by B. V. Larson
My staff looked less than thrilled with my analysis. I guess that with their own deaths so near and so likely, they weren’t interested in the theoretical survival of the species as a whole. I could understand that, but I still watched closely, enthralled by the majesty of the approaching vessels. It was going to be a crime to destroy them.
“Fire!” I shouted, ordering my line of gunships to begin pounding the advancing enemy.
Hundreds of crackling blue balls rolled forward, converging on the newly-emerged monsters. The battle I’d always expected but never wanted was here. I found it impossible to look away, even for a second.
General Kerr’s vanguard of heavy battleships had been built to take punishment, but they had their limits. Tiny, needle-thin beams flashed out from their nose sections, stabbing at the scattered mines and the incoming storm of projectiles. But the defensive fire couldn’t save them. The big ships flared their engines, making emergency evasive maneuvers. But it was too little, too late.
Still wallowing at low velocity, they were picked apart by lashing fire. Volley after volley of thundering balls of force rained down on them. To me, they resembled mounds dirt melting in a tropical downpour. When the first one broke apart, less than a minute after it had arrived in the Eden system, I straightened my shoulders and tossed a salute toward the holotank which faithfully depicted their demise.
“There goes a fine, brave crew,” I said. “Don’t forget what we do here today, people. Those are our own ships we’re firing upon. If we get a chance at mercy, we’ll take it.”
Every eye flicked to me, then back to the grim carnage on the screen.
“It’s not over yet, Colonel,” Miklos said.
“Unfortunately, you’re right. They’ll send in faster, lighter, more heavily armed ships next. Unleash thirty companies of Centaurs, Captain. Order them to assault the enemy formation. Let’s see how our new troops do out there.”
Miklos worked the boards, and Sarin helped him relay the command. Soon, the scene on the screen changed dramatically. The Earth ships were still pressing forward, almost eager in their search for destruction. They kept coming and coming, and the count on the corner was a grim reminder of our efficiency. When the count of big ships stood at sixty, and the count of dead hulks showed thirty-five, I put my hand to my chin and rubbed the stubble there. The joints of my gauntlet caught at my beard, and I winced as hairs were plucked free.
“Is this all they have, Kyle?” Sandra said. “Are we just going to slaughter thousands?”
As if in answer to her question, the second phase of the invasion began. These new ships resembled silver torpedoes. They darted through the ring at a higher velocity, no doubt certain that the big front-liners would have removed the minefield by this time.
I imagined the shock each crewman experienced when he saw the debris in front of him. Floating chunks of the behemoths leading the charge were now so numerous they presented an entirely new threat to the second wave. Still, they kept coming and they wisely flew out of the immediate maelstrom of blue fireballs and dying ships.
From the twenty or so that broke free, a storm of smaller traces appeared.
“Missiles, sir,” Sarin called out. “Each one is firing a barrage.”
“Project the targets. Have the cruisers prepare for defensive fire. If they’re going for our transports in back, order each targeted ship to unload all their troops immediately.”
“No sir, I don’t think…” she stopped and pointed to the screen. “The missiles are all converging on the center of our forward line.”
I frowned, taking a step toward the holotank, trying to divine the enemy strategy. Miklos figured it out before I did.
“It’s us, sir. The missile boats just fired everything they have—at this ship.”
Stunned, I examined the data. There it was, as our brainboxes computed the trajectory with increasing accuracy every second. They’d fired over a thousand missiles at my ship. We had just minutes left before impact.
-28-
General Kerr had always managed to compliment me in a backhanded way. I really knew he thought a lot of me at that moment. He’d gone out of his way to take me out. As close as we could figure in the minute or so we took to confirm the attack, the missile barrage and the entire first play of his battle strategy was aimed at one thing: destroying my command ship.
I waited a few seconds, in case the whole thing was just some kind of ruse. The missiles could be targeting my ship first to force us to abandon Nostradamus, then divert and spread to their real targets.
The few seconds passed, and hope faded. It wasn’t going to happen that way. I heaved in a breath, and gave the only command I possibly could: “All hands, abandon ship! Fly to the nearest friendly vessel for pickup. Avoid the Nostradamus, give her a berth of a hundred miles. Scatter in a random pattern from the impact point.”
The lights on the bridge changed, going to blood-red. Almost immediately, the red was striped by flashers of spinning yellow. Klaxons whooped and screamed. Everyone who wasn’t fully suited-up struggled to get into something air-tight that could fly.
I marched at the head of my staff toward the aft sally ports. Miklos, Sandra and Sarin were all right behind me. Fortunately, Sloan and Kwon were with the transports, coordinating the assault forces. If we all died, at least those two would be left to continue the fight.
We entered the dark hold and I reached up to hit the emergency bulkhead release. The door shot open, and the immediate depressurization rocked my armored body. I clamped a gauntlet onto the nearest steel rung and grabbed Sandra with my other hand. In turn, Sandra held onto Miklos and Jasmine, who were wearing crewman’s nanocloth with power packs and trying to get their feet onto those flying skateboard things I’d designed long ago. They now served every ship as both invasion equipment and escape pods.
After the door was sucked away by the escaping gasses in the hold, a square of velvet black pierced by intense white lights appeared. Space hung outside, in all its glory. From this angle, I could see nothing but brilliant stars.
When I was about to give the final order to dive out into vacuum, something else grabbed me. I looked down to see a black tentacle encircling my right calf.
“Excuse me, Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said politely into my com-link. “I’m having a conflict. I find my standing orders to be unclear.”
I glanced back and saw him, looming over us. He was clinging to the spine of the ship.
“Sorry Marvin,” I said. “I forgot about you. I’m hereby changing your orders. You can fly in emergency situations. In order to survive, you’re allowed to use any means of propulsion you can find. Do you need us to provide you with—?”
I never finished the sentence. Marvin shouldered us all aside and shot out into space, taking the lead instantly. Under his body, a set of four skateboards were arranged in a diamond pattern. He leaned into it as I watched him, directing himself onto a new course. He shrank to a dot in a few seconds.
I chuckled and dove after him. I dragged everyone with me, as they were all holding onto each other. I didn’t know where Marvin was headed, but I was certain he had a destination clearly in mind, and it didn’t involve hanging around at the epicenter of a massive barrage of nuclear missiles.
Choosing a random angle and accelerating for all we were worth, my tiny group flew with grim determination into the cold silent ocean which we call space. As always, I reflected upon the shockingly sudden nature of life and death in this incredibly harsh environment. When in space, you simply didn’t have all the protection afforded by a planetary body. You were exposed to radiation and particles of matter flashing around at insane speeds. Even in serene moments the environment was inherently deadly to human flesh. The temperature in most of the great void was usually freezing, or occasionally scorching hot. There was no breathable air, and the vacuum alone could turn you inside out if you let it.
Still, for all its deadliness, there was beauty too. The sun was yellow-white and too bri
ght to look upon without the autoshades in our visors. It glared upon every helmet giving the scene a stark clarity. Some of the worlds that orbited that steady star were visible with the naked eye. In a direction that appeared to be to our left now, I thought I saw two bodies, appearing as gray-white disks. One had to be Eden-12, the planet of the Blues. Like Jupiter back home, it was one of the most visible things in every world’s night sky in this system. If I had to guess, I’d say the other one was Eden-11, which was scheduled to orbit fairly close to the Helios ring this time of year.
It didn’t really matter which planets they were. They were timeless and remote. Gazing at them for a few long seconds, I felt a curious level of perspective. We were nothing compared to those spinning worlds that teemed with life. No matter what we did out here, bits of dust fighting to the death in the skies, they would go on orbiting their star serenely.
While I was stargazing, I wondered too about Kerr’s attempt to take out my leadership. I reminded myself this wasn’t the first attempt, the news reporter with the bomb had been intent on the same goal. I had to count the missile barrage as the second assassination attempt of this new conflict. I went further, deciding the tactic was part of Imperial strategy now—Crow’s strategy. Kerr hadn’t just come up with it on his own, it wasn’t his style. He’d been ordered to make this move if I resisted. I could hear Crow in my head with his rough, Aussie accent: “If he fights too hard, kill him.”
Captain Sarin ended my reverie by contacting my helmet with a short range com-link. We all knew enough not to chatter with powerful signals. Enemy missiles tended to locate that kind of transmission and home in on it.
“Look up,” she said.
I followed her instructions and saw a fading reddish glow. I knew what it was: one of the nukes had gone off when I wasn’t looking. The reddish glow was replaced almost immediately by a flash of brilliance, then several more. In the middle of these incandescent flares of energy was the spoon-shape of my abandoned cruiser. Nostradamus broke apart as I watched.
“Set your shades to full-auto,” I said, just in case someone had screwed up. Even temporary blindness could be deadly now. “Link arms and look away from the ship. If they hit her with a heavy fusion bomb, it could reach us even out here.”
My team needed no further urging. I felt arms link up with mine on each side, and we all turned our heads away from the cascading impacts. I took that moment to marvel at the firepower Kerr had unleashed in order to kill little old me. He was either crazy, or fearful. I had to question his judgment. Was my leadership really worth that much to our side’s chances of victory?
As I pondered the question and more flashes illuminated space behind me, I had another thought: perhaps I’d been overly egotistic. Perhaps Kerr wanted to wipe out all my senior officers, not just me.
That made more sense to me. I considered Miklos, Sarin and many of my other key officers to be excellent tacticians. They were all veterans of a dozen battles. The Earthers didn’t have anyone like that on their side, I knew. Maybe that’s why Kerr feared us enough to make such a concerted effort to wipe us out.
I was pondering this when one of the shockwaves finally touched us. I figured out afterward that it was probably a missile that hadn’t made it all the way to its target. Maybe Nostradamus had been completely destroyed, and the missile had detected this and decided in its tiny electric brain to just end it all and detonate. Whatever the case, the explosion hit us from behind and caused us all to go into a tumbling spin.
I felt like a fly that had just been swatted—hard. I didn’t lose consciousness, but Jasmine and Miklos did. Sandra took the impact well. She even managed to catch Jasmine before I could. We’d both been through Marvin’s Microbial baths, and our flesh was as tough as nails.
There was blood on everyone’s face when I peered into the visors. Jasmine’s visor was starred, and Miklos’ jaw was hanging at an unnatural angle.
“We need to get them to another ship, Kyle,” Sandra said. “I don’t know what their condition is. I think Miklos’ suit has lost power.”
I worked to connect an auxiliary cable to his suit, and had Sandra do the same for Captain Sarin. Together again, we began limping away on two skateboards rather than four.
We finally dared to call for help when we’d reached a safe distance of about a thousand miles from Nostradamus’ wreckage. We were quickly acknowledged and a destroyer moved to pick us up.
The big nanite arm from the destroyer’s hold plucked us from space and reeled us in. The crew was stunned to have all their highest level commanders drag themselves aboard. There were only three of them, a junior officer and two non-coms. Their eyes were wide, dark and grimly determined.
“Are you all right, sir?” the skipper asked, peering into my faceplate.
“Yeah,” I said, “It’s just a bleeder. Not even worth removing my helmet. Let the nanites take care of it.”
The young skipper nodded uncertainly.
“These two are out,” I said. “Do what you can for them in your medical bay. You do have a medical bay, don’t you, Lieutenant?”
“Yes sir,” he said, showing me the way.
The destroyer was one of the newer stripped-down models I’d taken with me from Andros Island long ago. The sick bay was small, with only three tables. I made sure Miklos and Sarin were stretched out comfortably on two of them, then returned to the bridge.
“It’s time to get back into this battle. What have you got for tactical display?”
The young Lieutenant nodded helpfully to the forward wall, which crawled with bumps of metal. The nanites were having to work overtime, trying to display every ship in the vicinity.
“You’re kidding, right? This vessel was never upgraded with a full command console?”
The Lieutenant stammered excuses until I waved for him to shut up.
“All right,” I said, “we’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”
I began quoting a script to the nanites on the surface of the bridge, giving them detailed instructions on how to display warnings and faster updates. By selecting more critical elements and updating them faster, while letting less important data slide by, the primitive system was able to operate more like a tactical ops display.
The display showed that the enemy had pressed through the breach, filing into the Eden system despite horrible losses. All but seven of the big battleships had been destroyed. About ten of the smaller, sleeker missile ships still eluded our guns. What concerned me most was the next wave. This consisted of several hundred one-man fighters. These ships were fast and maneuverable. In a way, they were a worst case enemy for our gunships to face. Armed with heavy cannons that had a slow rate of fire, we couldn’t hope to hit these missile-sized targets as they twirled and dodged into the system. A cloud of them had broken away from the main formation and were advancing to attack my main line.
With my cruiser gone, I had only a scattered number of destroyers and frigates with lasers aboard that could track and take down these fighters. This was a known vulnerability of my tiny fleet, but I’d compensated when facing the Macros in the past, once by using the Nano fleet to run interference for us, and another time by building orbital laser platforms. Neither of these solutions were available to us now.
Once I had the tactical display configured, Sandra established contact with my unit commanders and we were in business again. Sloan had taken over in my absence.
“Give me the situation as it stands, Sloan,” I ordered.
“Sir, glad to have you back in the game. We’re withdrawing sir, firing as we go. But we can’t seem to hit those little ships.”
I gritted my teeth. I’d always known Sloan was too cautious to run a full-fledged space battle. He had a fantastic knack for recognizing a threat, but he too often dealt with it by withdrawing or repositioning. He wanted every battle to be clean and textbook. Unfortunately, in my experience that rarely happened out here in this deadly universe.
“I can see the fighters—they
’re gaining on your gunships. What is your plan for dealing with this problem?”
“The Centaur troops, sir—they’re about to meet the enemy lines now.”
I opened my mouth to shout at him, but then halted. I realized my error immediately. I’d ordered the ship to display ships up to a given size—but it had interpreted our space marines as so small it wasn’t displaying them.
“Ship!” I shouted. “Respond!”
“Responding.”
“Display the space-borne infantry.”
“All known self-mobile contacts are being displayed.”
I marched up to the wall, and peered. It did seem there were colored dots there, so small they could hardly be seen. “Show large formations of individuals as collective ovals, please.”
That did the trick. Within a few seconds, I could see about thirty ovals. I suspected each group represented a company of my troops. They were about to meet up with the fighters head on.
“They’re going too fast. Sloan, the Centaurs—they’ll fly right past the fighters, or smash into them. The relative speeds are too high, I’d guess around a thousand miles an hour or more. No one can land and assault an enemy ship at those speeds!”
“I don’t think that’s their plan, sir,” he said.
I opened my mouth to say more, but suddenly understood what he was getting at. We’d never had smooth command and control over our Centaur troops. They’d pretty much done what they’d wanted in every battle, while trying to follow our orders in their own way.
“What orders did you give them, Sloan?” I asked.
“I told them to destroy the fighters, sir. I don’t think I had any choice. They were the only asset I had on the field.”
As I watched, the two lines came together. The ovals representing the Centaur companies spread out at the last minute, covering more area. The fighters were taking them out with guns, I could tell. The ovals began looking ragged—then the two lines met.
