by Alex Lamb
Rachel hurtled across the room and hugged Will hard. She kissed his head and face.
‘Thanks for the rescue,’ she told him.
Will blushed and shrugged.
‘So, what’s the status?’ said Ira as he pulled himself down to his couch.
‘Will is turning into a starship,’ Hugo replied, clearly only half in jest. ‘We’re about to watch history in the making.’
‘Really?’ said Ira.
‘I’m just finishing,’ said Will. ‘It’ll be ready any second now.’
By the time Will had welded the final piece of the new weapon into place, he’d already charged the capacitors enough to fire it. Outside, the Earthers had started hurling antimatter warhead drones at the nestship while they lurked behind the Fecund remains.
Will aimed the new weapon at the closest ship.
‘There’s a lot of debris in the way,’ he warned the others. ‘Do you think it’ll make a difference?’
‘I have no idea,’ Hugo replied. ‘Only one way to find out.’
Will shrugged and fired. A beam of coherent matter, accelerated to ninety-nine per cent of the speed of light, stabbed out from the nestship, passed through the debris as if it were no denser than smoke and bored a clean hole straight through the Earther starship. As the beam moved, it cut like a wire through soft cheese.
Then the mighty capacitors drained abruptly and the beam died. The crew of the Ariel stared into their monitors in disbelief.
‘Wow,’ said Rachel.
There was a moment of chaos outside the nestship as the Earthers milled in panic. Then, as they watched, the enemy starships turned tail and fled at full warp, leaving dozens of men stranded in shuttles around the Nanshan.
Hugo waved his hands. ‘See, I told you – Will’s not strictly Homo sapiens any more. He’s Homo nestship!’
Ira grunted in amusement. ‘Let’s finish fixing up this crate,’ he said. ‘It’s payback time.’
19: JUSTICE
19.1: IRA
With a kind of feral glee, Ira piloted the recently christened Ariel Two into his home system. The warp hammer from the nestship’s engines was incredibly fierce and his crew were pressed down into their crash couches, faces white and straining. Except Will, of course – he no longer appeared to be bothered by heavy gees. They drove straight into the inner system with the engines at full power. Ira dropped warp half an AU from the sun, just inside the orbit of the star system’s innermost planet.
Will fired up the suntaps immediately and retracted the warp fronds. As soon as they were in, he started running the shield off the ship’s prodigious antimatter reservoirs. It activated with just seconds to spare. Automated Earther defence drones had started chasing them as soon as their effective velocity had dropped to sub-light. They exploded against the liquid hull in bursts of harmless light.
The Earthers now had three and a half minutes to work out what the hell just happened and decide to act. After that, it’d be too late.
Hugo sent Ira a tactical scan. There were a hundred and forty-three enemy gunships in the system, all suntap-equipped and all in orbits beyond Galatea. They were fifteen minutes’ flight away at Earther in-system warp speeds and none of them had yet activated their weapons.
Given the optical lag, that might have changed already, but Ira regarded the survey with satisfaction. It was a reassuring way for the confrontation to start. Even so, there were a couple of extremely good reasons for the Ariel Two crew to stay cautious. Firstly, the nestship was largely untested and still under repair, despite Will and Rachel working on it full time during the journey. Hugo had warned them all several times about the shield. According to his calculations, it was impermeable up to its threshold activation. After that, it might as well be made of cobwebs. Unfortunately, they didn’t know exactly how high that threshold was. Ira hoped they never had cause to find out.
The second good reason was that General Ulanu’s forces were perfectly placed to scour Galatea’s surface. In the history of warfare, no one had ever resorted to a direct starship attack on a planet – but then again, no one had turned up in an alien battle cruiser before, either. The Earthers could be expected to get a little jumpy.
‘We’re receiving a broadcast on the open channel,’ said Hugo.
Ira was impressed. ‘That was quick. Let’s see it.’
Admiral Tang’s moody face appeared on the monitors. ‘Galatean rebels, your planet has yielded to Kingdom control and your ship is surrounded. Prepare to stand down all systems and relinquish your command codes.’
Ira turned to his crew and grinned. ‘Shucks. That takes all the fun out of it. I was looking forward to playing the alien invader for a while.’ He looked back at Will. ‘You want to talk to him?’
Will shook his head. ‘You’re the captain.’
Ira nodded. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’ He flicked on his console camera. ‘Good afternoon, Admiral Tang. Well guessed. This is Captain Ira Baron-Lecke, formerly of the Galatean Starship Ariel. If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak directly to your superior officer to discuss terms for your surrender.’
It took a couple of minutes for the reply to arrive, and when it did, it wasn’t a happy one. Tang had turned an unhealthy beet colour.
‘I am the superior officer present,’ snapped Tang. ‘You will discuss terms for your surrender with me.’
‘What happened to Ulanu?’ Ira sent.
‘General Ulanu is now under my command! I am not interested in chatting, Captain Baron. You have two minutes to relinquish your codes or I will commence firing.’
Ira leaned close to the camera and purred, ‘Try if you like. And then get the hell away from my home world, or I’m going to make you wish you’d never been born.’
By the time Tang’s next riposte arrived, his eyes were bugging out of his face.
‘Do I need to remind you, Captain, that you only have one ship, no matter how outlandish it is, and that I have a hundred and fifty?’
‘It’s not an issue that concerns me greatly,’ said Ira.
‘Then prepare to be destroyed!’
The connection went dead.
Ira leaned back in his couch and glanced over at Will. ‘Ready to do your thing?’
Will nodded.
Ira chuckled and rubbed his hands.
19.2: GUSTAV
Gustav was on the bridge of the Sukarno along with Tang and a sullen Rodriguez, and watched Tang’s dialogue with mounting horror. He’d expected the Ariel crew to come home and fight, but not like this. He’d imagined a stolen Earther ship equipped with a few choice pieces of alien technology plucked from wherever the artefact originated. He had not expected a fully functioning vessel hundreds of kilometres long built by an advanced civilisation.
As soon as Tang smacked the intercom’s off button, Gustav turned to him.
‘As the officer you put in charge of managing this confrontation, I must recommend that we proceed with extreme caution,’ he said. ‘We have absolutely no idea what that ship is capable of.’
Tang glared at him. ‘What are you suggesting, Ulanu? That we flee because those freaks turn up in something we’ve not seen before?’
‘Not necessarily, but I think a feint of some sort might be in order. The planet is already vulnerable. We could let them think they’ve won it for a bit. Meanwhile, we’d—’
Tang shouted over him. ‘I did not come this far just so I could give up!’
Gustav realised then that the Galatean had done an excellent job of bruising Tang’s fragile ego. Instead of learning his lesson from their last battle, he was desperate to keep what little he’d achieved.
‘We’ve had nothing but tricks and lies from the Gallies since this war began, and I for one do not intend to be tricked again!’ Tang shouted.
‘I’m not suggesting a retreat,’ said Gustav tersely. ‘Just the calculated exposure of a limited force in order to draw out information about the enemy’s capabilities. The tactical sacrifice of a few—’
‘No!’ Tang’s eyes bulged at the thought of losing more ships. ‘We will stand our ground and fight!’
Gustav fell silent. Clearly, saying any more would only make matters worse. Tang would only dig in his heels. Arrogant and foolhardy he might be, but Tang was not a bad commander. Better to let the man learn in his own way and hope they didn’t lose too many people in the process.
Unfortunately, Rodriguez chose that moment to speak up.
‘Listen to the general, Tang,’ he said suddenly.
There was a tone in his voice Gustav had never heard before. It took him a moment to recognise it. It was doubt.
‘I haven’t been in the front line for years and even I know what he’s saying makes sense,’ the disciple added. ‘I mean, look at the size of it.’
Gustav winced. He glanced at Rodriguez and was surprised to find an expression of strained puzzlement on the man’s face. This, too, was quite a change. Since he’d joined the Sukarno, Rodriguez had offered little but threats and bitter remarks. This, however, was the first time he’d actually contradicted Tang to his face. Ironically, it was also the first time he’d sided with Gustav. Gustav wished he hadn’t.
‘Silence!’ yelled Tang, jabbing a finger at Rodriguez’s face. ‘Your counsel was not sought, priest!’
Rodriguez narrowed his eyes. His moment of thoughtfulness was over. ‘You’re a fool if you think you can order me around,’ he sneered. ‘I represent the Prophet.’
Tang looked ready to pop. Gustav tried to save the situation the only way he could think of.
‘Admiral, if this goes wrong, it could be a costly and embarrassing engagement. I know you don’t want that. You asked me to take responsibility for the Galateans—’
‘And now I’m taking it back!’ Tang snapped. ‘Commander Lee, inform all ships. Prepare for immediate convergence and attack with new suntap coverage pattern Tang Alpha One.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Lee.
‘Watch and learn,’ Tang told Gustav coldly. ‘Watch and learn.’
19.3: WILL
‘How are the bosers looking?’ Will asked Hugo.
The ship had plenty of g-rays he could fire, but he thought he’d start by making an impression.
‘Good, I think,’ said Hugo. ‘I’ve ironed out most of the wrinkles.’
Hugo had been tinkering with the bosers during the flight, trying to moderate the extraordinary drain they put on the ship’s power supply.
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Will, ‘because here they come.’
The Earther gunships advanced upon them under the thrust of their fusion torches. They approached in a series of carefully staggered waves with disrupters fully deployed and were careful not to get within targeting range until their suntaps had activated. Will waited patiently for them to fire the first shot.
When the attack came it was well coordinated, and from the whole first wave at once. Nine beams of intolerable power drove into the Ariel Two’s shield. They were quietly dissipated.
‘That was your turn,’ said Will. ‘Now it’s mine.’
He chose a ship from the front wave and fired a very brief burst of boser at it. The gunship split apart like an overripe fruit. Two seconds later, its antimatter containment failed and it exploded in a blast of blinding energy. The rest of the attack wave struggled to retain some kind of formation.
Will regarded his handiwork in disbelief. It was alarmingly easy, but then again, there were an awful lot of ships. He waited and watched to see if the Earthers had got the message, but seconds later, another – somewhat less coordinated – volley of g-ray fire hit the shield. Will selected a second ship and drilled a tidy hole straight through the heart of it. But the Earthers kept coming.
Will looked back at Ira. ‘They don’t appear to be getting the message. What shall I do?’
Ira shrugged. ‘It’s war, kid. Keep hitting them till they stop hitting you. They’ll make it pretty clear when they’ve had enough.’
Will nodded and drove the nestship forward into the Earther lines, firing as he went. It was like fighting a crowd of tofu enemies with a carving knife. Each hit he scored took out a ship. However, he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up indefinitely. Each volley used up a prodigious amount of iron from his reservoirs. He husbanded his resources carefully, keeping his blasts short.
As Will ground forward through their lines, warning icons started appearing in his sensorium. He was getting radiation leakage in the mesohull.
‘Watch out!’ said Hugo. ‘It’s happening. The shield is getting hot.’
Will realised that the Earthers had started concentrating their fire in earnest. The volleys hitting the Ariel Two were from seventy or eighty suntaps simultaneously, and they were tracking him with continuous beams. That wasn’t good.
He piled power onto the nestship’s matter-reaction jets to pull them out of the line of fire, but it was slow going. The Ariel Two might be blindingly fast under warp but it wasn’t designed for conventional manoeuvres. As the shield grew steadily hotter, the smart-cell performance in the outer mesohull began to degrade.
Will cursed. The time for symbolic gestures was over. The moment had come to bring his own g-ray banks to bear. He farmed out targeting SAPs to the laser assemblies dotted across the hull and ordered them to fire. Forty-eight simultaneous lines of force lanced out from the nestship’s hull and drove home against the Earther’s buffers.
‘Let’s see how they like some of that,’ he muttered.
19.4: GUSTAV
Gustav watched the monitor wall in wordless horror as four dozen of Tang’s precious ships popped like soap bubbles. Four dozen ships from a single volley. Seen from the Sukarno’s safe distance, they appeared to bloom slowly into bright-white flowers of flame. In contrast, the alien vessel looked to have sustained exactly zero damage.
‘Surrender,’ Gustav told the admiral simply.
Tang just stared, open-mouthed.
‘Surrender, damn you!’ Gustav shouted. ‘Can’t you see? It’s over, you fool!’
Gustav’s outburst appeared to bring the stunned admiral to his senses. Tang blinked a few times and then turned to Commander Lee.
‘Take us back to synchronous Galatean orbit. Full engines,’ he said calmly.
The Sukarno broke formation and drove across the inner system at low warp. They left behind the battle where the alien starship hung surrounded by gunships, like a grizzly bear set upon by sparrows.
Gustav watched Tang with some concern. Why were they moving so far away from the fight? At this distance, optical lag would make it impossible to issue orders. What could the man be thinking?
As soon as they arrived, Tang gave Lee new instructions.
‘Charge the suntap. Point the primary g-ray at the planet’s surface. Target the city of Perseverance.’
Lee gawped at him. A gamma-ray laser fired straight at the city would vaporise it instantly.
‘You heard me,’ Tang said harshly.
Lee nodded and set to work at his console.
‘Tang, don’t be a fool!’ Gustav urged. Tang didn’t reply.
Lee cleared his throat. ‘Suntap charging, sir,’ he said. It was almost a whisper. ‘Power delivery in eight minutes twenty seconds.’
‘Fire when ready,’ said Tang.
Gustav glanced at the monitor displaying the schematics of the battle. The Galateans didn’t appear to have noticed the Sukarno’s withdrawal. They had their hands too full, even if they still didn’t appear to be taking any damage.
‘Tang!’ he pleaded. ‘Are you listening to me? Turn off the damned gun!’ When that got no response, he tried another tack. ‘Commander Lee, deactivate the suntap.’
‘Ignore the general,’ Tang said quickly. ‘He is relieved of duty.’
Gustav glanced at Rodriguez in the hope of more support, but Rodriguez appeared to have changed again. He sat rapt, staring at the admiral as if in awe.
‘Don’t you realise what you’re doing?’ Gustav shouted
. ‘You’re risking the Earth! What do you suppose the Galateans will do when they’ve finished demolishing your fleet?’
‘They will submit,’ said Tang. ‘They have one world. We have twelve. They cannot win and I am tired of wasting time.’
The man had lost his mind if he thought the Galateans would just give up. He could be bringing about the deaths of billions. The truth was that Tang simply couldn’t tolerate losing. He’d rather destroy everything they’d worked for.
Gustav looked back and forth between Tang and the monitor wall as the counter ticked down. He realised with terrible clarity that the moment had come to make an executive decision. He pulled the automatic out of his pocket, the same gun he’d carried with him every day since the trouble with the Ariel started. He pointed it at Tang’s head.
‘Turn off the suntap,’ he said again.
‘Lieutenant Gul, please arrest the general,’ Tang said with a sigh. He didn’t even look away from the monitor wall.
The lieutenant floated up from his couch by the door, reluctance plain on his face. He reached for his own weapon.
Gustav couldn’t wait any longer. He shot Tang in the head. Tang flopped forwards as his brain sprayed across the cabin.
There was a moment of stunned silence on the bridge.
‘I am now the senior officer aboard this ship,’ Gustav announced. ‘You will follow my orders. Commander Lee, deactivate the suntap immediately. Order the withdrawal of all ships.’
Lee stared at Gustav in blank panic and glanced for a moment at Rodriguez. Gustav swung around and trained the weapon on the disciple’s face.
‘Any man who obeys the general will answer to the Prophet,’ said Rodriguez in a loud, almost jubilant voice. His arms remained folded across his chest. He regarded Gustav levelly, his eyes bright with zeal. ‘So we see your true colours at last, General.’
‘Yes!’ Gustav shouted back. ‘I will not stand by and watch genocide!’ He glanced quickly at Gul, who thankfully hadn’t moved a muscle. ‘Listen to me,’ Gustav told the assembled officers. ‘Rodriguez has no formal power here. You do not need to listen to him. Ask yourselves if you wish to be a party to this act. Use the g-ray deterrent against Galatea and you legitimise their taking that ship to Earth.’
