaign to kill the rail guns and didn’t have time for routine messages from merchant starships, so the message sat in his in-tray for a couple of days. When the XO finally had time to read it, he had to check Society 362 in the Handbook of Inhabited and Known Planets to see what and where it was. The entry said little more than it had been investigated by BHHEI and abandoned a dozen years earlier. There was no mention of a current survey that would visit the planet. He decided the message was possibly a hoax and put it aside to deal with later. In Maugli’s defense, he was exhausted and only half awake when he read the message.

  Ambassador Jayben Spears, on the other hand, was wide-awake when he read the message addressed to him.

  The ambassador was already waiting in Sturgeon’s office when the brigadier got there from the operations center.

  “Good morning, Jay,” Sturgeon said. He waved at a chair.

  “Good morning yourself, Ted,” Spears replied, and sat down.

  “Ah, thank you,” Sturgeon said to a lance corporal who knocked at his door. “Bring it right in.” The corporal carried in a tray with a pot and two mugs, which he set on a side table. “I’ll pour.” The lance corporal left. “Real coffee,” Sturgeon said to Spears. He poured both mugs full and handed him one. “If you want to fancy it up, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

  “Black is fine,” Spears said, and sipped. His eyes lit up. “Much better than I expect to find on this godforsaken world.”

  “A gift from Commodore Borland. He gave me a whole kilo.”

  “That’s one thing about the navy—in some ways they go first class. You’re looking well, Ted. You’re having success against the Skinks?”

  Sturgeon nodded. “We’ve been knocking out their heavy weapons. I should be able to use my air assets again. And I’ve got something cooking to flush them out of their caves.”

  Spears raised an eyebrow, but Sturgeon didn’t tell him anything more. “Ah, yes. Operational need to know, and I don’t need to know. But you’ll tell me afterward how you did it?”

  “I will. Now, you wanted to see me.”

  “Something I think you should see. It may affect your future plans.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper from an inner pocket and handed it over.

  “Another movement in congress to disband the Marines? They’ve been doing that for centuries.” Sturgeon unfolded the sheet of paper and scanned it. Then he read it again.

  SS FUNDY’S TIDE

  Southern Seas Cargo and Freight

  Katishaw

  “We Treat Your Goods Like Our Cargo”

  TO: AMBASSADOR, CONFEDERATION OF HUMAN WORLDS, THE KINGDOM OF YAHWEH AND HIS SAINTS AND THEIR APOSTLES

  FROM: CAPTAIN, SS FUNDY’S TIDE

  DATE: JANUARY 15, 2456

  RE: SOCIETY 362

  Sir,

  Under contract to the Bureau of Human Habitablity Exploration and Investigation, Fundy’s Tide is approaching Society 362. Twice, once on day seven prior to orbit and again on day six prior to orbit, an unidentifiable object has approached this starship from the vicinity of the above planet at a speed that is an appreciable fraction of C. Each time, this starship had to deviate from its plotted course in order to avoid a possibly catastrophic collision with said unidentified object.

  By this letter I serve formal notice on the Confederation of Human Worlds that should this happen again, I will abort this survey visit to Society 362 until such time as I have been assured such approach is safe.

  Sturgeon looked at Spears. “Sounds like a rail gun.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “What and where is Society 362?”

  “It’s an exploratory world, abandoned as unsuitable for colonization some years ago.” Spears hesitated. “It’s only three lights from here.”

  Sturgeon looked into the distance for a moment, then said, “When I get a chance, I’ll have Commodore Borland send a drone to Earth with messages for Aguinaldo and the Combined Chiefs. Also any messages you want to send.”

  “Thank you, Ted. I’ll prepare my messages.” Spears put his mug down and stood. “I know you’re busy, so I won’t take up any more of your time. But I thought you should see that.”

  “You’re right, Jay. Thanks for showing it to me.” He escorted Spears out of his office, then went back to retrieve his mug. He hadn’t yet drunk any of the coffee, and real Earth coffee was too good to let go to waste.

  Operation Slay Demons got under way. Four divisions of the Army of the Lord went north by west of Haven, got on line in close order, and advanced to the east, through the Skink-infested wetlands. The divisions were screened by a line of remotely controlled vehicles disguised as Gabriels. Archbishop General Lambsblood was confident that if any of those Skink horror weapons the Confederation had identified as “rail guns” opened fire, the Grandar Bay would destroy them before they could do significant harm to his army.

  Brigadier Sturgeon wasn’t as sanguine; he expected the Skinks to use buzz saws. Nobody knew if the string-of-pearls could detect them fast enough to neutralize their effectiveness. If the big guns weren’t deployed, his Air could deal with the buzz saws. He instructed his FIST commanders to arm their Raptors with Jerichos and have all of them on the ready line. The Hoppers and Dragons all stood by to take on Marine infantry. All recon and scout-sniper teams were in the wetlands observing Skink positions that weren’t in the Army of the Lord’s line of advance.

  The Army of the Lord advanced into the wetlands following its screen of dummy Gabriels. The string-of-pearls tracked them and relayed their movements to the operations center of Marine Expeditionary Forces, Kingdom. Sturgeon watched intently as the two lines, separated by two hundred meters, grew raggedy. Either Archbishop General Lambsblood wasn’t paying attention to the data being relayed to his command center, or he didn’t feel it was important for his army to maintain formation. The lines began to fragment as some elements moved faster than the elements to their sides, or fell behind because of obstructions. In some places, fragments of the infantry line closed the gap with the fake Gabriels ahead of them; in a few places the gap between screening vehicles and trailing infantry widened. Elements began drifting, so gaps grew between adjacent elements, and some moved behind others.

  “Sir,” Commander Usner, the operations officer, said. “Should I contact the local C-cubed and advise them to dress their lines?” He was asking if he should advise Lambsblood’s Command, Control, and Communications Center to get their lines back in order.

  Sturgeon shook his head. “I want the Skinks to jump at that bait.” Sturgeon thought that even after working with and being trained by the Marines, the Kingdomite soldiers would fare poorly against the Skinks no matter how well they maintained formation. And he believed the Skinks would attack them earlier if they were in disarray than if they were in good formation. Further, he suspected that Lambsblood would ignore any recommendations from the Marines.

  An element in the right center of the vehicle screen was the first part of the advance to reach known entrances to the underground complex. It passed them unmol
ested. So did the infantry that trailed those vehicles. More elements approached entrances.

  “Three,” Sturgeon said to Usner.

  “Sir?”

  “Contact Kingdom C-cubed. Recommend that they hold up and dress their lines. Tell them why.”

  “Aye aye.” Usner picked up the handset of the open land line to Lambsblood’s command center.

  Sturgeon continued to watch the display from the string-of-pearls. He swore to himself when he saw the foremost elements stop in place and wait for others to come up, instead of pulling back to straighten the line. He silently swore again when the Kingdomite army resumed its advance into the wetlands before everyone caught up.

  “They’re going to be in the middle of it,” Usner murmured.

  “I know,” Sturgeon said. He turned to his link to the two FIST commanders. “When you get the launch command, I want those Raptors in the sky immediately and locked into the string-of-pearls.”

  Brigadier Sparen and Colonel Ramadan answered that their Raptors were ready to launch and their missile guidance systems were already locked in. Minutes later the launch command came.

  Sixteen Raptors, all the Marines had, lifted into the air and headed in flights of two to designated locations just outside the wetlands. Data flowed into their guidance systems as they flew, so that when they arrived on station they were ready to fire—and they did. They turned around to return to base and rearm with another load of Jerichos before their first volleys struck. Ten minutes later they were back on station firing second volleys.

  While the Raptors were on their first sortie, waiting infantymen scrambled aboard Hoppers and Dragons. They waited for the command to move out.

  Symbols showing lines of fire and probable points of origin appeared on the main display in the Marine operations center—points that were probably buzz saws. Some of the Skink buzz saws were too close to friendly units to risk firing Jerichos at them; others weren’t. The latter were the aiming points for the missiles. Holes began to appear in the Kingdomite lines as units were wiped out. Symbols indicating lines of fire and points of origin blinked off as Jerichos struck home. More symbols vanished when the Grandar Bay’s lasers opened fire on the point targets. Marines in the operations center overheard panicky radio transmissions from units of the Army of the Lord—Skinks were pouring out of the ground, popping up from underwater in ever increasing numbers.