by Alex Deva
His surroundings were completely inundated by war. Tens of thousands of bullets were flying in all directions, and dozens of missiles filled the space between the space station, the cruisers and their Wings and Pinions. Doina was defending the station, by moving Doi-the-ship, with incredible speed and dead accuracy, right in the path of oncoming missiles. Its static defence field then took care of them. But there was only so much she could do. Aram imagined her, a twelve-year-old girl, eyes closed, floating in One, her mind and spirit one with the starship, constantly trying to calculate the next move, and the one after that, and the one after that. It was too much. It had to be too much, for one single girl. She couldn't last for much longer.
And, dodging four aiming lasers at the same time as doing a tight barrel roll around a missile that was itself tumbling evasively end over end, he knew he couldn't last for much longer, either.
* * *
"Why aren't you firing?" demanded Jing.
Mark didn't answer. He was biting his lower lip, trying to take in the entire theatre of operations at once, in the three-dimensional projection that was hanging in the middle of One. He saw Aram and his incalculably dangerous and daring stunts, and those peculiar missiles that were, themselves, unbelievably capable in their missions to kill.
But something didn't add up.
He had a nagging thought, a suspicion that, with every passing second, was slowly turning into certainty.
"Why aren't you firing?" repeated the bald Chinese, looking confused from Mark to Tiessler to Doina and to the starfield projection.
"We've already lost three Pinions," said Tiessler, tersely. "And the Cameron took some serious damage."
"The Yanks have lost five Wings," said Mark. "And one of their cruisers is just floating dead in space."
"You must use your weapons," said Jing. "This tactic of yours is untenable. The girl can't keep this up forever."
Mark knew that. He screwed his face into a big frown as he scratched his chin.
"Why?" he asked.
"What do you mean why, damn it! Help us or we'll all die!"
"Why did the Yanks attack? Right at this particular moment?"
"Because they're crazy! Because they can! Because they want to destroy my station! And you must help us!"
Mark took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Think, he told himself.
After a few seconds, he opened them and looked hard at Tiessler.
"You're trying to force our hand."
The German returned his gaze impassibly.
"What?! Nonsense," said Jing.
"That's it, isn't it? You leaked it to the Americans that we were gonna come here. You staged this whole thing. They prepared those refuelling stations and they'd been waiting for us to fall into the trap."
"Oh, I assure you, mister Gardener," said Tiessler, "the American attack is entirely genuine."
Mark stared at the German, his fist slowly clenching.
Jing was also staring at Tiessler.
"Colonel?"
The German looked back at him.
"Yes, colonel?"
"Is it true? Did you risk my station for one ship with a medieval girl, a caveman and a traumatised grunt?"
"Hey," spoke Toma.
"It's OK," said Mark, quietly. "Yes, colonel," he continued to Jing. "The brave colonel Tiessler is quite a capable and willing officer. Willing to go as far as it takes to secure the support of a medieval girl, a caveman and a..." and he looked pointedly at the German again before finishing: "...traumatised grunt."
"My God," said Jing, appalled. "But how could you have known... How could you risk... Are you completely insane, Tiessler?!"
"Let's cut the crap," said the German, tiredly, ignoring the other's tirade. "There are two sides to this war. You belong on our side. Make your choice and act on it."
"Or what?" asked Mark, still quietly.
"You have two options, sir. You can have one side trying to kill you... or you can have both."
"What about options three and four?"
"Namely?"
"Option three, we could fight both of you."
Tiessler looked around. "This is truly an amazing ship," he said. "And you are doing your very best with it. But you are still only three people. Eventually, you will make a mistake. You will lose. What is option four?"
"We can leave you to fight your own damn war."
"And we can't risk that."
"Can you stop us?"
Tiessler sighed again.
"You are too great a liability to be allowed to come and go as you please. The risk that you'll turn on us is, quite simply, unacceptable."
"I don't think you can stop us."
"And I don't think you really want to leave -- not if you know that you can't ever come back. Just as I don't think you really want to fight us both. Not because you'd lose, but because of the damage you'd have to inflict on your own people."
"If you think..."
"It stopped," interrupted Doina.
XLV.
Tiessler and Jing immediately turned their attention back at the projection. Toma looked at her tablet.
And Mark looked at Doina.
"What stopped?"
"The beacon," she said. "It's not talking any longer."
Tiessler looked up in alarm.
"Why? How?"
"It's gone," said Toma. "Right from under their noses. Turned into dust, right there, in the lab on the Moon."
Jing looked at her, then at Mark. "What does that mean?"
The Englishman raised his eyebrows.
"I assume it means that they're here."
The two guests immediately turned back to the starfield projection. Toma and Mark turned to Doina.
"I don't know," she said, tiredly. "Doi can't feel anyone new."
"Nothing on our deep space radars," said Jing, after consulting his tablet.
"Well, what other reason could there be?" said Mark. "Somehow I doubt the beacon battery just ran out."
"So where are they, then?"
He shrugged and didn't answer.
"There's an increased level of gamma radiation," said captain Toma, reading from her tab.
Jing glanced at his own tablet for confirmation, then said:
"Are you telling me they're radiation? What, photons?"
"I don't know, but if they are, then we're dead," she answered.
"What do they actually look like, anyway?" This time, the Chinese addressed the question directly to Doina.
"I don't know," she repeated.
"Surely they're in the ship's database?"
"Don't answer that," Mark intervened quickly.
Tiessler grunted. "Mister Gardener, really. You need to make up your mind."
"My mind is well made up, colonel."
"What --"
* * *
They used the planetary and lunar gravity to coagulate a very, very tiny part of a filament -- several hundred million particles only -- into about half a microgram, and then they simply let it fall towards the largest structure on the orbit.
* * *
An enormous ball of fire, so large and bright that, from the perspective of the starfield, it dwarfed the very Earth itself, suddenly replaced the Yǒngqì. The orbital space station exploded in stages; first, one of the forward compartments blew up in a spherical blast, then its midsection, then everything.
The Monnet, who had disengaged when the Americans arrived and was floating helpless quite some distance away, barely managed to escape.
But the Cameron, which had been manoeuvring to protect the Yǒngqì, was engulfed in the explosion and, in a second, it also turned into white fire.
The starship's defensive field turned silver all around it, as it protected the torus from the unbelievable force of the shock wave and the high-speed debris.
Two American Wings, far too sluggish to react, were next. They exploded brightly when the edges of the hot, white blast sphere reached them.
Then another Wi
ng blew up, and then another, and then two Pinions as they desperately tried to get away from the event horizon.
The scale of the disaster was colossal.
Groaning in pain, Doina squeezed her eyes shut as she ordered the starship away. They had been only a few kilometres from the Yǒngqì. Would they have survived without the field? Nobody wanted to know.
Aram had fortunately been far away beyond the attacking American ships, trying to lure three missiles into the outer space, in the hope that they'd run out of fuel. He had seen the explosion on his own holocomms, and nearly lost control of Effo. Not knowing what else to do, he accelerated madly, way beyond the chase capabilities of the missiles, and swerved downwards, towards the Earth, trying to assess what had happened.
"Doi, Mark," he called, on Effo's gravity wave modulating communicator. "Are you there?"
At first, there was no answer. Just as he was about to repeat the message, fighting to control the cold grip inside his stomach, he heard Doina:
"We're still here."
And then Mark:
"Are you hurt?"
"We're fine," he answered with relief, instinctively using the plural to include Effo in the assessment. "What in the name of fuck was that? Did the Americans do that?"
Back in the starship, the Chinese had turned red. Even his bald head had got a deep pink shade. He stared at the projection and whispered: "My family... My station..."
Tiessler was using his tab frantically.
"There was no missile collision," he said. "It wasn't the Yanks."
Then, he looked up at Mark and exhaled slowly, as he gave the Englishman a look to melt steel.
"Was it you?" he asked, between clenched teeth.
"Colonel, we did not do this. I give you my word."
"I would never, ever do anything like this," said Doina in tears.
"I need the truth," repeated Tiessler.
"This is the truth," said Mark. "I swear. We are not your enemy, sir."
"You just spoke of becoming one."
"Not like this, colonel. Definitely not like this."
The German's gaze remained fixed on him.
"Oh, my God," said Toma, suddenly.
"Yes," said Jing, sourly. "Our families."
"Antimatter," she said. "It was an antimatter explosion."
Tiessler turned to look at her. She showed him her tab. He inspected it quickly and said:
"So that's what caused the gamma radiation."
"Yes," she said. "Small, free-floating nuclei coming into contact with positrons."
"That's why we can't see them," he said. "That's why this ship can't detect them. They're not normal matter."
He looked around in dismay.
"They've arrived," he announced. "They're here, and that was how they let us know they're here. And they're made of antimatter."
XLVI.
"Wait," said Mark, confused. "The StarTrek stuff? Does that really exist?"
"Of course it does," said Toma. "Positrons are electrons with a positive charge. They can form anti-atoms just the same, and those anti-atoms make antimatter."
"I thought that was just science-fiction," he mumbled.
"It's the most expensive thing to make in the history of things," she went on. "One microgram of antimatter costs trillions."
Of what? the Brit was about to ask, when he noticed Jing. The Chinese was staring at nothing, his eyes welling with tears. He seemed to have stopped breathing.
"How many has he lost?" he asked Tiessler, softly.
"Much more than you have," came the German's dry answer.
Once more, remembering Red and Sara, Mark felt like he was choking. He couldn't even begin to imagine what losing tens or hundreds of people -- including your own family -- would feel like. Suddenly, he couldn't muster the nerve to look at Jing.
"Shit," he whispered, almost against his will.
A bell chimed on Tiessler's tab.
"It's Drake," he said.
"Who?"
"The American attack fleet commander."
Mark's eyebrows went up. He looked at Toma, but her expression was neutral. Jing was still immobile, inaccessible. Then he looked at Doina, but she merely shrugged.
The German answered the call.
"Colonel," he said.
"Colonel," the voice from the tablet said, in a North American accent.
Tiessler said nothing more.
"Well, it wasn't us," said Drake.
"That much I believe," replied Tiessler.
"Are you on the alien ship?"
"I am."
A short silence betrayed the American's hesitation.
"Have they chosen a side?"
"You cheating, manipulating bastards," whispered Mark. Tiessler didn't even look at him.
"Well, not as such, no," he said instead into the tablet.
"Was it them?"
"No!" said Doina again, loudly, impatient.
"Not unless they can make antimatter," answered Tiessler, again not looking up.
"So you got that, too. Those beacon builders, then? Heard that thing stopped transmitting right before the... event."
"My congratulations to your spies," said the German, acidly. "Yes, we do believe it was them."
Drake said nothing.
"I think we should arrange for a cease-fire and a little chat," continued the German.
Drake said nothing.
"New elements have... come to light," went on Tiessler.
After a while, the American spoke again:
"We could take you out now, you know? The Cameron's gone and the Monnet is just a large piece of floating junk."
"Actually no, you couldn't," snapped Doina. Mark, who had been listening to the discussion, turned to her with some surprise. He had not seen the girl display that level of annoyance before. She was like a mother scolding two bad kids.
"Nobody's taking anybody out. Jesus, people, what's wrong with you? Are all old men from all history obsessed with nothing but taking each other out?"
Tiessler was surprised, too. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
"Cease fire," ordered the girl, loudly. "NOW."
"Is that the girl?" asked Drake via the comm link.
"Oh, yes it is," said the German.
"I'm coming there right now."
They did agree on the cease-fire. Both parties' missiles were retasked and either returned to their launch platforms, or -- if they didn't have enough fuel, or if their launch platforms had just been vaporised in the antimatter explosion -- they computed a course for the Sun.
Jing was a wreck. Tiessler had asked for a rescue transport. Doina said that there was nothing to rescue him from, as long as he was inside the starship, but agreed that he should be returned to his own people, such as they were left. An Eurasian Pinion ship had parked above, and, with help from two nervous crew members, Tiessler and Toma transferred the Chinese into it. Later, the Pinion would enter atmosphere and deliver him to Earth, and to whatever fate might await him there.
Aram had docked Effo under the central airlock, and then rejoined Mark, Doina, Tiessler and Toma.
And then, an American crate ship replaced the Pinion, and a man in an American space suit came out. He expertly performed the necessary motions to transfer from the crate to Doi, and soon he was inside the airlock.
Colonel Tom Drake was a very serious man in his early thirties, with cropped, blond hair and hazel eyes. Coming in from the airlock, he did not smile as he greeted the five people, and did not offer to shake hands. He just nodded curtly, and spoke first.
"Miss Doina. Mister Gardener. Mister Aram. Colonel Tiessler. Captain Toma. My name is colonel Tom Drake, of the United States Air Force. I am here to negotiate terms. Requesting permission to come aboard."
Nobody betrayed any surprise for the fact that the Yank knew them all by name.
"Granted. Welcome to Starship Doi. This way, colonel," said Mark, who had been quite used with military formality in his previous life. (Or wa
s it two lifetimes ago? he wondered briefly.)
Flanking the American, they walked back through the spoke towards the room. Again, Drake did not even blink as they all changed gravity direction at the entrance. He was making a point of showing not only that he was tough, but that he was well-informed, too. The SEALS and the hapless Gaines had obviously been thoroughly debriefed.
"I represent the United States government," he said as soon as they sat down around the starfield projection, to which he gave only the most cursory glance. "The crew of Starship Doi have committed an act of war against us. We, therefore, are..."
"Shut up, Drake," said Tiessler, interrupting.
The American stopped, looked at the German with an unreadable expression, then started again: "We, therefore, are..."
"...very, very stupid," filled in Doina, rolling her eyes dismissively.
Drake's eyebrows shot up.
"We never attacked you. If anything, you waged war on us. Neither of your attempts to make us join one of your sides is working. We do not wish to help you kill each other. So just stop it."
Is she really twelve years old?! wondered Mark for the hundredth time.
Drake swallowed hard. He nodded imperceptibly and asked:
"Did you destroy the Yǒngqì?"
"Absolutely not," she answered. "I would never, ever do such a thing."
Bad choice of pronouns, thought Mark. The American caught it too, even if his face didn't show it. He tried to exploit it, as he slowly turned towards Aram and asked, quietly:
"Did you destroy the Yǒngqì?"
The Dacian leaned forward, looking the American officer in the eye, and said one single word, clearly and definitely:
"No."
It was Tiessler's turn to speak.
"Actually, col-"
"Quiet," said Doina.
"Hello," said a new voice from the walls, in a strong Yorkshire accent. "Testing, testing."
XLVII.
Mark's special forces training helped him master his reaction, but Aram straightened up and looked at the walls, startled by the new and unexpected voice. Drake and Tiessler were alarmed too, but they also took note of the Dacian's surprised reaction. It told them that the new voice was not expected. Toma looked at Doina, whose face, for the first time, had a disconcerted expression. The Romanian captain looked at her superior and gave him a look filled with meaning.