Barbarians at the Gates

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “Back when we had the Imperialist Faction, all three were balanced, but now...” He shook his head. “My family was there when the Constitution was first written,” he said slowly. “And now I may live long enough to see the Federation tear itself apart.”

  Marius blinked. “Surely it’s not that serious...”

  “Oh, yes it is,” McGillivray insisted. “You remember how reluctant they were to send ships to the Rim? They’ve been cutting the military to the bone in order to fund their pet projects; they’ve been cutting back on everything. The Survey Service has effectively been disbanded. The Asimov Point Monitoring Service has been placed on indefinite hold. They’ve even been skimping on ICN funding for the Rim and...”

  Marius held up a hand, as etiquette demanded. A message had just downloaded into his implants. “They want me to head back to the Admiralty,” he said flatly. He would have time to think about McGillivray’s words on the way. “Thank you...”

  “Thank you,” McGillivray said. He winked. “It’s astonishing how few people pay attention to me these days.”

  * * *

  Admiralty House—the headquarters of the Federation Navy—was on the other side of the continent from Federation City. No one knew, now, why it had been built there, but it was tradition and, as such, could not be interfered with by mere mortals. Marius had his own theory; the Snakes, the first alien race humanity had encountered, had bombarded planetary defense centers with abandon, ignoring the danger to civilian populations. Building the HQ so far from the civilian population might just save civilian lives if the enemy took the high orbitals and chose to bombard the planet before invading.

  The shuttle raced towards the city at several times the speed of sound. It was a sign of haste that the Admiralty had assigned his transport to the first available craft, rather than wait for an aircar. Someone in the Senate must have lit a fire under someone’s ass. Marius didn’t mind. The shuttle might be disarmed, but it felt more...natural than a luxury aircar. Sitting behind the pilot gave him time to rest. There was no point in trying to think, not after hearing from both the Senate and Grand Senator McGillivray. He’d find out what was waiting for him when he landed.

  He looked up sharply as an alarm shrilled. It was the planetary defense alarm, an alarm that was never used, even in drills. The Solar System wasn’t under attack—was it?

  A moment later, the looming shape of Admiralty House—coming into view in the distance—vanished in a flash of blinding light.

  Chapter Three

  As the homeworld of humanity, Earth is the single most heavily defended world in recorded history. Only a madman would try to breach the defenses and claim Earth for his own—or so we are told. History is all about people doing the unexpected and, one day, Earth’s defenses may be challenged from an unsuspected direction.

  -An Irreverent Guide to the Federation, 4000 A.D.

  Near-Earth Orbit, Sol System, 4092

  Although he was on the command deck, Commander Jacob Fallon had been slacking off when the attack began. In theory, he was currently in command of Earth Defense Station Three. The truth was that command networks and override protocols linked all of the defense stations—and automated orbital weapons platforms—into a single, coherent whole. With Commodore Peking on Earth Defense Station One for a conference with Port Admiral Gordon, the commander of Earth’s defense network and the Home Fleet, the crew of EDS3 had been relaxing. Nothing had threatened Earth since the First Interstellar War, centuries ago, and few members of the crew expected anything ever would.

  Fallon came to his feet as alarms shrieked, dropping his small—and, technically, illegal—data terminal on the deck as the main display wall lit up with red icons. He’d never seen anything like it outside of drills, and even then the drills hadn’t been too intense; after all, everyone knew that attackers could not reach Earth without fighting their way through half the Federation. There would be plenty of time to reconfigure defenses and reallocate resources to deal with any new threats.

  Or so they had believed.

  The main display zeroed in on a single, expanding red icon, flashing to yellow as it faded away. Where EDS1 had been, hanging over Earth like a protective shroud, there was nothing more than an expanding cloud of debris and superheated plasma. A second icon—confirming the detection of a nuclear detonation on Earth’s surface—almost passed unnoticed.

  Jacob was too astonished to speak, even as the alarms yammered and trained personnel struggled to respond to the completely unanticipated situation. What the hell was going on? All drills were scripted and announced in advance. It couldn’t be a drill, but it couldn’t be real...could it?

  “Bring the station to red alert,” he ordered his crew. If that wasn’t the most unnecessary order in the history of the Federation Navy, he thought, considering the alert had automatically sounded. “Get me...”

  He broke off as new red icons flared into existence. Starfighters! Someone had launched starfighters?

  It seemed impossible, but someone had. They were attacking Earth’s network of defensive installations. Jacob just stared, unable to speak or even think. The Earth Defense Stations were not only four times as massive as the largest superdreadnaughts or assault carriers, they carried far more missile launchers, starfighters, and armor, if only because they didn’t need to fill their internal compartments with drive units and emergency supplies. Who would dare attack such massive formations?

  “Launch our starfighters,” he ordered, trying to sound as calm as he possibly could. He fell back on basic tactics, information he’d learned at the academy and then allowed to slip out of his head, because there was nothing else to do. The hostile starfighters had to be hunted down and destroyed before they caused more damage.

  Except...where had they come from? No one could have slipped a fleet of assault carriers near Earth without being detected, even if their cloaking systems were superior to those of the Federation Navy. He couldn’t even see who they should be engaging! And he didn’t know who—or what—was in command. The entire datanet seemed to be stuttering...

  * * *

  Marius held on to his seat for dear life, struggling to comprehend what had just happened as the shuttle tumbled end-over-end. The internal compensations struggled to keep everyone alive as the shuttle was tossed through the air; it felt as if the hand of God had touched the shuttle.

  There was no time for panic. Someone had nuked Navy HQ. There was no other explanation. An antimatter bomb, even an old-style antimatter device, would have wiped out the entire continent and he would be dead. The shuttle he was in would have been swatted like a bug.

  He tried to access the emergency channels through his implant as the pilot finally managed to steady the craft, but there was no response. He had no way to tell if the blast was disrupting communications—although that should have been impossible, given the sheer level of redundancy built into Earth’s network—or if someone was deliberately jamming communications.

  The shuttle had stabilized, allowing him to look towards Navy HQ. Marius shuddered as an ominous mushroom cloud rose into the air, tinged with flickers of fire and shadow. No one had used a nuclear weapon on Earth’s surface since the Age of Unrest. Only seven nukes had ever been used at all, even during the darkest days of the Third World War.

  But then, by that point the winners had learned how to bombard targets from orbit and obliterate their enemies with nice clean kinetic strikes.

  “We’re alive,” the pilot said in relief. “Sir...”

  “The system is under attack,” Marius said. “Hold your position while I try to find out who’s in charge.”

  He linked his implant into the shuttle’s communications nodes. Much to his relief, that allowed him to slip through the disruption and into the emergency network. It was already overloading because of calls from the surrounding area and would probably collapse. Linking into the military channels was harder—it needed his ID codes to gain access—and it seemed impossible to find a su
perior officer.

  If Navy HQ had been hit, the enemy—whoever they were—had decapitated the Federation Navy. Home Fleet’s commanding officers would be dead. He knew that, but he still held out hope that someone, anyone, might outrank him and be able to tell him what was going on.

  The datanet should have linked him instantly to the senior surviving officer within range. Instead, it took minutes to sort through the conflicting tidal waves of data and finally locate the senior officer. Marius shivered again as he realized that the senior officer in the system—at least the senior officer plugged into the datanet—was a mere commander.

  Dear God, how high had the casualties been? What had happened onboard EDS1 to slaughter the defenders of Earth?

  “Sir, EDS1 is gone,” the pilot said, answering his unspoken question. He’d been flicking through what remained of the flight control network. “The station has been completely destroyed.”

  Marius cursed. The attack was internal, then; there was no way to smuggle a nuke or an antimatter bomb onto a defense station without help. It had to have been an internal detonation. Nothing else, not even a bombardment with compressed antimatter, would have obliterated the station so quickly. He accessed the network again and swore, angrily. EDS2 had gone silent. The senior officer was still a mere commander.

  “This is Vice Admiral Drake,” he said as he linked into the communications network. “Here are my ID codes and command authority. I suggest that you verify them, then open a secure link.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Admiral, I’m Commander Jacob Fallon, in command of EDS3,” Commander Fallon said. He sounded as if he were on the verge of coming apart, either through shock or relief. No one had expected an attack on Earth, let alone what had to be an internal rebellion. “Thank God you’re alive!”

  Commander Fallon sounded relieved to discover that someone was senior to him and could therefore take charge. Marius accessed his implants, briefly skimming through Fallon’s file. It was not a distinguished one.

  “Just so,” Marius growled. He would have to work with Fallon, no matter his limited experience. “We’re still alive and I, for one, intend to stay that way. You have my command codes. Declare a Case Omega and run through the network, then let me know if there is anyone senior to me...”

  “But sir,” Fallon protested. “I don’t have the authority to declare Case Omega.”

  “You’re in command of a battlestation,” Marius snapped. “You have the authority! Now, get in touch with the network and find out who’s in charge.”

  He disconnected from the network and looked over at the pilot. “Set course for EDS3,” he ordered. Fallon sounded as if he was on the verge of panic, which meant—if nothing else—Marius had to be on the scene to relieve him, if necessary. “Call up a flight of starfighters for escort and get them to fly top cover.”

  His implant buzzed as Fallon contacted him. “I ran a Case Omega, sir,” he said. “You’re the senior surviving officer within the Earth-Luna Sphere.”

  Marius nodded. The attack had clearly been carefully planned. Had they held off for another few minutes, he would have been in Navy HQ when it was destroyed. But if he’d maintained his original plans, he’d have been there at least ten minutes sooner. Which meant that if Senator McGillivray hadn’t wanted to talk with him, Marius himself would already be dead.

  The attackers, whoever they were, had planned to decapitate the defenses and they’d come alarmingly close to success. Their tactics showed a chilling level of ruthlessness. Breaking the taboo on using weapons of mass destruction on inhabited planets showed a single-minded determination to succeed, if only because of what the Federation would do to them if it won the war.

  “Right,” he said. “I am assuming command of the defenses of Earth. Give me a situation report, now.”

  “Sir, the datanet has been crippled,” Fallon said. “I barely know anything...”

  “Then give me what you have,” Marius said patiently, checking the shuttle’s ETA at the station. “What do you know about what’s going on?”

  “Ah...EDS1 has been destroyed, sir,” Fallon said. “I have dispatched SAR gunboats and shuttles, but they don’t hold out much hope of finding survivors. EDS2, EDS7 and EDS9 are non-responsive; they’re intact, yet they’re not linked into the command network and are refusing to respond to hails. I don’t know their exact status. And there are dozens of enemy starfighters flying around, engaging the defenses.”

  Marius scowled. Starfighters needed a base—either a starship or a station—to operate. Their life support packs wouldn’t last indefinitely, which meant that someone had to have launched them. But from where?

  He glanced at the holographic near-orbit display as the shuttle rose out of the atmosphere and considered it. The starfighters could have come from the silent battlestations, yet if that was the case, there should be more of them. And then the treacherous commanders would have had to convince the fighter jocks to support them, too...no, it wasn’t possible to form a conspiracy of that magnitude without Federation Intelligence or ONI getting wind of it beforehand.

  He looked at the display again, and knew the answer.

  “There are too many freighters in orbit—breaking orbit now,” he said slowly. Converting freighters into makeshift carriers was an old trick. And now that the fighting had begun, hundreds of innocent civilian craft were breaking orbit and fleeing, unaware that some of their comrades were actually enemy starships. “Ten gets you twenty that at least one of them is working for the enemy...”

  He frowned. “I want a general broadcast,” he ordered. “All civilian ships within the Earth-Luna Sphere are to cancel their drives and prepare to be boarded. Any that refuse to stop will be fired upon and destroyed.”

  Fallon sounded shocked. “But, sir...”

  Marius ignored the protest and drove onwards. “Have you re-established the command datanet yet?”

  “No, sir,” Fallon said. “The coordinating systems were mounted on EDS1, and were destroyed by the blast that took out the station.”

  And it never occurred to you to try to work around the problem? Marius thought, wondering what connections Fallon must have such that he had avoided being sent somewhere harmless, perhaps an asteroid mining station.

  “I see,” he said as coldly as he could. “Your station may not have been designed to serve as a command station, but the computers will be able to handle it for at least a few hours. And by then, we will either have won or lost the coming battle. Reboot the system and prepare for operations.”

  “Sir, the manual clearly states...”

  “Fuck the manual,” Marius swore at him. “This is war! Doing what the enemy expects us to do is a certain way to wind up dead, with the enemy laughing at us. Now, forget the manual and reboot the fucking system, right fucking now!”

  “Sir, our escort has arrived,” the pilot interrupted. “We should be on the station in ten minutes, unless we hit unexpected trouble.”

  Marius nodded absently, thinking hard. He’d warned the Senate about the dangers of largely unknown alien races, but he knew that no alien race could have launched such a devastating and precise attack. The level of access the unknown attackers had demonstrated they had internal help, which meant that whoever was behind the attack was trying for a coup, rather than destruction for the sake of destruction. Destroying Earth would have been easy—a single antimatter bomb would depopulate the planet—but anyone who wanted to replace the Federation with his own rule would need Earth’s legitimacy.

  And that suggested there had to be a second level to the plan. Destroying EDS1 and Navy HQ would cause confusion, but the disarray wouldn’t last. Even if Marius hadn’t stepped up to the plate, someone would have taken command sooner or later. There had to be an incoming enemy fleet heading towards Earth, having somehow been smuggled into the system. That, at least, was no longer impossible. The stardrive had seen to that.

  “Ah, the network is up and running,” Fallon said. He soun
ded relieved. Marius wondered how he would cope in a battle where multiple antimatter detonations would disrupt the network effortlessly. Coordinating a fleet in combat wasn’t easy. “The three silent stations are continuing to refuse to respond.”

  Treachery or equipment malfunction? Marius thought. There was no way to know for sure.

  “Link into Marine HQ at Camp Heinlein,” he ordered. Unless the Marines had been hit as well, Major General Tobias Vaughn would still be alive. And Vaughn, who had once been the senior Marine on Marius’s first command, was one of his closest friends. “Inform the Major General that I want armed Marines in the air and heading for the three stations. Once they board, they are to secure the stations and confirm their status, then prepare to start searching the civilian ships. If they meet with resistance, they are authorized to use deadly force.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fallon said. At least he’d learned to take orders without objecting. “Ah, four bulk freighters are continuing to accelerate away from Earth, heading towards the Dead End.”

  Marius smiled, feeling the old excitement shimmering through his mind. The Sol System possessed two Asimov Points, but one of them—the Dead End—led only to a single useless star system, without even a handful of asteroids to arouse the interest of the RockRats. The Dead End was defended, of course, yet it was simply not as important as the Gateway, the second Asimov Point within the system. And there was no logical reason for anyone to want to go there, unless they had something illegal in mind. And that, to his mind, effectively confirmed their guilt. Converting a bulk freighter to a starfighter carrier was easy.