Storming Heaven

by Nuttall, Christopher

  Andrew hesitated, seeing that no one else intended to ask the obvious question, and raised his voice. “What happens if we fail to break open the sphere?”

  “Then we’ll have to think of something else,” Brent said. There was a long pause. “Any other questions?”

  No one spoke. “Return to your ships and prepare for the jump,” Brent said, finally. “Good luck to us all.”

  Andrew smiled slightly as his mind was returned to the Lightning. He couldn’t fault Brent for refusing to remain behind when the entire Defence Force – apart from a handful of starships that couldn’t be spared – was sent into battle, even though it had the makings of a universe-class disaster. The fleet needed time to drill together and that had been refused, even though it was an obvious problem. There was just no time, he knew. If they failed to stop the Killers, they might as well kiss the Milky Way goodbye and join the Exodus.

  “Good news, sir?” Gary asked. “Are we going in?”

  Andrew looked down at the display showing the status of the other seventy-one ships in the attack wing. “Yes,” he said, slowly. He didn’t know half of his Captains as well as he should, not after the attack wing had been reconstituted three times since the war had suddenly exploded. “We’re going in.”

  On the main display, the timer suddenly started to count down to zero.

  ***

  “You’re taking every starship in the fleet,” Patti said, as Brent’s image appeared in her office. Tabitha Cunningham was already there, her image sipping a simulated martini. It was a picture of calm contemplation that Patti would have given anything to be able to duplicate herself. Had Tabitha ever made such decisions as part of her term as President? “The System Governments are screaming at me.”

  “I know,” Brent said, grimly. ‘Screaming’ was an understatement. The Governments were threatening her with everything from legal lynching to secession from the Community and the Defence Force. “There’s no helping it, I’m afraid.”

  He seemed remarkably unconcerned for someone who would be going up against the most powerful race in existence, wrapped only in a destroyer that would be blown apart with a single hit. Patti opened her mouth to fire a broadside and then decided against it. Brent had made up his mind and didn’t need the President trying to talk him out of it.

  “I’ll try and keep them under control,” she said, finally. “But a hundred thousand starships…?”

  “If we lose, if we fail in our attempt to hack into their system, we lose completely,” Brent said. “There’s no point in holding back any reserves, not now. If we can break through their defences and take out the station, we can rebuild the entire Defence Force if necessary. If not, we might as well quit the galaxy before the Killers shatter every rocky planet in existence and flee to M33.”

  “Flee anywhere that doesn’t have the Killers,” Tabitha said, slowly. The former President – the first Community President – frowned as she finished her glass and placed it down on the ground. It vanished a moment later. “Do you really want to abandon the Milky Way Galaxy after so long?”

  “I think that if the Killers start destroying every rocky planet in the galaxy, the shockwaves will wipe out most of the Community anyway,” Brent said. “There’s little choice, as you both know; either we win, or we lose. We storm Heaven and unseat the gods, or we are condemned to death or permanent exile.”

  “Perhaps not,” Patti said, surprised at the hope in her voice. “We could set up again in the Clouds, build up our tech base, create new black holes…and eventually beat their technology. Perhaps our people will return to the Milky Way Galaxy with blood in their eyes and revenge in their souls.”

  “Perhaps,” Brent agreed. “By then, we may know how to toast the entire galaxy without needing to get our hands dirty. We may even know how to wipe the Killers out…”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, really,” he added. “Either we win, or we lose.”

  Patti nodded. “And is the Shiva Team ready and waiting?”

  Brent looked at the chronometer on his wrist. “They’re ready,” he said, shortly. “The MassMind worked out the programming algorithms for them and so…if we break down the Killer station, they can break in and end the war, one way or the other.”

  “Good,” Patti said. She wandered over to the food producer and ordered a drink for herself. “And good luck to you and your men.”

  “Thanks,” Brent said, firmly. He smiled at her suddenly. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course,” Patti said, carefully. “I may not answer, of course. How may I be of service?”

  Brent looked her in the eye, “Who told you about the supernova bombs?”

  Patti hesitated, threw a look at Tabitha, and then decided to answer honestly. “The MassMind,” she said, finally. “It decided that I should know about them so that the bombs could be deployed against the Killers.”

  “Interesting,” Brent said. His face showed no sign of the shock she was sure he was feeling. The MassMind was not supposed to get involved in politics, although Patti was sure – just like human politicians – that it would be able to rationalise away any doubts or scruples it might have had. “I always assumed that it was some bastard from the Technical Faction, upset that his wonderful invention wasn't being used.”

  Patti smiled, remembering an old video entertainment featuring a mad scientist. “You’re sure? You don’t want to put it through rigorous safety tests, demand that I tone down its strength and eventually deploy it in a year or two; long after the original reason for its creation has passed? Wow…Well. If you insist captain then it seems I have no choice but to unleash this glorious…err…necessary weapon of mass destruction.”

  “Quite,” Brent agreed. His face darkened. “Tabitha, why did the MassMind share that particular titbit with anyone?”

  “I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “I used to be its representative to the War Council, but it hasn’t been telling me so much as it became more involved directly with the war itself, without working through me. I don’t know what it was thinking.”

  “But it has worked out for the best,” Patti pointed out, oddly disappointed by their reactions. They could at least have been angry, even if anger wouldn’t have gotten them anywhere. “The Killers have been hurt badly for the first time in centuries. We’re on the verge of understanding their science. We have gravity control now ourselves…and it’s only a matter of time before we crack the remainder of their technology. Didn’t it all work out for the best?”

  “We’ll see,” Brent said, finally. He stood up and threw a snappy salute. “I’ll be back soon, promise.”

  His image flickered and vanished. “I’d best be going too,” Tabitha said, without bothering with any niceties. “We’ll pick up the question later.”

  “Sure,” Patti said. She had the odd feeling that the MassMind had manipulated her, without bothering to explain why. The ‘how’ was obvious. It was a collective of billions of human minds and understanding her mind would have been easy. “If there is a later.”

  ***

  It seemed impossible, but the mite was intelligent!

  The newborn studied the alien creature with genuine fascination. It had taken it only a few moments to construct a series of intelligence tests and it had been astonished by how quickly the mite had solved them. The tests didn’t require rote learning or inherited memory and skills, but genuine thinking…and the mite had solved them all. The newborn Killer had rapidly run out of intelligence tests – or, rather, tests that the mite could understand – and was devoting its considerable intellect to solving a more important question. Was it actually possible to communicate with the mite?

  It studied the mite with every sensor it could construct and deploy and concluded that the low-power radio transmissions were intended to serve as a form of communication. It hadn’t realised at first, but it had been blinded by its own preconceptions. A Killer would have used such transmissions to communicate with its internal cells,
not an external person, yet the mite should have no need of such organs. It was an ungainly solid creature and its body didn’t seem to require radio to keep itself together. The newborn had wondered if the mite used the massive internal augmentation to keep itself intact in a gravity field, but that didn’t seem to make any sense. A creature born on a rocky world would be used to a gravity field as a matter of course. It constructed a radio transmitter and attempted to open communications.

  The task was surprisingly easy. Unknown to the Killer, the Spacers had spent years – assuming that they would be the ones to encounter the Ghosts or any other Hidden Race – preparing for contact with aliens and Rupert had brought the complete package with him when the Killer had kidnapped him. The newborn studied the transmissions it received, calculated their meaning, and tested it. The process was long and slow, but it was simple enough to understand what the mite was trying to tell the newborn.

  It was happily engrossed in sharing concepts and trying to build a common language when the alert echoed through the communications network.

  The mites were attacking one of the core worlds!

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Lightning shuddered as it dropped out of Anderson Drive.

  “We have arrived, sir,” David announced, unnecessarily. “One Big Dumb Object dead ahead.”

  “Show me,” Andrew snapped. They had bare seconds before the Killers reacted to their presence. “Put it on the main display.”

  The sight shocked him silent. The sphere was immense, huge beyond imagination; so large it seemed to effortlessly dwarf everything else in the system. His imagination suggested towers and cities on the surface, but the towers would be the size of Earth and the cities would be larger than Jupiter. The tiny icons representing Killer starships seemed microscopic compared to the sphere; the merest shape on the surface of the sphere dwarfed them. It seemed to hold the entire fleet spellbound, daring them to try their worst.

  Try me, it seemed to shout to the heavens. You insignificant bugs. Do you think that you can destroy my immensity? Do you think that your puny weapons can inflict even a tiny amount of harm on me?

  “Scan the sphere for power emissions that might suggest the location of any defence weapons,” Andrew said. His voice felt hushed in his own ears. The sphere seemed to overwhelm any plans they might have developed, as if the plans no longer mattered, compared to the sheer glory of the sphere. The Killers might have built it, yet even a human could admire the sheer…scope of their achievement, the sheer immensity of what they’d produced. They’d wrapped a shell around a sun, a shell far further from the parent star than Earth had been from Sol, and made it look like nothing. Any defensive weapons on the surface would be so tiny as to be almost unnoticeable. “I want you to coordinate with the other starships in the fleet; try and build up a picture of the exterior of the sphere.”

  The scale was all wrong, he realised, as the human fleet massed. They’d jumped in from various points, aiming to surround the sphere, yet it was futile. If they hadn’t had quantum entanglement communications, it would have taken hours to send signals between the different attack wings, using primitive radiation. The sphere didn’t seem to be emitting much of anything, apart from the low-level RF transmissions that seemed to be a stable of anything involving the Killers. It just sat in the darkness, against the blazing light of the Galactic Core, mocking the humans with its sheer intensity. It was just…too large for a human mind to grasp.

  “The Killer starships are powering up their weapons, sir,” Gary said. Andrew, who had been staring at what looked like an access point that would have been the size of several Jupiter-sized planets put together, was almost grateful for the interruption. The Dyson Sphere cast a spell right across the proceedings. “I think they’re preparing to engage us.”

  “No shit,” David muttered. “I’m getting wormhole emissions from several different coordinates. They’re also bringing in reinforcements.”

  Andrew muttered a curse under his breath as seventeen new wormholes materialised, disgorging Killer starship after Killer starship. They’d misjudged the Killers again, he realised, as the wormholes remained open; the Killers kept most of their starships inside the Dyson Spheres and used wormholes to allow them to jump in and out of the interior as necessary. They didn’t need an access port or an airlock, merely a wormhole generator and the power to run it. They had both of them inside the sphere.

  “Contact the attack wing,” Andrew ordered, curtly. It was simple enough to designate targets for a swarm attack…and this time, no one had to commit suicide to take out a Killer starship. “Tell them to lock their weapons on target and prepare to follow us in.”

  He looked back up at the sphere. It seemed absurd that anything as puny as their weapons would make an impact on the vast construction, but the Killer starships had seemed to have the same problem…and they’d learned how to destroy them. The sphere only needed to be cracked so that they could break in and send the star supernova – he would have liked to see the Killers survive that, if they could. Brent had been right at the briefing. It didn’t really matter what happened when the star went supernova. The Killers would lose, at the very least, their source of power.

  “The attack wing is responding,” Gary replied, calmly. “They’re standing by. The Admiral has told us all good luck and good hunting.”

  “Understood,” Andrew said. He gripped the handles of his command chair, as if it would provide some safety if something went badly wrong, and smiled. “Helm, take us in towards the target ship.”

  The Killer starship seemed to zoom closer at terrifying speeds as the starships closed in on it. Andrew linked his mind into the AI and used it to designate targets; not just for the Lightning, but for the other starships in the attack wing. The Admiral had designated five more attack wings to stand by and follow his wing into action; the Killer starship would be overwhelmed and rendered harmless before it could tear his wing apart, let alone the fleet. He found himself smiling as the Killer starship seemed to flinch. Now, whatever the outcome of the war, the Killers would lose their complacency now and forever.

  “Entering firing range now,” Gary reported. “The Killer starship is opening fire.”

  Bright streaks of white light shot past them, striking and destroying two of the attack wing. “Return fire,” Andrew snapped, as new explosions marked the death of his comrades. Ironically, not knowing them provided him a shield against his guilt; he’d been the one leading them into battle, making him the one who’d gotten them killed. “And continue firing until we are out of range.”

  A thousand implosion bolts lanced out of the attacking starships and plastered the Killer’s hull, which seemed to shatter as the starships swarmed around their target, firing blast after blast into the Killer ship. The white streaks of light faded and died as chunk after chunk of armour was blasted off, leaving the Killer inside completely exposed – and helpless. Andrew laughed aloud as Gary switched to energy torpedoes and particle beams, digging deep gorges into the heart of the Killer ship. Strange energies flickered over the enemy ship’s remaining hull as it struggled to survive, diverting power to its internal force field in a desperate attempt to retain its structural integrity.

  “I’m picking up gravity twists,” Gary barked, suddenly. “They’re trying to crush us!”

  “Evasive action,” Andrew snapped, sharply. “Don’t let them get a lock on us!”

  The starship seemed to shudder under the strain, and then they were free, rocketing away from their victim at several times the speed of light. Andrew looked back at the Killer starship and almost felt sorry for it – almost. It was a lion being torn apart by hyenas, he realised; great bursts of plasma were flaring off the hull, sending streaks of light dancing through space. The Killer starship was dead, yet it didn’t seem to know it. There was little point in prolonging the agony.

  “Bring in one of the ramming ships,” he ordered. The Killer starship couldn’t destroy the rammer, even if it had time to
react…even if it saw the new threat in time. Had their bombardment blinded it? In their place, Andrew would have opened a wormhole and tried to escape, yet it was remaining stubbornly in the real universe. Had they knocked out the wormhole generator? “I want it destroyed before it can escape.”

  A flicker of light marked the arrival of the first ramming ship, dropping out of Anderson Drive and racing down towards its target. Its controllers, hundreds of light years away, steered it towards the rear of the craft, attempting to destabilise the black hole in the first few seconds of disaster. The other starships saw the threat, turned and rocketed away, leaving the Killer starship alone for a few microseconds. It had no time to even notice. The rammer slammed home and the starship vanished in a blaze of white light.

  “One Killer starship gone, sir,” Gary reported, his voice law and controlled. “I have five more possible targets, all insufficiently engaged.”