Selected Short Stories Featuring Ghost Dust

by Nicolas Wilson

debrief, but instead went straight to the papers, er, the news, rather, for you young bastards.

  The ship fired off before the Deputy PM could figure out whether or not to attack, taking the rest of the mission with it, but within a month, seven more of the ships were operating in our solar system (and it seemed a day didn’t go by without astronomers or probes discovering a new ship patrolling the Milky Way).

  So our President, the US President that is, sent them a message, saying roughly, “These are not the actions of a peaceful people. We do not desire conflict. If you do not remove your ships from our planetary orbit quickly, and do not within seven rotations of our planet remove your ships to the boundaries of our solar system, we will interpret your actions as hostile, and respond accordingly.”

  And in that week, they doubled their presence. I remember people saying how we had a Democrat in office so it was a bluff, but good to his word, we launched an offensive on the day God would have rested. The spears had never had a chance to get used in combat, despite the fact we’d been calling them the tip of the spear for a while. The rest of the world stood behind us (way behind us), and waited for us to use the weapon system a previous administration had called “the equivalent in this generation of the atomic bomb in its time.”

  The spears were designed to launch from space stations, but the first series were designed and built planet-side. As a show of good faith we'd never launched them, and to get them into the atmosphere they’d designed a kind of cannon. To keep from killing the pilots, the spear had to accelerate slowly, so the “chamber” of the cannon went for several miles underground, where electromagnets gradually sped the spear up to escape velocity.

  That first battle actually went rather well. It seems we caught the Halcyon with their pants down (as I’ve said, they seemed to be largely ignorant of the current state of the world, and since then, the consensus is that they were operating on information off radio broadcasts from before the fifties); our loss rate was closer to 40%; this was when the spears were at their technical peak, and each of them had just received the most thorough technical going over of their service careers.

  By the end of another week we’d destroyed the Halcyon ships in our system, including a third wave that arrived in the interim. We had other defenses, sure, like the planetary defense grid we set up to destroy asteroids, and some of the more conventional fighter ship designs. But the spears were the only truly effective counter to the Halcyon tech.

  After about a decade, the war ground to a stalemate. They'd put a little more armor on the next wave, we’d figure out a new angle of attack, rinse and repeat. We still keep them mostly out of the system, but the Milky Way is infested. We keep an eye on encroachment on the system, but we rarely venture too far past that.

  At least, that used to be the plan. But while the Halcyon seem to be relentless, the war had taken its toll on humanity. It’s hard to convince anyone that a 3 in 10 chance of survival, getting crappier with every mission, is a good life decision.

  The wormprobes had been mapping space, time and whatever the hell you’d call alternate space-times throughout the war. Most wormholes go nowhere useful- 99.99% of them go to alternate universes, and of the rest quite a few dump you too close to a star or a black hole (or into the center of a planet). But there’s several dozen out of the six hundred thousand known wormholes that actually do connect up and make for quick travel.

  The Halcyon thought they were being clever blowing up the probes on sight, but slowly, over time, that trail of destroyed probes led us back to the Halcyon home world. So we’ve got a third of our remaining strike wing on what is likely a suicide mission- which seems right up a spear pilot’s alley. We don’t think we can take the planet out, but if we can take the fight to them, make the Halcyon bleed the way we have, they might lose their taste for it.

  I’m the only gray hair left in the wing; the last of my contemporaries took early retirement a few years ago. I guess they’d all gone out drinking and started thinking real hard on the numbers, and when they woke up the next morning, between them was a calculator with a number on it so small that it had an e in it, and they realized that it was their chance of surviving to retirement. I guess that makes me the de facto commander, even though a few of these pilots have degrees or ROTCed and technically outrank me.

  Our mission, basically, is to find the biggest ship or settlement in proximity to Halcyon and destroy it. The last probe, the one that finally found Halcyon, had transmitted the location of a larger ship near the planet right before it was destroyed. That first Halcyon ship that floated on the Thames was large enough to be counted as a mobile station; this new, bigger ship was to that ship as carrier stations are to spears. Only one had ever made it to Earth space, and even then, we nuked the bastard thing the moment it got as close to us as the moon. Somebody (probably another hoity-toity Brit) had the bright idea to name them Daeva.

  Our wormhole spits us out close enough that Halcyon looks like our moon from Earth (though from the probe we know it’s bigger, so we must be further away than that). Almost immediately I see the Daeva that shot the probe, but it’s hardly functional, still docked and only half-built, with entire decks exposed to the vacuum of space. A cluster of six moons have been connected with a skeleton of metal tubes to create a massive port for ships- big enough to send the right message.

  My targeting computer doesn’t spare a moment to take in the site, and immediately points out structural weaknesses, and color-codes them. The data goes out to the squadron commanders, also color-coded. There’s a pause, where the silent vacuum is all that seems to exist, before I give the closest to an order that I can: “kill it.”

  I’m first off the mark, not least of which because I was the first out of the wormhole. The targeting computer, acting off some weird coded voodoo using what I typed in as my preferences years ago and my actual tactical decisions and maneuvering during missions past, assigns me the central structure, a power plant in the core operating a series of electromagnets that, along with the infrastructure, keep the six moons from breaking apart. There are three main tendrils connecting the largest moons to this hub, which means at least three clean passes, unless I want to delegate- and I hate delegating.

  The Halcyon have been careless, and it shows. We make two-thirds of the distance before they get weapons online and start firing; I guess they’ve gotten complacent, being so far from the front line, but these men with me, even the rooks, have been mentally preparing for this moment for months.

  I talked to command about getting us a nuke, but the physicists couldn’t guarantee that wormhole travel wouldn’t set it off, and also couldn’t guarantee that if that happened it wouldn’t seriously cripple space-time. So it’s the first time we’ve put spears up against a Daeva (or half of one, as the case may be). It’s got a cannon battery on its bow that looks like whiskers on some kind of horribly elongated feline/caterpillar crossbreed, and the closer we get to the damn thing the more certain I am that those cannons are as big as the one that first shot the spears into space.

  The first two fire off, and two pilots die in fire; their ships explode, as their destruct sequences auto-trigger, to make sure the ships don’t fall into enemy hands. I have my fingers over the screen, and a fighter from every squad diverts to join the one attacking the Daeva; it’s odd how seamlessly the carnage orchestrates itself, how effortlessly the ships move from relatively safe missions to a likely death.

  I want to break formation, chase after the Daeva myself; but that would sow confusion, and undermine the commander of that section- and I don’t know any more about taking down a Daeva than any of them. But realizing all of this, knowing it, is not the same as wanting it or even accepting it, and I smash my hand down on the screen, and the spear lurches a little as it gives me speed it shouldn’t have to give.

  There’s about a minute to impact. I’m aimed for the widest tendril, the one supplying power and stability to the largest moon, because if something g
oes sideways and it’s the only one I’m around to take out it’ll be the most use to the ones left behind. I power down comms and the tactical oversight computer, so the spear can focus on punching a clean hole through that cord (it’s the little things like that that are usually the difference between a short and medium range career.)

  A small message pops up on my screen to tell me that the tube is twice as wide as the spear, at a minimum, and that, oh yeah, it’s full of electricity- a lot of electricity. But ballistics should take care of the former, and the latter, well, I can only hope that my shielding is up for it, because there aren’t really any alternatives.

  The spear hits the tube and it distorts, bends, like human flesh around the force of a gunshot, then, in a splash of beautiful sparks, tears like paper, and the tear ripples through it as suddenly my entire spear is bathed in electricity- and then I’m free out the other side. I’m about to give a loud whoop when suddenly everything dies, all my systems, and the ship yaws. I’m floating free, and the spear spins to face the planet, and I know my only hope in hell is that a full reboot kicks things back on, so I power down manually.

  Halcyon, the