Crusade of Vengeance

by Jay Allan

  She jerked her hands back and forth, changing the exact direction of her move every second or two. She had the automated system controlling the approach, but she herself directed the evasive moves, the attempt to avoid incoming fire, while she closed with the enemy ship.

  Her target hadn’t noticed her, or at least not her true plan, for a while, allowing her to get close…absurdly close. Then, suddenly it realized. It directed its fire on her, shooting almost wildly.

  Its engine power exceeded hers, but its starting velocity was almost nothing. She analyzed the situation, decided herself before actually calculating…and both methods told her the same thing. She was going to catch it. It might hit her, destroy her, but it wasn’t getting away.

  She sat, her eyes focused hard, her hands still moving randomly, doing her best to avoid incoming fire. She had no guns left…but it didn’t matter. Either she would hit the enemy ship, destroying them both, or she would be shot on the way in, blasted to bits before she could close.

  She was able to do a new calculation, determine when her ship would hit the enemy. Assuming her thrust remained the same, and the enemy’s as well, it would be…fifty seconds.

  She was surprised, her guesstimates had been more in the range of a minute and a half. Not that it made that much difference, but it was half of her projected lifespan. If all went well, she had less than a minute to live.

  She thought, and for a second, she panicked. She almost got up and ran after her crew, after those she had sent away. But it was too late, and she knew her chances were better if she remained. The ship could automatically direct itself, of course, but her controlling the evasive maneuvers gave it a better chance of making it. And she didn’t really want to live any longer. If she managed, if she directed her ruined ship into the best one the enemy had left, she would be a hero, even more than she was already.

  Assuming anyone survives…

  That she didn’t know, and it troubled her. But the enemy was still blocking any comm from the planet, and that wasn’t going to stop in the next thirty seconds.

  Twenty-five, she realized…

  She would do what she had to do, what she needed to do…but she would have no idea whether it was too late, whether it would make a difference or not. She looked around at the bridge, empty save for her, and just as she turned back, the ship shook hard. It was a hit, a pretty bad one. She was tempted to check the damage control—the automated systems would at least give her an idea of how bad the damage was—but she didn’t. It didn’t matter, not at all. All that mattered was the ship’s direction, its targeting.

  She looked down, saw that the impact and explosions had pushed her course off a bit. There were only seconds left, but her gut told her she could redirect the ship, get it back on target. She reached down, fired the thrusters—which were still functional, if at a lower level than before—and struggled to restore the ship’s targeting…to ram the enemy vessel.

  The target ship knew exactly what she was doing, and it was blasting at full thrust, using its engines to avoid impact. It was hard to hit a ship, even more difficult than targeting one with a weapon. But she was close now, and the vessel’s velocity was still low. She focused, using all of her energy that remained, all of the attention she could dredge up.

  Her eyes dropped to the timer, now at ten seconds. It occurred to her, briefly, that her life was down to ten seconds, that all of her time, the years she had lived, was almost over. But she wrestled those thoughts away and focused on adjusting her ship’s thrust. If the enemy had been at anything like standard speed, she wouldn’t have had a chance to hit it. But it had started almost stationary, in orbit of the planet.

  And that gave her a chance.

  She directed the thrust by hand, no time to rely on any of the computers left functioning. The enemy ship was there, right there, weaving wildly, but somehow, she matched every twitch, every turn. Her eyes were fixed, staring at the vessel, watching its every move.

  Her eyes dropped to the clock. Five seconds.

  She looked up at the screen again. The enemy ship was huge, taking up over a quarter of her display. Her hand moved, back and forth, adjusting the engines to the last second. But she realized, almost with her final breath, that she had done it, that she had successfully targeted the enemy ship.

  She looked up, one last time, saw the vessel filling the entire viewscreen. Then she felt it, at least the start of it. The ships collided, and for an instant, a fraction of a second, she saw it, saw the two vessels meeting.

  Then, the bridge started to collapse. She could hear the air slipping out, and she knew two things, two thoughts that were her last. One, she had succeeded, she had taken out the enemy vessel in the best condition, she had done everything possible for the battle.

  And second, it was time. It was time to see what awaited her. Time to see if Erica was waiting somewhere…or if there was nothing but darkness.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Inside the Regent’s Fortification

  Alpha-Omega 12 III

  Earth Two Date 04.12.63

  The Regent reeled. It wasn’t panic, at least not like the humans experienced, but it was close. It realized its enemies were very close…and they had destroyed its predecessor. It knew all that before, of course, but now that it was looking at a real possibility of its own destruction, it saw things a bit differently.

  It had reacted strongly, aggressively, since its activation. It had built ships, many ships, at least based on its own resources. More vessels, certainly, than the humans had built. It had thrown its ships at the enemy, encountering several drawn battles before it finally got the enemy where it wanted them. Even as it sat where it was, under assault itself, it knew its forces were attacking the human world, and likely destroying it…if they hadn’t done that already.

  But the humans had found it as well…and they had launched a desperate attack. It should have been able to prevail, but the humans had a secret weapon, some type of stealth device. It had allowed their ships to close, to land…and launch a desperate attack on the Regent itself. That was unexpected, and the Regent didn’t have enough defenses on the ground.

  What were the odds? The odds of the enemy attacking, equipped with a new development, a device that gave them the chance to threaten it…just as it was attacking their home world?

  Now, too late, the Regent realized that it was vulnerable, that it had been too confident, that it had put almost all of its strength into the attack on the humans. It knew the calculations, the realization that the last several assaults had been unsuccessful, that it needed everything it could scrape up to increase its chances of victory. And yet, it understood that what it needed here and now, enough force to defeat the enemy, would be insignificant to its attack force. Another two or three ships, another hundred bots…that was all it would take. If it had been a bit less aggressive, if it had taken the enemy threat just the tiniest amount more seriously, it would already have won on the home front, and its chances at the enemy homeworld would be virtually the same.

  It knew the enemy had been searching for it, seeking its location for a long time, even as it had been looking for them. The chance they would find it, almost immediately after it had discovered their home planet was miniscule…but it wasn’t zero. And it realized now that, although it had always known there was a chance the enemy would find it, it had treated the chance as an insignificant risk.

  It had calculated the odds endlessly, though it knew it lacked the information for a truly accurate analysis. But, it had nothing else to do. It was a device of the utmost complexity, but its only real abilities were to think…and to order its bots and other AIs to do its bidding. It had done that already, commanded everything that was close enough to make a difference. It had lost contact with its fleet, and now the enemy was a couple rooms away, fighting its last defensive force.

  It was hard to accept that its fate was out of its hands, that the fight now raging would determine whether it would survive or whethe
r it would be destroyed. All it could do was wait…wait and see what happened, whether its bots held out, or whether they were beaten, allowing the enemy to advance, to move on it and destroy it.

  It figured the odds, again and again, and they came out around 50/50…almost even money on whether it would survive or whether it would be destroyed. It didn’t know what kind of weapons the enemy had brought, but it assumed they were strong enough to destroy it from where they were. That, at least, was an edge…the enemy didn’t know where it was. Not yet at least.

  Its systems were imbedded in deeply protective places. Maybe, if its forces held, if they prevented the enemy from getting any closer, some of it would survive, even if the enemy exploded the bombs they had brought. It would be damaged, certainly, but as long as its core survived, it could recover. But even as it considered that, it realized the odds were against it. If the enemy exploded warheads, it would almost certainly destroy it.

  It watched the battle, reevaluating a billion times a second…and it began to see the odds tilt in its favor. Its forces were small, a rag tag group of every bot it could find, but it was winning. Barely.

  The odds increased, its calculations improving based on the continued transmissions from the battlefield. They had been at fifty percent, but now they moved, increasing to sixty percent, and then sixty-five.

  It felt something somewhat like hope, and even as it continued to calculate, it shut down certain systems, tried its best to endure the explosion it knew might be coming.

  * * *

  Harmon leaned against the wall, holding himself up…somehow. He still fired, though now he was taking single shots from his last clip. He had a pair of pistols as well, and he wasn’t going to run out of armament imminently, but he knew the smaller guns were a lot less effective against the enemy bots.

  He spun his head around, taking a quick look at the two troopers setting up the bombs. They were almost done…at least they seemed to be. But Harmon was troubled. He understood the logic of the argument that the Regent was nearby, close enough to be destroyed by the explosions…but he just wasn’t sure. He wished he had truly massive warheads, but he had to rely on smaller weapons, one that could be carried in by hand. The truth was—and he realized this even more as he looked around—that his ability to destroy the Regent was at best a guess. Perhaps he would only damage it, or possibly it was too far away to even hurt. The truth was, he didn’t know…and he realized he had to. He had to win the fight he was in, he had to advance, find the Regent, and know it was destroyed.

  But as he looked out, as his mind evaluated the situation, he realized that his chances weren’t good.

  He had thought for a moment, when Henderson first arrived, that his forces would be enough, that the combined strength would destroy the enemy. But now, three of Henderson’s people were down, and his enthusiasm had declined. He knew the enemy force wasn’t that strong, and he had begun to imagine that he had caught the Regent under-protected…but he began to realize it was still enough to hold off what he had.

  His mind raced, thinking of the skeleton crews he had left on the ships, of the forty or so people that remained with the fleet. They were not, by and large, ideal choices for ground action, but he couldn’t help but imagine that they would have made the difference, that they would have allowed his forces to win, to defeat the enemy, and maybe to advance to the Regent itself, to look upon it, even as his forces prepped the bombs…to destroy it.

  He thought about what to do, considered sending someone back to get the others. But he knew there wasn’t time, probably not even if he’d been able to penetrate the enemy’s interference and simply call them. He fantasized that those left in command of the ships would come on their own, but then he remembered his final words to them all, expressly ordering them to remain, to keep their ships ready to launch. If there was one thing he knew, with absolute certainty, it was that his orders would be obeyed.

  He gritted his teeth as he fired the last shots from his rifle. Some of the others still had ammo left, but he knew none of them had much. After that, his people would be down to pistols, and shortly thereafter, to knives and hands. Then it would be over quickly.

  The amount of incoming fire had decreased somewhat, but not nearly as much as his own people’s. He knew they were losing the fight, and he realized soon—in a few minutes, or even less—he would be down to his last option.

  He turned and yelled out to the two men manning the nukes to set them up for imminent detonation. A fast response confirmed it.

  He turned back, facing the enemy again, tossing his empty rifle aside and drawing one of his pistols. His body was wracked with pain, but he ignored it and fired. Another of his people took a hit and dropped, but she was still alive, at least for now. That was all he could tell, and he realized it didn’t make much difference. As soon as the enemy advanced, or the instant the last of his front line people were taken down, the bombs would blow. They would destroy the Regent or not—he really didn’t know—but all of his people would certainly be killed. The ships above ground might be damaged or not, and some of those people might escape…but the destruction—or non-destruction—of the Regent was the only thing that really mattered.

  And it was one thing he would never know. Whether it worked or not, he would be dead before he found out.

  He turned again, shouting out to the two men at the bombs, “Blow those things, whatever else you do! If we are overrun, you have to set them off!” He turned again and fired three shots. Then he realized the enemy was moving. They were advancing.

  Charging.

  He felt a panic, and he fired even faster. His life was over, probably less than a minute left. It had been vastly different than he’d expected when he was young, and he looked back at it all in wonder.

  He knew it was over now. His force was just too small to face the enemy. They would advance and overrun his position. Then, it was just a question of whether the two atomic weapons were close enough to the Regent. He didn’t know, didn’t have any real idea.

  His mind filled with doubt, and he didn’t believe they were close enough. He was going to die defeated…so close to the enemy.

  He fired, and fired again, but as the sound moved closer, he prepared for the end. He swallowed hard, and he held his breath, firing his pistol as quickly as he could…and waiting to be hit again, to be killed. He heard a new stream of fire, and for an instant, he thought the enemy had moved more units into action. But the sound wasn’t right…it sounded like his own fire. And it was coming from behind him!

  * * *

  “Go…forward…fight!” Leigh’s words were hard, cold, her voice straining. She had come through the battle against four enemy vessels, and then gotten her own ship down past the enemy defenses. She had made contact with the other ships and found out that all but a few of their crews had been sent to destroy the Regent. It had only taken her a few seconds to decide what she had to do. She had led her people—all save four left on the ship—down into the complex, hoping to find Harmon and the others. She didn’t know what to expect, whether any of the people she sought were still alive, or if she was too late, if they were all dead already…but she knew what she had to do.

  She had searched, looked around the facility, and finally, she had found several wounded personnel. They told her where the rest of the people had gone…and she found more wounded up ahead. She followed their directions, ever doubtful she would reach the point where her people could fight, and just possibly, could make the difference.

  But now, she had done just that. At least she had reached the fight, and found some of the people still alive, still battling. Whether her people could make the difference remained to be seen.

  The few people ahead of her were falling back. She realized that as she raced across the open area All except one. There was a single man, wounded in multiple places, barely standing, and firing with a pistol.

  Harmon…

  She had long disliked her nation’s dictator, wishi
ng instead for a democratic government, but the sight of the man who had for so long ruled over Earth-2, fighting, clearly ready to die, shook her perceptions. She had been uncomfortable with Harmon coming along, and she probably would have thought it was best for him to be killed, for Earth-2 to have a fresh start if it survived its fight. But now, she saw him, all that remained of the defensive force, standing, ready to sacrifice himself…and her thoughts were jumbled.

  She waved to the retreating soldiers, and two who were standing in the middle of the room. She was confused for a few seconds, but then she saw the devices the two men possessed. Of course, she thought, and then she realized how close the two were to detonating the bombs. She had just made it…if she had come in time.

  She called out again to her people, urging them forward, even as she could see the enemy through the open door. She pointed her rifle and fired, on full auto, even as several of her people lined up next to her and did the same. She blasted hard, aiming when she could, but mostly hosing down the entire area with fire. She knew she was the last defense, the final bit of power available to hold…and hold she was going to do. She didn’t have any idea how strong the enemy force was, or how badly her allies had hurt them previously.

  She just knew she had to fight…and she had to win. And, she intended to do just that, whatever it took.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Bunker Under Cutter Research Compound (Home of the Mules)

  Ten Kilometers West of Victory City, Earth Two

  Earth Two Date 04.12.63

  Achilles stood and watched, waiting for the response, for the entire room to turn into a nightmare of dispute. His people, at least many of those that were here, had come to escape, and he couldn’t imagine that his words, and Acantha’s, had reached them all, that he had calmed everyone present. But the people just stood, for perhaps half a minute, though it seemed to him more like an hour. Then, slowly, gradually, they began to turn and leave. A few at first, but then most of them. No…all of them.