The Nasstah species was very similar in morphology and culture to humanity’s original tormentors, the Risshah, better-known as the Snakes. Like the Snakes, the Vipers’ preferred method of dealing with enemies was genocide. There had been eight major cities and about a hundred towns in Heinlein-Five; they all had been turned into shallow craters, coated with the slag of molten concrete, steel and whatever remained of living things after being subjected to temperatures in the thousands of degrees for eight to ten hours. When Sixth Fleet had expelled the last invaders from the system, search and rescue operations had found three hundred thousand survivors, scattered in small groups that had hid in mining tunnels, thick jungles or forests, remote mountain valleys, or the depths of the planet’s two oceans. That so many still lived after several months of Viper occupation was a small miracle, due mostly to the fact that the aliens had been too preoccupied planning the next phase of their invasion to do a proper cleansing of their conquest.
One might say that after you’d seen one of the ‘soup bowls’ left behind by thermal bloom depopulation weapons, you’d seen them all. Just a big round expanse of gray-and-black that would eventually fill with water if conditions were right; for very large cities, you got several overlapping circles of destruction, meant to catch as much of the population as possible. The worst sights were on the periphery of the strikes, the suburbs or nearby villages that hadn’t warranted full destruction. Most of them had burned down by conventional fires sparked by the conflagrations inside the death-domes. Although force fields kept most of the heat inside the sphere of destruction, some leakage occurred, enough to ignite anything flammable nearby.
Givens relived her walk down one such suburb: neat rows of houses surrounded by lawns and picket fences. It had been the kind of community you could find in any of nearly thirty American worlds, anywhere population had grown to the point urban sprawl became inevitable. Fire had destroyed those neat wood and brick homes and taken the lives of the people who’d owned them. Here and there, houses that had been spared from the initial flames had been struck by shuttle flybys, Viper small craft conducting kill sweeps to finish the job the thermal weapons had started. A two-story Colonial had taken a hit from a graviton blast: half of the structure was still standing, and Givens had been able to see individual rooms lain bare by the barrage: the children’s bedrooms had been the worst, the gaily decorated walls and the Little League trophies providing glimpses of their lives before death had come for them.
The warp vision took her memories and twisted them: here she saw corpses everywhere, male, female, old and young, butchered a hundred different ways. A row of heads on spikes welcomed her. She shook her head: none of that had happened at Heinlein-Five. The Vipers didn’t go for such flamboyant displays of brutality; simple death was enough to satisfy them. The sight was just as revolting and disturbing as if she was experiencing it in the real world, however.
Why? Why is space travel the stuff of nightmares?
Every species who had ventured into the stars had spent millions of hours – possibly millions of years – trying to answer that question. The leading theory was that sapient minds, bereft of physical input while inside warp space, began to feed on itself, much like when exposed to other forms of sensory deprivation. Givens was unconvinced. There was something else at work, something that seemed motivated primarily by malice and sadism.
For what seemed like an eternity – twelve hours by the ships’ clocks, but far longer from her point of view – they finally emerged into reality. Her body – including, thankfully, her bladder – felt as if no time had passed. It took a few minutes to clear her mental cobwebs, but soon she and everyone else on the bridge was ready for action, except for a young ensign who fell into convulsions and had to be carried to sick bay. The rest of Sixth Fleet reported another dozen or so warp-induced casualties: par for the course, when you put some thirty thousand spacers through twelve hours of transit. None of the injuries seemed to be serious or permanent, which was a little better than average. She decided to take it as a good omen.
Nasstah-125 (designated Hades System by US Fleet Command) appeared on the tactical holotank. The Vipers didn’t bother naming their star systems, simply assigning them a number. Of their four hundred or so colonies, N-125 was the fifth largest, a major trade and manufacturing center, with three inhabited worlds, a massive asteroid mining operation, and a network of ley lines connecting the Nasstah Union to half a dozen other polities. Its population, nearly eight billion strong, outnumbered every nation on Earth and their colonies combined. A sobering fact, especially when you considered that the Vipers were the junior member of the triple alliance that had sworn to eradicate humanity.
Sixty billion to seven, if one counted not just the US’ population but every human drawing breath in the galaxy. Almost four hundred billion to seven when you added the populations of the Lhan Arkh Congress and the Galactic Imperium. Granted, none of those empires could devote their entire resources to the war, not without risking leaving their other frontiers unprotected, but even a fraction of it would likely be enough to do the job. At least, it would if Givens and the US Navy failed to do theirs.
“The Nasstah Quadrant Defense Fleet is deployed around Hades One, Two and Three,” her Chief Tactical Officer reported. “Just about evenly spread between the three planets.”
He who defends everything, defends nothing. The wisdom of Frederick the Great didn’t seem to have made it to this part of the galaxy. The smart play would have been to concentrate all their forces in one spot and jump her ships wherever she decided to attack. On the other hand, their plan was likely to wait until she engaged one of their formations and then have the other two try to box her in by attacking from three sides.
“Enemy order of battle confirmed. Displaying it now.”
Numbers and symbols replaced the star map in the holotank. Givens nodded approvingly at what she saw there. For a change, the intelligence briefings appeared to have been accurate. The force facing Sixth Fleet was substantial – nine dreadnoughts and twenty battleships, with the usual complement of battlecruisers and lighter space combatants – but it was comprised of older ships, largely obsolete compared to the ones she’d faced at Parthenon. Only about a dozen of the newer missile-heavy ships were in evidence. The Vipers had sent out their varsity to Heinlein and Parthenon; those elite divisions and their crews were now scattered gas and debris in those star systems.
This was going to be no picnic, however. The enemy ships were holding positions close to their main planets, where they could be supported by ground and orbital fortresses who could unleash missile volleys just as massive as the armada that had nearly destroyed Sixth Fleet. Fulfilling her mission would require some fancy footwork.
Her orders were to obliterate Nasstah-125 unless the Vipers offered their unconditional surrender.
“Set a course for the main asteroid belt,” she ordered. “We’ll start around the edges and see if they feel like coming out to play.”
Whatever reservations she might have felt about the devastation her ships were about to inflict on sixty million asteroid miners had been effectively stilled by what she had seen at Heinlein.
“You really should have left us alone,” she muttered.
* * *
“Pretty cold-blooded of them,” Admiral Givens commented, three days later. All exoplanetary facilities in N-125 had been destroyed. The Viper fleets had remained in place around the three inhabited worlds, refusing to meet her in a deep space battle. She didn’t think she could have done the same, even with direct orders to that effect.
It had been a massacre. The miners had almost no defenses, and what they had seemed mostly designed to destroy meteors and other system debris rather than to engage starships. They had done their best, though, inflicting no serious damage but dying with their faces to their enemy and weapons in hand, which Givens had to respect. She still hadn’t hesitated to blow up their homes or destroy their power and life support systems, dooming
any survivors to a long lingering death. There would be nightmares – or warp visions – later, but they wouldn’t stop her from doing her job.
“Time to start the dance. Engage.”
Sixth Fleet emerged from a brief warp jump a mere two light seconds away from Hades-Two, an ocean-covered planet about ten percent larger than Earth, located right in the Class-F star’s Goldilocks Zone, ideal for human habitation if the Vipers hadn’t filled its atmosphere with assorted noxious gases to fit their biological needs. This was the most heavily-populated world in the system. Its land masses glowed brightly with the light pollution of hundreds of massive cities. Six billion Nasstah called the planet their home, almost as many people as had lived on Earth before First Contact.
“Enemy maneuvering to engage. Planetary and orbital defense bases launching.”
“Very well. Carry on,” Givens said calmly. Having an actual enemy to fight rather than helpless civilians made her feel better. Slightly less unclean, even.
The attack plans Sixth Fleet had refined since the Battle of Parthenon worked as advertised. They’d had some practice already, at N-311 and N-92, two lesser Viper worlds they’d struck on their way here. Learning how to use the newfangled space fighters had taken some doing, especially since she only had a bit over a hundred of the little wonder-weapons to play with and no chance of reinforcements any time soon.
“Carrier Strike Group One has launched its first sortie,” the CTO announced.
A hundred and fifteen warp-capable single-seat vessels appeared inside the planet’s atmosphere and blasted ten of its thirty-two ground fortresses at point-blank range; their twenty-inch graviton guns punched through the targets’ force fields and armor, bursting open power plants and detonating stored ordnance. On one of the visual display screens, bright dots blossomed on the planet’s surface and engulfed the smaller points of light of civilian cities, marking explosions massive enough to be seen from orbit. Like malignant ghosts, the fighters disappeared as suddenly as they had arrived, before any defenders had time to acquire and engage them. Their next sortie would strike at other bases, orbital fortresses and, eventually, the enemy fleet’s capital ships.
Sixth Fleet launched its own missiles as it moved into beam weapon engagement range. The other two Viper formations abandoned their planets and appeared behind her ships, but she’d been expecting that and left blocking forces in place to keep them busy while she dealt with the enemy in front of her. She had more than enough firepower for the job at hand.
Enemy missiles were destroyed by the hundreds as they lumbered forward, faster than any manned vessel but still pitifully slow against energy weapons. Some eventually reached their targets, however. Here and there, a ship-killer managed to avoid the warp shields protecting most of the human vessels’ surface and exploded where it might inflict damage. The Halsey was struck once, but Givens didn’t even feel the impact: a glancing blow, easily absorbed by her conventional force fields. Others were less lucky: a frigate was damaged severely enough to fall out of the line of battle, and the Pan-Asian battlecruiser Jinan lost its main gun battery from a lucky hit. That was the extent of the damage Sixth Fleet suffered before it reached direct fire range. By that time, the fortresses that would have doubled the defending formation’s firepower had been slaughtered by her fighters.
“Fire as you bear.”
Sixth Fleet’s ships opened up on targets of opportunity, using their heaviest weapons first. Graviton cannon unleashed nearly-invisible beams of twisted space-time, followed by bright plasma discharges and the brief flashes of ultra-heavy lasers. The enemy replied in kind, but most of their shots were swallowed into the maws of warp apertures protecting the human vessels. And as if that wasn’t enough, the surviving hundred and twelve warp fighters engaged the heaviest Viper warships from all angles, striking weak points and disappearing an instant later. Givens watched the growing enemy casualty graphs on the tactical screen, fighting to keep her composure; the devastation CSG-1’s fighters were inflicting was awe-inspiring. If she had three or four hundred fighters at her command, she could have overcome every Nasstah fleet in the galaxy. Well, at least until the enemy came up with countermeasures. She was enjoying the benefits of unleashing a brand-new weapon system on an unprepared foe. Sixth Fleet had gone on the offensive too quickly for the news to sink in. Sooner or later, the enemy would adapt, and maybe even overcome the latest surprise humanity had brought to the table. Not today, however. Not today.
Another screen displayed a close-up view of the Viper flagship coming apart: bright blue and gold flames erupted at several spots along the bulbous two-kilometer shape after fighter and main gun shots inflicted critical damage. The forward section erupted in a cataclysmic explosion that filled the screen with white light for several seconds. When the flash was over, nothing recognizable remained of the dreadnought. Six thousand aliens and a tenth of the enemy fleet’s firepower went with it.
After that, it was as much of a massacre as the attack on the asteroid facilities. The two other Viper formations broke off their attack and warped back to their original bases, but not before a final fighter attack decimated them. Going into warp under fire all but guaranteed severe losses. The Vipers would have been better off staying put, not that anything was going to save them in the end.
Admiral Givens clenched her jaw and watched silently while her people did their work. Once all space and orbital defenses were down, her Marines, with overhead fighter support, would finish off the ground bases. And then she’d start burning every Nasstah city on the planet, using the same murder devices the enemy preferred for the job. Thermal-bloom devices were both the oldest and most advanced weapon system in the galaxy: they were a multimillion-year-old gift from the Elder Races, and one that nobody had been able to reverse-engineer for any purpose other than genocide. Anyone willing to kill billions of civilians used them. Which was another way of saying all Starfarer civilizations used them.
And to think we once assumed any species that managed to cross the spans between stars would have evolved beyond violence, Givens mused bitterly as she contemplated the brutal slog ahead of her. It would be funny if it wasn’t so terribly sad.
And worse, we have shown ourselves incredibly adept at thriving in this nastiness.
More Viper ships burned on the screen, harbingers of the greater fires that would soon follow.
Earth, Sol System, 165 AFC
“The Nasstah didn’t have enough transport in-system to evacuate more than five million people or so. They clearly never expected Sixth Fleet would venture so deeply into their territory. They also refused our demand for unconditional surrender. They refused to parley at all, at least at first. Their counteroffer was sent only after Hades-Two and Hades-One had been neutralized, and Third Fleet was about to advance towards the single remaining inhabited planet in the system.”
The rear admiral giving the briefing was a typical remfie, Tyson Keller thought sourly. The kind of staff desk jockey that could keep a straight face while using terms like ‘neutralize’ to refer to mass carnage unparalleled in Earth’s history prior to First Contact. Then again, Tyson supposed it just wasn’t politically wise to baldly tell the President that the US Navy had consigned seven billion sophonts to the flames. Even if the current POTUS was the kind that liked things stated plainly.
“And we have the text of their offer,” President Albert P. Hewer said, his homely features betraying none of the emotions he must be surely feeling at this moment. “That will be all, Admiral Felton.”
After the high-ranking flunky was gone, Hewer turned to the other two people in the room. “Thoughts, gentlemen?”
“Offhand? Their offer’s not good enough,” Tyson said, glancing at the third man in the office.
Geoff Chappelle, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, was the oldest man in the room, which was saying a lot; he’d been pushing ninety by the time First Contact happened, and had been one of the few people that age who’d survived the
early anti-agathic treatments Earth’s alien benefactors had provided the survivors. Like Keller, Chappelle had been a science fiction writer, although one who’d spent a great deal more time and energy thinking about what aliens would be like, should humans ever encounter them. While not a military veteran himself, the current National Security Advisor had decades of experience studying military technology as well as imagining ways of advancing it. His expertise in politics and history were just icing on the cake. Chappelle had hit the floor running as soon as Starfarer tech restored him to full health, and played a crucial role in helping the US survive and eventually thrive in the brave new world that had begun with the deaths of well over half of every human on the planet. Tyson valued the man’s insights, even though he often disagreed with them.
“The definition of a good diplomatic deal is one where all parties involved are equally unhappy with the result,” Chappelle said. “On paper – I wonder how long we’ll be using that archaic term – the deal looks pretty good. The Vipers withdraw from the Tripartite Galactic Alliance, refuse to allow the other two members to use their space lanes for transit or supply, and pay us some pretty hefty reparations, both in Galactic Credit Units and war materiel. It’s not unconditional surrender, but not bad at all. On paper. Question is, do we trust them to keep to the terms?”
“That’s one of my problems with it,” Tyson said. “As a feeb friend of mine used to say, ‘Once a cocksucker, always a cocksucker.’ Attacking us without a declaration of war pretty much guarantees they’ll break their word as soon as it’s convenient to do so.”
“On the other hand, at the moment it is very convenient for them to offer us those terms and to stick to them,” the NSA noted. “We just killed over one tenth of their total population. Their losses in industrial capacity are much worse, possibly in the thirty percent range. Admiral Givens made sure all the shipyards in the system were utterly destroyed before agreeing to the cease-fire. And their invasion and defense fleets in that sector have been annihilated. We’ve crippled them.”
Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series Page 64