The Dead Sun

by B. V. Larson

  I smiled faintly, knowing I had him. Miklos might be a traitor, but he still loved an intricate design of his own making. We pored over them at length, and I began to understand their genius.

  Each of the moons was a small version of Phobos. Like that fantastic ship, they weren’t armed with missiles, lasers and the like. They were being outfitted with gravity cannons. Each moon was a platform, a small fortress with terrific range. The enemy would be taken by surprise by them and shredded as they wandered into the Solar System seeing only a small fleet to contend with.

  I nodded, rubbing my stubbly chin and making appreciative sounds.

  “I get it,” I said. “What’s more, I like the plan. These moon bases—they’re ingenious.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Miklos said. “Can Marvin deploy the gravity cannons in a timely manner? I’ve been concerned about that since you went off to destroy the Macro bases.”

  “Well, if you were worried, why didn’t you bring it up before I left? In fact, why didn’t I know you were employing this defensive strategy?”

  Miklos looked down then raised his eyes again. “I suppose this is not the time for evasion since I’m already sitting in a prison cell. I wasn’t sure you would approve of my plans. So, I waited until you left before I set them into motion. Once the bases were built, I calculated that you would have no choice but to make them fully operational upon your return.”

  “But I do like them!” I shouted in exasperation. “Let me get this straight: you first tried to kill me, then when that failed you tried to remove me from command—just so you could build these moon bases?”

  “I refute your accusations. I never tried to kill you. The golden bust we both handled that day was the focus of the attack. Forensic tests have confirmed that. If you remember, I was in the building with you when the strike came. You’d left with Jasmine, and I left as well. I took the elevator to the roof. An intelligent assassin is not going to come so close to killing himself with his own weaponry.”

  I nodded, frowning. Miklos had left the offices about the same time I did. And he had come as close to death as Jasmine and I.

  “Are you trying to blame Jasmine?” I asked suddenly.

  “Hardly. She has every interest in keeping you alive right now.”

  I snorted. Right now. He’d just had to add that part. I wanted to demand what he meant, whether he was suggesting—as many had in the past—that she was some kind of gold-digger.

  But none of that mattered at this point. If Miklos was telling me the truth, then we had another traitor in our midst to worry about.

  “I’ll look into your claims—and I’ll get those moon bases operational.”

  “That’s all I can ask for, Colonel.”

  My conversation with Miklos left me deep in thought. I wasn’t sure if I should believe him or not. On one hand, he’d brought up some good points. I knew him and had had a hard time counting him as a traitor. Stubborn perhaps, and yes, almost insanely dedicated to his designs. He was a fanatic when it came to combat systems, and it drove him mad when I messed with them.

  In short, I could see him trying to get control of the Fleet through parliament, especially when such a climactic battle with the Macros was imminent, but as an assassin…? He didn’t fit the profile.

  “Marvin?” I asked, opening a channel with my com-link.

  The channel was opened quickly, I could tell that by the green indicators, but Marvin didn’t say anything.

  “Marvin? Are you listening? Get over to my office, will you? We need to talk.”

  I closed the channel, but before I put the com-link down on the table the door chimed. I frowned and swiped my desk unlocking it.

  There was Marvin in the doorway. He glided into my office, and I saw he held something in his tentacles.

  I recognized the object in an instant. It was oblong, heavy and made of solid gold. It was, in fact, a perfect replica of the gold statue that had destroyed my offices nearly a month ago…

  And it was resting in a coiled loop of Marvin’s tentacles.

  Marvin still wasn’t talking. I couldn’t believe it.

  -35-

  “It was you,” I said, staring at the golden statue then turning my attention back to Marvin. “You tried to kill me? Why? I made you, Marvin, for God’s sake, and I kept about a hundred people from dismantling you over the years.”

  “I’m sorry, Colonel Riggs, but you’ve jumped to an inaccurate conclusion. I did not attempt to assassinate you.”

  I frowned in confusion. “Well then, what the hell are you doing in my office with this golden head about one second after I summoned you? Have you been listening in on my conversations?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you know what Miklos and I were talking about?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry about the moon bases. The gravity cannons have been under construction since before we left Earth. They will be finished before the Macros arrive.”

  I glared at him.

  “You didn’t answer my first question,” I pointed out.

  “I thought the answer was self-explanatory.”

  “Pretend I’m a dumb-ass human and spell it out for me.”

  “Humiliation, is that to be part of my punishment? I see.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about, but I thought I’d let him keep going. Sometimes Marvin miscalculated—it was rare, but it did happen. When he did make a mistake, it generally involved overestimating my intellect. This was one of those moments, I sensed, so I went with it and played the part of the stern parent who’s caught the child red-handed.

  I was good at making a situation appear to be under my control. I was even better at pretending I’d planned for events that were, for the most part, sheer luck.

  Crossing my arms I sucked in a breath. “You’ve done a lot of tricky things in your time, Marvin, but this one is beyond the pale.”

  “I apologize.”

  “That’s not good enough. Let’s hear a full confession.”

  Marvin studied me. I began to worry he’d figure out I was bluffing and would clam up or start to evade. To counter this, I frowned at him angrily and self-confidently. I did my damnedest to exude righteous indignation.

  It worked. His tentacles sagged.

  “I did not attempt to kill you,” he said. “I attempted to kill Admiral Miklos.”

  My mouth sagged open, but I quickly shut it again. I had to keep him confessing or I’d never know what the hell had happened.

  “I know that,” I snapped. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”

  “You mean as to my motivation?”

  “That will do for a start.”

  “It’s difficult being me, Colonel,” he said. “I’m not like a human—my mind is capable of deep recursive thought, meaning I can see farther down probable future paths than a human can. It is a gift, but also a burden.”

  “How so?”

  “Let me give you an example,” he said. “If you knew that your friend’s house would someday burn down, but you didn’t know exactly when, or why, would you say anything?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “Of course. But then, what might happen next? The friend would investigate and find nothing wrong. Over time, if you persisted, he might come to think you were mad. Perhaps the house would never burn down in the end, or it might do so a year or more after the warning was delivered. When the fateful event finally occurred, how would your friend react?”

  I blinked trying to envision his bizarre scenario.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He’d probably think I was some kind of weirdo.”

  “Exactly. Your friend would look at you with suspicion. In his mind, you would be a likely suspect. How else could you have known what was coming? No one could have known. He would be convinced of that. And, regardless of all your efforts, the house would still be burnt.”

  “I’m the friend with the burning house, is that it?” I asked.

  “Precisely.”


  I thought that over. He was telling me he’d known Miklos was trouble and that he’d also known I wouldn’t believe him.

  “So, you knew Miklos was going to attempt to depose me when we left to test the ring—which, by the way, you likewise knew would trigger a Macro attack.”

  He didn’t say anything, which I took to indicate I was dead-on so far.

  “You didn’t want Miklos to replace me as the leader of Star Force,” I said. “So, you decided to kill him before we left but failed.”

  “An excellent summary of recent events.”

  I stared at him. I knew he was being honest with me. He really did see things no one else did. He saw them coming a mile away. I’d watched him do it on many occasions. He was like fortuneteller, but one that feared to tell the truth lest he be blamed for the events that later transpired.

  “Why were you willing to assassinate a Star Force officer to stop him from possibly attempting to replace me?”

  “It all comes down to the math, Colonel. I estimated Earth’s chances of survival were twenty-one percent lower if the defensive effort was coordinated by Admiral Miklos. Surely, the life of one man is not worth so great a risk.”

  I thought it over. “Twenty-one percent lower, eh? That’s all?”

  “There is only so much a commander can do to influence the outcome of a battle.”

  “Right,” I said. “Well, I know you’re telling me the truth. I’ve seen it too many times. You knew what Miklos was going to do, but you didn’t tell me. That means you also calculated that I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Correct.”

  “So…in order to solve the problem, you attempted to get rid of Miklos on your own initiative without any authority to do so.”

  “You’ve taught me many things, Colonel Riggs. Chief among them is the flexibility between action and authority.”

  “You’re talking about might makes right.”

  “A crude conceptual comparison. I would prefer to point out that a perpetrator will always get away with a deed—if no one knows who performed it.”

  At least once a year, Marvin managed to freak me out. This was one of those times. Just talking to him…sometimes it was like talking to a ghost or some kind of god-like alien. In my life, I’d rarely encountered anyone whom I considered an equal in manipulation and guile, but Marvin was my superior in both of these dark arts. If he’d been a human, I was pretty sure I’d be saluting him by now. But due to my race’s natural prejudices, I was his commander instead.

  “You’re telling me all this now because you believe you’ll get away with it by doing so,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Marvin?”

  “You’re very perceptive, Colonel.”

  “Yeah right…I’m a regular Sherlock Holmes.”

  In the end, I let Miklos out of prison. I did not return him to his post as an Admiral, however. As far as the world was concerned, he’d been involved in a plot to overthrow Star Force, and I didn’t want to try to explain it all to them right now. No matter how it turned out, I knew that he could never serve openly again.

  Still, I felt that I needed him. The moon bases were his idea, and he’d done most of the tactical planning for the coming battle.

  I decided to make him vanish, which would make people think I’d had him quietly executed. That should serve to dissuade others from trying a coup of their own. Then I set him up with an office in a secret location. He called as soon as he was given access to a private network that could only call my headpiece.

  “Colonel Riggs? Why?” he asked when I answered.

  I knew what he meant. He was confused by my seeming change of heart.

  “Have you ever met General Kerr?” I asked him.

  “Yes, on a few occasions. He’s a slippery man.”

  “Right, that’s him. He’s as slippery as a buttered eel. That’s who you are now. An outsider, a spook, a hired consultant on a leash.”

  Miklos was quiet for a few seconds.

  “Why trust me at all?” he asked at last.

  “I don’t trust you, but I need you. And I do trust you to do what you think best for Earth. You put together these moon bases. I want the system designer online when the Macros roll into town.”

  “I understand. You will have my support in battle, Colonel.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  I closed the channel again and went to the balcony. I was still on Earth, in Geneva. Soon, the fleet would pull out and head to the edge of the Solar System. We had less than two weeks before we’d make contact with the enemy.

  The stars were bright and cold in the sky. The air was thin up here and smelled of fresh pine and snow. I liked the Alps, and I hoped they would be spared when the bombs began to fall from space.

  I couldn’t see the spinning comets out there. They were still too far out, too cold. I was told that if I looked low on the western horizon at about midnight, I would be able to see them: tiny blue-white streaks of light in the sky which would steadily grow bigger and brighter every day.

  Earth had fired every spare missile she had at them weeks ago. But the comets had shrugged off the attack. They were like small flying fortresses. I knew that they might reach Earth if we didn’t come up with a way to deal with them, but as they were coming in relatively slowly, we had to deal with the closer threats first.

  It occurred to me that people had feared comets throughout history. They’d seen them, misunderstood them, and considered them to be portents of doom.

  Maybe my ancestors had known more than we’d given them credit for.

  -36-

  A week later, I was standing on the command deck of Potemkin again. We were far out in space, rolling with the gravity swells and trying to look tough. We’d moved without stealth or grace. Wallowing battleships, carriers brimming with fighters and about a thousand smaller vessels trailed behind me—altogether, it was the grandest armada Earth had ever put into the skies.

  But it wasn’t going to be enough. Not by a long shot. Marvin had miscalculated. The enemy was now emerging from behind their comets to meet us, flying ahead of their planet-killers. They’d counted our guns and found us contemptible.

  They’d thrown far more than the estimated four thousand cruisers at us. They had six thousand cruisers, give or take a few, and had over a hundred dreadnaughts as well—huge ships with point defense weapons and fantastically thick hulls. I recalled that, years back, they’d attacked with just one of these monsters. It had taken all of Earth’s firepower and cunning to bring that single vessel down.

  Behind the comets lurked even more ships, including transports. If they had factories, and I assumed they did, they would be hiding there along with thousands of machines built to invade, mine and colonize our worlds with inorganic un-life. If they had their way, the biotic soup of humanity and our supporting ecosystem would be gone forever.

  The only solace I had was the drifting stream of balloon-like megahabs behind us. They were still rising through Earth’s clouds and gliding to the Tyche ring. Every day more civilians escaped to colonize Eden. I wished them well and hoped enough of them would survive to rebuild should we fail them.

  A klaxon sounded. I flinched out of my reverie.

  “What have we got, Jasmine?” I demanded, still looking at the stars.

  I don’t know what I’d expected her to say. Maybe something about a false alarm or a coming course adjustment. We’d had a lot of both lately.

  “Missiles, sir,” she said. “They’ve launched.”

  “So early? Their ships are still out of effective range. The missiles will run out of fuel long before they get here, and we’ll easily dodge them.”

  “The ships aren’t launching anything—the comets are.”

  I walked over to the command table, frowning. Sure enough, new contacts had appeared: Clouds of them. So many that they looked like a fine mist of roiling pixels.

  Staring, I thought about what this meant. I’d assumed the comets were just that—comets. They’d been fo
und in the Oort Cloud and propelled toward our planet like stones thrown across a great distance.

  But that view was crumbling now. These weren’t just comets.

  “Can they be giant ships of some kind, sir?” Jasmine asked.

  Her pretty face was tight and frightened.

  “No,” I said, scoffing. “They aren’t ships! They might have put some missile bases on them, but that hardly qualifies them as ships. They can’t change course or even accelerate. They’re just ice-balls with a few weapons aboard—I mean, so they have a few missiles, so what?”

  She didn’t look relieved. I knew I’d failed to explain away this surprise. She stared at the screens in obvious worry.

  Looking around, I saw that all of them had that same, funny look on their faces. It wasn’t exactly fear. I’d say it was more a stunned look of people who’d just realized they’re doomed.

  “Do you have any orders, sir?”

  “How long until the missiles reach us?”

  “About two days. They’re very far out. New data is coming in now. The missiles are larger than normal Macro design.”

  “Damn it,” I muttered. “Who’s giving them new ideas? I don’t think they could come up with this kind of thing on their own. It’s just too different from their traditional path. Remember the Macros that would just roll into a mine field, blowing up one after another without changing course? Those bastards were scary enough—I’m feeling nostalgic for the dumb robots from the good old days.”

  Newcome eyed me. “Perhaps they’re smarter because there are so many more of them in this fleet.”

  “Hmm,” I said. This idea made sense, but I didn’t like it. I heaved a sigh. “Call up the reserves,” I said.

  Jasmine looked at me. “Already?”

  I stared at the developing situation on the boards. The plan was simple, we were supposed to divert the enemy at our system’s edge toward the planets. Then, we would surprise them with moon bases firing on them from long range. They’d be faced with a choice at that point: They could either charge after our fleet while being pounded on their flanks, or they could turn on the bases and try to dig them up, one by one.