by D. J. Holmes
*
UNS Shield, Earth Orbit.
“Get us as close as you can,” Lightfoot ordered his helmsman. “Point blank range!”
“Yes Admiral,” an unfamiliar officer replied.
Fighting back a sigh, Lightfoot forced himself to sit straighter in his command chair. He needed to show his officers he was on top of things. But the simple effort of putting authority into his commands was straining. How many have we dealt with now? he asked himself. The answer escaped him. A glance at the bridge’s chronometer told him he had only been on the warship for forty minutes. It felt like an age had passed. Koroylov had put him in charge of stopping debris from the battle from crashing into Earth’s surface. It was an impossible task. There were literally thousands of chunks of distorted metal in Earth’s orbit being sucked in by her gravity. And we’ve hardly made a dent on them yet, he said to himself as he summoned the strength to seek out his next target.
Though the crew around him were strange, the layout of Shield’s bridge and Captain’s command chair were identical to Blackfish’s. Which is a darn good thing, Lightfoot thought as he typed commands onto the datapad built into his chair and pulled up a secondary holo feed on the opposite arm rest. Blackfish was in high orbit. After receiving Koroylov’s orders, he had left her First Lieutenant and Chief Engineer with orders to save his ship. Though he had no idea if that was even possible. Then he had transferred to Shield. Unconsciously, on the secondary holo display his eyes sought out Blackfish’s distant shape. There’s no time to reminisce, he berated himself. If Blackfish broke apart after all the damage she had sustained, then so be it. He had bigger problems to worry about.
“Engaging now,” Shield’s tactical officer called.
“All point defenses are to prioritize large chunks,” Lightfoot ordered. Seconds later, Shield’s laser and plasma cannons tore into the forward nose section of a Karacknid dreadnought. It was falling at an ever-increasing rate into Earth’s atmosphere. There was no way it would burn up before striking the surface, and it needed to be stopped. “Keep hitting it,” Lightfoot said after several salvos were released. The massive chunk of starship out massed Shield by a factor of three and it was tough, built with alloys no Human yet understood.
“Admiral, we’ve got a problem,” a sensor officer reported in a tone that made Lightfoot forget the Karacknid dreadnought.
“What is it?” he asked as he turned to her.
“Kraken has two targets within her sector that are close to reaching Earth’s atmosphere. Both are big enough to survive re-entry.”
Lightfoot pulled up Kraken’s data. He saw right away that there were no ships close enough to come to help her. “How did this happen?” he protested. Then he saw it. One of the pieces of debris was a section of HMS Vulcan, the British shipyard, and the data suggested there were still survivors on board. Even as he watched, a rescue shuttle took off from the debris, clearly taking some of the stricken shipyard workers.
“Kraken is requesting permission to engage debris gamma seven four,” the sensor officer informed him.
“Gamma seven four,” Lightfoot repeated as he brought up the debris’ trajectory. It was going to touch down in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Not too far away from the Solomon Islands. He then checked the trajectory of the section of Vulcan. When it came up, he closed his eyes. Curse you all, he thought to the Karacknids. Vulcan’s damaged section would tear through Earth’s atmosphere and impact right in the middle of the American state of Minnesota. The explosion would be almost as bad as the eight nuclear missiles that had already ravaged the north American continent. “Curse you all to hell,” he said as he opened his eyes. “Order Kraken to engage gamma seven nine.”
“Pardon Admiral?” the officer requested.
Lightfoot had to bite back a rebuke. He didn’t want to have to give the order again. “I said, order Kraken to engage gamma seven nine. Immediately. They can target seven four with a missile.” The officer stared at him for several seconds. “Just do it,” he barked. “There’s no time to waste!”
Jumping at his tone, the officer spun around to her command console. Lightfoot watched unblinkingly as Kraken’s energy weapons tore into what was left of Vulcan. The sensor readout beside the image told him there were at least two hundred shipyard workers estimated to be alive in the debris. As each plasma bolt hit the shipyard, Lightfoot smashed his fist into his command chair. He was killing his own people. They made me do it, he thought as his mind was filled with images of Karacknid warships exploding.
A series of beeps from his command chair pulled his thoughts back to the mission Koroylov had given him. Many more pieces of debris required the attention of the twenty ships Koroylov had been able to place under his command. As he set about prioritizing their targets, he kept an eye on gamma seven four. Kraken had managed to hit it with one missile. The debris had been blown apart into many smaller fragments. Several were still large enough to survive re-entry. They crashed down into the Pacific Ocean, sending several small tsunamis racing out from their points of impact. Hundreds if not thousands more people would be killed. They must be made to pay, Lightfoot demanded as guilt and shame overwhelmed him. They must.
*
Nottingham, England, 3rd September 2481 AD.
As he walked, James struggled to keep his eyes open. If he had slept at all in the last two days, he hadn’t noticed. By his side, Emilie led him through the maze of tents. She had found him ten minutes ago with news that she had set one up for him. There were still a hundred things for him to do, and tens of thousands of people who needed help, but he could no longer function.
As they came to a crossroads, where two paths that wound through the massive refugee camp he had set up met, Emilie paused and pulled out her datapad. James wasn’t surprised, despite their best efforts, the refugee camp was a maze. Continuing on when Emilie started walking again, he kept his eye out for the different markers people had put up. One section had a large sign saying Harrow, another Croydon and another Barking. They were in the London area of the refugee camp. But no inner-city markings, James noticed. So far less than a few thousand people had been rescued from the inner city. If there were any more survivors, the fires that were still raging were preventing anyone from getting to them.
Though he didn’t want to, he calculated the numbers in his head again. Inner London had been home to about fifteen million people. Manchester another eight and Edinburgh six. It was likely there wouldn’t be more than a couple of hundred thousand survivors from all three inner cities combined. It was the same everywhere. He hadn’t had the time to check on the rest of Earth’s nations, but he knew more than eighty nukes had hit key cities.
“Hey, you,” a voice called from a small gathering of people. When James looked over it seemed they were all gathered around a bench with a number of meals sitting on it. “Yes you,” the voice said as a man pushed his way through the group. Everyone stopped reaching for food to watch. “You’re that Admiral Somerville. You’re in charge around here aren’t you?”
Wearily James brought himself to a halt and turned to the man. “Yes, I am. Have you been given all you need?”
The man looked over his shoulder before answering. “Yeah… I suppose. We have shelter and food. But we have lost everything. Our home has been burnt. And we have family in Westminster. We’ve been looking for them. Where are the survivors from there being looked after?”
Movement out of the corner of his eye caused James to glance around. More people had come out of their tents. There was a small crowd gathering. If he had the energy, he would have laughed, or cried. They were all dirty and disheveled, many were in nothing but rags. Though they were all watching him, there was no light in their eyes. “Well?” the man demanded. James didn’t have the energy to lie. “There are none. At least not yet. We haven’t been able to get any rescue workers through the fires yet. I’m sorry, but it is unlikely anyone has made it out of Westminster alive.”
“But why not?�
� the man demanded.
“It was a nuke you fool,” another shouted. “Of course no one survived.”
The first man rudely gestured to the second, but he didn’t say anything more, instead he lowered his eyes.
“He is right,” James said as he raised his voice. “London has been nuked. It is very hard to see how anyone would have survived within the blast radius. But we are doing our best to get rescue teams in there. We will have more news for you as soon as we can. In the meantime, we will try and meet your needs here. The entire world is in this together. We have to be patient and help each other.”
“But why has this happened?” an older woman asked. “Why us?” Several people voiced their agreement while many nodded.
“What did we do to them?” another shouted.
“We are free,” James replied as loudly as his body would allow. He paused and turned to look at everyone who was watching him. “We are free,” he repeated in a lower tone. “And they cannot stand that. They want us enslaved. They want to rule us. And they won’t stop until they do.”
Silence followed his words. Many of the people looked away when he settled his gaze on them. They are broken, James realized. Fear was written all over their faces. And rightly so. There was nothing stopping the Karacknids from coming back and finishing what they started.
“Well they have failed!” someone shouted into the silence.
James turned around to see a young woman in her late teens. She didn’t look away when his eyes met hers. Instead she raised her chin and her eyes shone with rage. “They killed my parents! But I am still here. They have failed to stop us.”
Despite her evident anger, it looked like the young woman was about to cry. James made to reach out to comfort her. Other voices distracted him. “They will never own us!” someone else shouted. “Not after this. We will never forget, and we will never bow to them!”
More voices shouted similar thoughts. Then cheers went up. Suddenly James found many faces meeting his gaze. The look on almost all of them was the same as the young girl’s. They are not beaten yet, James thought as his heart swelled. For the first time in days a sliver of hope ran through him. “No!” he found himself shouting in agreement despite his fatigue. “We are not beaten yet.” He wanted to add more, but someone cut him off.
“Promise us you will avenge our families,” the old woman said. “I know who you are Duke Somerville. Promise us you will avenge our families.”
James walked over and took the woman’s hands in his. He looked her in the eyes and nodded slowly. “I promise,” he answered. “I promise,” he repeated more loudly. All around him cheers went up. When James looked, even Emilie had a fist in the air as she cheered him. We are not beaten yet, he repeated to himself. He had no idea how he was going to get through the next few weeks and months, but, for the first time in two days, he believed that they would.
Chapter 2
To stand before our species as the first leader of the Human Empire must have been a daunting task. Only someone who had fought and bled in the 2nd Battle of Earth and exhausted themselves in the rescue efforts that followed could have been accepted into such a position.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD.
England, 17th September 2481 AD.
The next two weeks went by in a flash for James. He saw more dead bodies, fed more refugees and comforted more grieving families than he had during his entire time in the Royal Space Navy. Though he knew he would hate every second of it, he had taken trips to the ruins of Manchester and Edinburgh. The people needed to see him facing up to what had happened. Whilst the death toll was still an estimate, it had risen to twenty-one million British lives lost. After seeing the devastated cities, James had realized that Britain would never be the same again. Yes, there was talk of rebuilding. Some industrious individuals were already scanning through old holo recordings of the three cities to make perfect holo models of what had been lost. But the cities were not the buildings, James knew, they had been the people. And they were gone.
“It’s time,” Emilie said as she pulled back the flap into his tent and strode in.
Taking a deep breath, James dismissed his thoughts. He had no idea what Britain would now become, but whatever is going to happen, we need to decide it together. “Let’s go,” he said. Glancing back, a small wave of guilt washed over him. He was glad to be getting out of the refugee camp, even if it was just for a few hours. Though Emilie insisted it wasn’t true, he was convinced that he had failed thousands, if not tens of thousands of his own people. He was not an administrator, and though someone had been needed to bring order out of the chaos, he knew he had failed far too many times over the last two weeks. Failures that have cost lives. James was used to seeing people die as a result of his commands, but this was different. He knew someone else could have done a better job. If only I could find that someone. With so many dead, he didn’t know who to bring in to replace him. At least I will get a small break from the pressure, he thought as his eyes passed over a pile of papers and other stuff that was waiting his attention.
As he finished looking around, Emilie grabbed a datapad she had left on a fold out table and stepped up beside him. James nodded to her and led them out of the tent. A hundred meters away a shuttle was waiting to take them back to space. Standing off to one side was a face that had become very familiar to James.
Stephanie Hargreaves, the first term MP for Lincoln, was one of the few MP’s who had not been killed by the missile that had targeted Westminster. She had survived because she had not been in London, but back in her own constituency. Four other MP’s had also shown up over the last two weeks. James was very thankful she had been the first. He had immediately drafted her in as his second in command of the rescue operations. Whilst not experienced enough to take on the demands of organizing everything, she had proved herself more than up for the task of assisting him. Unlike some of the others who were already vying for position. All three thought they and not he should be in charge. If James had thought any one of them could have been trusted to put the nation’s needs above their own, he would have gladly handed over the reins. Sadly, he knew each of them and didn’t trust any of the three.
“You’re meeting with Koroylov?” Stephanie asked as James and Emilie approached.
James nodded. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
Stephanie shook her head. “No, you are the one they want. And you are the one our people need representing us. I’ll keep things running here. Just make sure you fight for our share of the supplies coming in from Mars. Many of our farmers are just starting to bring in their harvests, but it will take time to get everything in, processed and redistributed.”
“Plus supplies of fuel and equipment are seriously disrupted, I know,” James replied. “And if I forget, I’ve got Emilie here to keep me right.”
“Yes, you do. Make sure you make use of her,” Stephanie replied.
James nodded. Once again he had been impressed by his niece. She had stepped into her role as his assistant with ease, despite everything that was going on around them. She had a great head for numbers. Something he had always fallen down on. Given the vast quantities of refugees, supplies and all sorts of other things he had been dealing with over the last two weeks, her help had been invaluable.
“Don’t stay away too long,” Stephanie added as her tone grew more serious. “I don’t know how long I can hold Bernard off.”
James rolled his eyes. Bernard was the most senior surviving MP. He was from Stephanie’s party as well, and he had been trying to use his seniority to bully her. James had no problem telling Bernard where he could go. He had been one of the strongest supporters of the now deceased Prime Minister Matthews. Matthews, along with several other world leaders, had constantly pushed to reduce the military’s funding. James had no problem letting Bernard feel the harsh side of his tongue. “Just tell him he can talk to me when I get back,” James advised. “Don’t even waste your time with him. You hav
e too much to do.”
