Stargods

by Ian Douglas

  The Nungiirtok and the Tok Iad tended to be direct in combat to the point of bullheadedness. There was no reason to outflank an enemy when you could, instead, smash straight through their center and crush them, and Xavix was strongly tempted to push on as he was already doing, to engage the oncoming enemy fighters and knock them from the sky before they could hit the Ashtongtok Tah again.

  And yet . . . the Ashtongtok Tah had been badly used in the last engagement, and with his available resources reduced by well over half, there was merit in tactically husbanding what was left.

  It was a most un-Tok way to think, an un-Tok way to act in the face of an outside threat, but 4236 Xavix possessed a flexible mind together with an indomitable will. He would choose the second option.

  There should just be time to bring the ship around before the enemy’s first wave reached them.

  USNA CVS America

  Flag Bridge

  Sol System

  1724 hours, FST

  “Range to target!” Gray snapped.

  “Eighty million kilometers, Admiral,” Lieutenant Vasquez, his sensor officer, reported. “Intercept in . . . make it ten minutes, now, sir.”

  America had been decelerating in anticipation of a rendezvous pass with the enemy, but the alien asteroids were still approaching at nearly the speed of light. They would flash past the battlegroup so quickly that even AI-guided weapons systems would have trouble locking on to a target. Vasquez’s estimate depended on the enemy continuing on the same heading, with the same acceleration.

  A million variables . . . and a million things that could go wrong.

  “Ms. West,” Gray said slowly, “inform all ships in the squadron. They are to continue firing at the targets and not worry about trying to hit them around the corner.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Classic starship tactics called for decelerating down to almost no velocity at all relative to local space just when the target was passing. That meant that America and her consorts would continue hammering at those planetoids on their near sides, the hemispheres already reduced to molten lava by the fighter strike.

  “Captain Mackey, tell Weps that I’d like to see him put the spinal mount to good purpose. A couple of massive rounds at near-c ought to work wonders.”

  “Absolutely, sir!”

  America’s spinal mount consisted of a pair of railguns side by side running for much of the star carrier’s length and opening at the center of her shield cap forward. Often used to launch fighters at high accelerations, the mag-lev mount could also be used to fire multi-ton masses of depleted uranium, lead, or even tightly bundled pods of America’s as-yet-unrecycled garbage; mass, after all, was mass, and the composition didn’t matter a bit. The muzzle velocity wasn’t anywhere near c . . . but the velocity of the oncoming target was. It was their best hope of cracking that mountain like an egg, and reducing most of it to debris.

  “Weapons Officer!” Mackey snapped. “Ready the spinal mount for immediate firing!”

  “Aye, aye, Captain!”

  “Helm . . . stand by for maneuvering.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The heads-up for maneuvering was vital. If America succeeded in breaking up the alien planetoid ship—even if she just knocked loose some debris—that debris would still be flying toward America at close to the speed of light. If there was a cloud of fragments, the stuff would be spreading out. It was entirely possible that the enemy ship could wipe out America and her consorts even after its own disintegration.

  Gray studied the CGI image of the target, still light-minutes away. The side facing them was a glowing mass of hot, molten material. A couple of good hits might well cause enough damage to pierce that monster through to its heart.

  “You may commence firing, Captain Mackey.”

  He felt the jolt as America loosed a pair of massive projectiles.

  Nungiirtok Fleet

  Sol System

  1725 hours, FST

  Xavix studied his screens as the Ashtongtok Tah began to turn. Rotating the massive planetoid took considerable power, power that was in desperately short supply at the moment, and the change in attitude would take precious time. The enemy’s fighters, their first wave coming up astern, descended. . . .

  But as moments dragged past, the Nungiirtok ship turned, swinging its vulnerable undamaged half around, bringing the molten side into line with the enemy attack. The enemy’s major vessels were still light-minutes ahead and should not be an issue. Their fighters, however, were becoming a serious nuisance. Thermonuclear warheads were impacting on both sides of the planetoid. When they hit a sea of molten rock, there was little additional damage. When they hit Ashtongtok Tah’s undamaged hemisphere, however, they created huge craters filled with liquid rock, shattered surface installations, knocked out weapons emplacements, and further reduced the ship’s ability to see and anticipate the attacks.

  The Ashtongtok Tah fought back as she continued to decelerate, lashing out with gravitic weaponry that caught enemy fighters one or two or sometimes three at a time and crushed them down in an eye-blink to sand-sized flecks of ultra-dense matter.

  Xavix tried to keep track of the remaining planetoids in his squadron but was having trouble tracking them. The smallest of them, the Vedvivgarotok Keh appeared to be still accelerating and was not badly damaged, but it was not responding to calls from the command ship. The other two, Daledvekatok Tah and Kelobdratevtok Tah, were seriously damaged but decelerating in concert with Ashtongtok Tah, slowing to a fraction of light speed.

  As the huge vessel continued its deceleration, more and more of the enemy fighters were catching up with the Nungiirtok warship, swarming around the vessel like tegut flying biters back home. The ship’s gravitic weapons were exacting a toll, but the targets were widely spaced and careful not to group too closely. It made fighting them unbearably frustrating.

  Xavix considered whether or not to surrender—an unbearable, almost unthinkable decision. Clearly, the human defenses were stronger, more coherent, and more tactically competent than he’d imagined, especially with the unexpected appearance of the squadron from out-system. The fact that he’d played into their hands by boosting to near-c, resulting in savage damage from the clouds of high-velocity particles, ached in the back of his mind.

  But surrender was decidedly not a Nungiirtok option. The Tok would continue fighting if he so ordered, and there was still a chance if he could swing the ship around in time.

  It would be far, far worse if he surrendered, only to learn that the enemy had already done its worst, that the Nungiirtok were in fact close to a final victory.

  No, there would be no surrender.

  Slowly . . . slowly . . . the Ashtongtok Tah continued its ponderous rotation. More and more of the enemy fire fell uselessly into the magma sea.

  They would win this thing yet.

  First, though, they would have to survive.

  VFA-96, Black Demons

  Sol System

  1732 hours, EST

  Yes! The enemy planetoid ships were slowing . . . three of them, at any rate—targets designated by the Yorktown CIC as Alfa, Bravo, and Delta. The fourth, Gamma, was dwindling into darkness at almost the speed of light, but the three larger Nungie ships were right there, swelling from pinpoints to enormous, three-dimensional shapes hanging in space just ahead. They appeared to be slowly rotating on their axes, bringing their molten hemispheres around into view. Large swaths of their surfaces were cooling to black now, but broken by angry red-orange cracks and pools of boiling liquid rock.

  We did that to them, Gregory thought, but with awe rather than triumph. He had just two nuclear warheads left in his bay. Targeting a structure on the surface of the nearest planetoid, he triggered the launch sequence.

  Lieutenant Vandley, four kilometers to his right, vanished as her fighter was crushed. That damned rock still had some fight left.

  “Stay spread out!” he ordered his squadron. “Keep your intervals! One crunch could get us
all!”

  His Starblade flashed across the target planetoid’s rocky surface as his missiles struck home, twin flaring blossoms of white, impossibly bright light ripping into the surface. The bastards nailed Costner and Simmons as he boosted clear.

  His weapons bays were empty now. He still had his Gatling cannon, but at these speeds even streams of high-velocity depleted uranium were ineffective. His AI was advising him to get clear.

  But he overrode the suggestion and flipped his Starblade around the fast-flickering mote of his grav drive field, boosting hard to kill his forward velocity . . . then accelerating back toward the target. He couldn’t hurt the enemy mountain now, but he damn well could give other Black Demons a chance by drawing the enemy’s attention . . . drawing their fire.

  The asteroid designated Target Alfa loomed in front of him.

  Nungiirtok Fleet

  Sol System

  1735 hours, FST

  4236 Xavix realized the magnitude of his mistake as the surviving sensors on one side of the Ashtongtok Tah picked up the two high-mass kinetic-kill projectiles hurtling in from dead ahead. The Nungiirtok ship was no longer moving at relativistic speeds and the impact was far less than it might otherwise have been, but they fell into the relatively undamaged hemisphere of the planetoid warship and released their destructive fury in a pair of blasts that shook the Ashtongtok Tah to its very core.

  Xavix was flung to one side, his mental linkage with the sensory input and control systems broken, the web of cartilage that gave his body form and strength brutally torn along his left side. He was having trouble breathing, his breath coming in short, agonizing gasps. Pain shrieked through him.

  The Tok in the command center with him fared worse. The towering Nungiirtok possessed rigid bones rather than the more pliable cartilage of Tok Iad bodies, and the impact shattered the creatures, leaving them broken and twisted.

  Gravity was off again, as were all but the emergency lights. He tried linking again with the ship, with other Tok Iad, with anything . . . and found himself cut off and alone.

  Somehow, he managed to free himself from the webbing of his harness. Somehow, he managed to connect one tentacle with the snaking, stabbing arm of a medical facilitator and trigger the flow of healing nano.

  Somehow, 4236 Xavix lived.

  VFA-96, Black Demons

  Sol System

  1732 hours, EST

  Gregory twisted his Starblade across the planetoid’s sky, offering himself as a target. He was not going to turn and run, not when he had a chance of drawing the enemy’s fire and taking the pressure off those who still had missiles in their weapons bays. A savage detonation erupted on the horizon just ahead, and he gave an exultant shout. “Go, Demons! Fucking give it to them—”

  And in that moment a gravitic fist closed on his fighter.

  Koenig

  The Godstream

  1732 hours, EST

  As Yorktown continued her approach, the gestalt of a billion human and AI minds reached forward, encountering at last three of the alien planetoid warships. They witnessed the savage impact of a pair of kinetic-kill weapons on what had been the almost-intact hemisphere, saw twin clouds of vaporized rock boiling off into space, saw the two craters that remained, red-glowing and molten.

  Starblade fighters continued to crisscross the skies above those mountains, loosing their remaining nukes in a focused Armageddon. Space around the three planetoids was now filling with a thin haze—cooling rock vapor, sand-sized grains of debris, bits and pieces of alien hardware thrown off into the void. All three planetoids continued to fight, reaching out with invisible gravitic fists to crush and kill, but they appeared to be having considerable difficulty tracking the fast-moving fighters and bringing them down.

  What can we do? the massed gestalt asked.

  We cannot reach into the largest target, Konstantin replied. Their communications are down. But that target, a thousand kilometers beyond, is vulnerable.

  A tiny part of a far larger whole, Koenig moved past the large planetoid and zeroed in on the smallest of the three. It, too, had an entire hemisphere scoured away in fire, though the damage didn’t seem quite so severe or as extensive as on the larger ship. Possibly it had passed through the outer fringes of the AMSO cloud. In any case, Koenig could sense the power throbbing at its heart, sense the flow and flicker of internal communications, the bursts of electromagnetic energy as it attempted to re-establish communications with the largest alien target.

  We will use that as a carrier wave, Konstantin said, indicating the laser-com signal, and insert the Omega virus.

  Koenig rode the signal and found himself within the surreally alien virtual reality, found himself settling into control circuits and datastreams as the intelligence within the Godstream took control. A window opened in his mind . . . a highly detailed and realistic-looking CGI graphic generated by video pickups on the external surface. The largest planetoid, fiercely radiating in the infrared, hung vulnerable and helpless just a thousand kilometers away.

  Accelerate, Konstantin ordered, and the planetoid—it was called, Koenig noted, the Daledvekatok Tah—began moving forward.

  USNA CV Yorktown

  Deep Space

  1246 hours, FST

  “What the hell is going on?” Commander Charles Paxton, Yorkie’s First Officer, demanded.

  “Damned if I know, Number One,” Taggart replied. She was transfixed by the drama playing itself out in slow motion ahead. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Nungies have a mutiny on their hands.”

  Within her in-head window, Taggart could see the largest planetoid hanging dead in space, vast stretches of its surface partially molten, partially resurfaced by black, congealing rock with vivid fissures revealing the hot liquid beneath.

  One of the smaller planetoids, now almost five thousand kilometers beyond the first, was moving with relentless purpose. “Is that . . .” Taggart began.

  “A collision course, yes, Captain,” Mathers, the Combat Officer, replied, confirming her impression. “Target Bravo is closing with Target Alfa. Time to impact . . . eight point seven minutes.”

  “Ancient Lords . . .” Taggart said, then bit off a curse. She might no longer believe in the space-faring gods of the Ancient Alien Creationist Church, but the prayers and worshipful praises tended to flow in moments of crisis or awe.

  A new voice sounded inside her head.

  “Captain Taggart, I recommend that you keep the Yorktown well clear.”

  “Konstantin?”

  “Yes. We are steering one of the Nungiirtok ships into the other. The other two are fleeing or disabled. This should end the conflict. However, there may be a substantial spray of debris from the impact, and I do not wish to damage any human vessel.”

  “Helm!” Taggart snapped. “Vector change—away from target Alfa. Now!”

  “Aye, Captain. Decelerating and laying in a course of one-eight-zero relative.”

  “Konstantin! How . . . how are you doing this?”

  “It would take too long to explain, Captain. In very brief, I have linked a substantial portion of the Godstream through Yorktown’s electronic network, allowing us to extend ourselves into one of the enemy vessels and manipulate its control and power systems. We intend to set the vessel we have commandeered loose in the last moments before impact and withdraw to the Yorktown.”

  “Eternal gods of the stars . . .”

  Taggart stared at the unfolding scene ahead and wondered what gods the Nungiirtok might worship, and whether those gods welcomed the dead with open arms.

  USNA CVS America

  Flag Bridge

  Sol System

  1749 hours, FST

  Following in the wake of her fighters, the star carrier America drew closer to the fierce battle ahead, now some eight hundred thousand kilometers distant. Gray’s sensors were picking up three asteroids at that range, asteroids now almost at a dead stop, as well as the carrier Yorktown several thousand kilometers beyond.<
br />
  One of the ravaged planetoids appeared to be closing with another.

  “I recommend that you keep America and her support vessels well clear, Admiral. It will be dangerous moving too close.”

  “Right, Konstantin. We’ll—Konstantin?”

  Something in the voice or its manner had twigged at him. This was the original Konstantin, the super-AI America had left behind on Earth. He could feel America’s version of the machine intelligence folding into the older, more powerful mind without quite understanding how he was feeling that, or how he knew what it was.

  “Welcome back to the Sol System, Admiral,” Konstantin told him. There was a slight time delay, about three seconds, the communications lag caused by almost a million kilometers of distance between America and the Yorktown. “I am integrating your version of myself into my matrix. I see your mission was a success.”

  “I . . . yes, it was. What the hell is going down up there?”

  Again, the three-second delay dragged on the conversation. When Konstantin spoke again, it was to briefly sketch in the sequence of recent events: the damage to the Nungiirtok super-ships, the arrival of a gestalt mind within the Godstream, and the hijacking of one of the planetoids using the Omega virus to peel open the alien defensive systems and enter the command and control networks.

  “Understood,” Gray said. His eyes narrowed. “Are you in touch with Target Alfa now?”

  “Negative. Their communications . . .” There was a long pause. Then, “Alfa has just opened a communications channel, Admiral. They appear to wish to parlay.”

  “Accept it, Konstantin. If we can get their formal surrender, we can stop this war right now.”

  “Assuming they know what ‘surrender’ is, Admiral.”

  “Well, they’d damn well better learn!”

  “Comm channel open, Admiral. I have an entity calling itself 4236 Xavix on-line.”