by Jay Allan
He practically dove forward, slipping through the opening…and landed outside, in directly sunlight. The natural light, though not at all what it was like on Earth-2, filled him with a burst of energy, and he forced himself up, ignoring the pain. “Let’s go,” he said, trying to run, but succeeding only in a quick walk. “We’ve only got nine minutes.” He knew that wasn’t enough time, not really, but he had decided he was going to push, right up to the end. He owed that to his people.
He struggled to move at the pace he was, and he was panting, every breath a huge effort, the pain almost unbearable. But he only had a few minutes, and he was determined not to die like a helpless fool. He could do anything for eight minutes, he told himself, though he knew that wasn’t entirely true.
But then, his comm unit suddenly erupted, a long burst of static replaced by a voice. “Hello? Is this the landing party?”
Holsten was shocked, stunned at the comm. It meant that the senders had penetrated the jamming, of course, not terribly surprising at such a close range. But more, it meant some, at least, of his people on the surface were still there. That was, of course, his hope the entire time, but he only realized then that he had been almost certain it would never come.
“Yes, this is the landing party…what’s left of it. Who is this?” Holsten listened as the comm officer responded…and as he realized they might just make it after all.
He turned and looked back, behind them. Some of the mountain was caved in, and he could see the effects of the nukes far better from here. They had done enormous damage, and it looked like the area with the ships was affected. Still, there were clearly some people left, at least.
“My God, we had almost given up on you. Come…follow the signal to us. We’ve only got one ship still in condition to fly, but all the survivors are here…all except you.” The voice was happy…and shocked too, as surprised as Holsten was himself. He still couldn’t quite believe it was possible, and he doubted the man on the other end of the comm thought so either.
He found it difficult to turn, to take his eyes from the battered hillside. He knew the Regent had been slow to use the nukes, that it had tried other things first. If it had just used them when his people had first entered, it probably would have been over. Still, as much as it was probable the Regent could have done it—could have won—without causing itself major damage if it had acted earlier, it still had other weapons to use at that point. It was natural to try to destroy the enemy without causing damage to itself, and Harmon imagined he would have done the same thing.
The Regent shared that with humanity, the tendency to increase the level of its response a bit too slowly, to lag behind what was needed. Harmon realized he was doing that, even as he stood and looked at the crumbled mountain. He told himself to go, to move now. He wasn’t sure there was still time, but he had survivors, and as he turned away from the mountain, he could see in their eyes the truth. However much they disliked him at first, all of them were looking to him for leadership right now.
“We’ve got very little time…” Harmon suddenly leapt forward, bringing his lips to the comm unit as he lunged backwards. “…get your ship ready to blast off…and take off in five minutes, whether we’re there or not.” A short pause and then, “This is Max Harmon speaking, and those are firm orders!”
He turned, moving away from the radio. “Alright…we’ve got four minutes and fifty seconds. Let’s go.” He shifted again, looking toward the comm technician. “Lead us, Lieutenant!”
The man nodded his head, and then he started moving…and the others began to follow. The line separated a bit, the more wounded individuals slipping farther back, but Harmon urged everyone forward as quickly as they could manage…despite the fact that he trailed along at the back, barely able to keep moving himself.
He almost gave up, but he somehow found the energy to push on forward. He knew he was almost done, but he had to know whether his people would escape the planet…or whether they would die meters away from escape.
He stumbled, and then forced himself to get up. He kept moving, for perhaps another minute, and then his legs gave out again, and he tumbled to the ground. He tried to rise, but he just didn’t have the energy. He stayed where he was, sure that he had met his end.
But then he felt something…a pair of arms, no two. They reached down and pulled him up, carrying him…to the ship that lay just ahead, the vessel he hadn’t seen before he’d fallen, before that very moment. He felt strange, very weak, but also determined now to get to the ship. He was too out of it even to check on the time, though enough of him remained to worry that they would take too long, that the bombs would blow up just before they managed to take off. He had no idea what shape the ship was in, no thought about whether it had a chance to execute a launch fast enough. He tried to speak, to say something, anything. But nothing came out. He just saw the landscape whipping by, and then he felt himself being handed up into the ship.
He was unsure of time, of much at all, and he just lay where he was set, on a cushioned platform he was able to tell, though not much more. He felt a variety of thoughts, a strange mishmash…from Mariko to the current situation to whether he was, in fact, about to destroy the Regent. And whether his crew, his few escapees, would return to find anything left of Earth-2.
He felt himself slipping away, held onto his bare consciousness only through the greatest effort…and only for a minute more. He felt the ship shaking. For an instant, he had been afraid that the bombs had gone off, but then he realized.
The ship had lifted off. It had taken off…whatever else happened, whether it made it back to Earth-2 or not, whether the Regent was destroyed or not, at least a few of his people had made it.
And that included himself…at least for a brief time. He thought that, and he stopped and listened for the explosions, the signs that he might have actually destroyed the Regent. But there was nothing but silence…and blackness.
* * *
The Regent was panicking. It had sent for all its guards, all the bots that remained to come to aid it…but all those nearby had been destroyed in the fighting, and the others had been caught in the nuclear blasts. It had nothing mobile, it had sent every bot, every mobile device it had against the enemy. Now they were all destroyed.
It second guessed its strategies, easy now that it knew the outcome of its previous actions. It found errors, clear missteps, things it would do differently. But on a certain level, it understood all it had done. It had killed most of its enemies, and it had come close to eliminating them all. But some had gotten through, enough of them at least to launch this final attack on it.
And it was going to succeed. The Regent had tried everything, sent every comm signal it could, tried every way it knew to destroy the explosion circuits, to disarm the two bombs. But nothing worked.
Now it sat, waiting. It knew its biggest misstep had been the defenses of its homeworld. It had estimated that the enemy wouldn’t find it, not before it found the human homeworld…and even if they did, the defensive batteries were sufficient to defend the planet. But the humans had some kind of new creation, something that made their ships almost impossible to detect…and in the end, that was the difference.
It looked at the two bombs, its equipment allowing it to glance from almost every direction, but lacking anything movable, any way to shut the bombs down. It knew it wasn’t that simple, of course, that the humans would have set the bombs to explode if anyone came near it. The Regent tried to tell itself it would have overcome that problem, that it would have found a way. If only it had any bots left.
That was the last thought it had, the final bit of computation. The bombs went off, exploding with unimaginable fury in the area right next to it. The mountain shook hard, and large amounts of rock tumbled down all around.
But the Regent was right next to the bombs…and it was vaporized, almost immediately destroyed. And with it, the leadership of humanity’s enemy was gone.
Chapter Fifty-Five
> Linshire Escape Ship #1
Approaching Transit Point Number 2
Earth Two Date 04.12.63
Gosnard was panicked, inside at least, though somehow he mostly maintained his outside demeanor. For a moment, he wasn’t sure how badly hurt his ship was, but then, most of the lights and other electrical fixtures that had gone out came back on. That didn’t mean his ship was okay, but it probably indicated that it would, at least, survive.
For a while.
He looked over at Til. His number two was checking the status. A moment later, he turned and looked up and said, “It looks like we lost one gun…and maybe thirty percent of our thrust. But everything else seems to still be working.” A short pause. “For the moment, at least.”
Gosnard heard the words, and he didn’t know what hurt worse…losing a gun, one of three, or the reduction in thrust. His ship was still moving faster than its target, but slowing down his own, already inferior thrust, was only going to make it easier for the enemy to escape.
“Very well, Til…carry on.” He tried to calculate the difference in thrust levels, the time until the enemy would transit. The hit his companion ship had scored had damaged the enemy vessel, too, but it seemed to be maintaining close to its full energy output. In six minutes, they would reach the transit point…and they would escape. Unless he destroyed them before.
Or…unless he followed them. If he took his own ship right back through the point, he would maintain his distance and the fight would continue. Chasing ships through a point was difficult, and dangerous, but his vector and the enemy’s were almost identical.
He watched the battle continue, another two minutes, then three…and then the enemy scored a hit on his other ship…a bad hit. He jerked his head around, waiting for a report…and then, before Til could say a word, the vessel blew up. He caught the image out of the corner of his eye, and he jerked his head around, staring at the screen, just like Til. He had gotten two ships off of a planet, the very few survivors of a terrible battle that had claimed almost everyone…and now, he had lost half of those who were left.
He felt rage, more intense in ways than he had experienced during the entire, months long battle back on Linshire. He had already been determined to catch the enemy, to destroy them…but now he was absolutely set on the idea, regardless of the danger or the cost. “Stay on them, Til…we’re chasing them as far as we have to…even through the point.” He knew he didn’t have the advantage in the fight, but he didn’t care. He was going to destroy the enemy, somehow.
“Yes, sir!” Til agreed completely. Gosnard couldn’t tell if it was rational logic, or the result of all the losses they had already suffered, but he knew he and his friend agreed…and strangely, it seemed everyone else did as well. At least no one on the bridge had objected.
His ship fired again, and the enemy shot as well, all misses. Then, about a minute before the enemy went through the point, he scored a hit. A solid one.
He sat, watching the board, waiting for Til to report, to share the damage estimate. But it was already obvious that he had knocked maybe half the thrust away from the enemy. The ship slowed its acceleration, but it was still going to make it through the transit point before he caught them. And he wasn’t going to let them escape, whatever he had to do. “Prepare to follow them through.”
The enemy ship sailed onward, badly-damaged but still functional. And a few seconds later, it entered the point…and it vanished. Gosnard checked his monitor. His ship was less than a minute behind the enemy. The seconds passed slowly, so much so that they seemed like minutes, even more. Then, his own ship reached the point…and it disappeared as well, sailing off into the adjacent system.
* * *
SP-01012 considered every possibility, a billion different options, no trillions. It was unhurt, and it possessed the ability to calculate at incredible speeds…but its ship was badly damaged. It had spent several seconds analyzing every possibility, judging the best chance of escape. It had tried to decide that the enemy ship wouldn’t follow it, but based on its actions to date, and the almost perfect alignment of the two vessels’ current courses, it seemed likely it would come through, less than a minute after it did. It had developed a way of analyzing the humans, their sometimes bizarre behavior, and no matter how much it tried, it couldn’t assume the enemy wasn’t coming.
That decision had been affected by the recent hit it had suffered. Its engines were damaged, badly, and it was far from sure that it even could escape from the enemy. That meant it had to fight, and if it had to, it would put all its efforts into it. It might still win, maybe even more likely than not…but there was at least a considerable chance it would be destroyed.
It reversed its thrust, pouring all it had left into slowing down, preparing to take advantage of the period of disruption following the jump. It likely only lasted thirty seconds or so, and its own had been even shorter, but at close range, it was possibly just enough. Its chances of victory were based significantly on this period, on scoring a hit in the first thirty seconds. If it missed, its chances slipped…rather precipitously.
Its calculations were based on a lot of things, not the least of which was an estimate on the enemy ship’s true condition…but its best efforts, the closest it could come, told it there was a seventy-three percent chance the enemy would be destroyed. There was also, a thirty-four percent chance it would meet its end. That was bad, certainly, but it was the best chance it had, and better than two to one odds on the enemy.
It focused its beams, those it had left, preparing to fire. Its advantage would last only seconds, and it was determined to score a hit in that time, to disable or destroy the enemy before they could regain control over their ship. It was a gamble, but it was a good one…the best it had.
It waited, reducing its thrust, focusing on the area where the enemy would appear. It knew the thrust the enemy had, and it calculated the continuation of that after it had transited. It was possible that the enemy would change its thrust before it came through, but its calculations, based on every bit of data it had, suggested they wouldn’t do that. They would assume his own ship was continuing its withdrawal, that it was blasting at full, away from the point…and they would continue thrusting at full power, trying to catch them.
And I will destroy them.
SP-01012 thought that, told itself it would prevail, it would destroy the second enemy ship, and then it would return to the Regent. Its chances of retaining its command position was still strong, despite a less than total victory. The enemy fleet was almost destroyed, along with all of their production facilities. It wasn’t an immediate total victory, but it was close.
It cleared away any other concerns, waiting, taking full charge of the targeting system…preparing to destroy the enemy vessel.
* * *
“Tell them to stop!” Compton spoke, rapidly, suddenly realizing that the ship, the sole vessel remaining of what had been two a few minutes ago, was planning to go through the transit point, to hunt down the last enemy ship.
Or be hunted down.
He understood the desire, the thought of whoever was in command of that ship…but he also knew the odds were not in its favor. He had assumed the ship held survivors from Linshire. There was nowhere else it could have come from. It had seemed unlikely that anyone had survived there, much rather escaped…but everything else he could think of was even more remote. If they were survivors from the previous enemy attack, they deserved a chance at least, the same as the people of Earth-2 had. He understood the desire to take out that ship, especially since it was a good guess the enemy commander was aboard…but that adversary wasn’t human, it wasn’t any kind of life form. He didn’t doubt that the commander itself had some desire for survival programmed into it, but he knew its destruction wouldn’t seriously hurt the enemy. It might seem worth dying over, perhaps, but Compton knew that it wasn’t.
“We have sent a message, sir…but if they’re going through, they’ll be there before it rea
ches them.”
Compton nodded…barely. He had known that when he’d issued the order, but he hadn’t had any other thoughts. The idea that all he could hope for was for the vessel to blast its engines, at the last second, turn away from the point, was too depressing. The battle that had been fought had cost thousands of lives, tens of thousands…if not hundreds. But he was struck by the couple hundred people on that one ship, the ones he hoped would remain in the system…even as he watched and knew they wouldn’t.
Then they disappeared.
* * *
Gosnard was bewildered, shaken up a bit by the transfer. But he made every effort to return, to focus. He knew, of course, that a jump often left a crew bewildered, at least for a short period. But he wasn’t a frequent space traveler, and despite the past several months, the things he’d done that he had never imagined, he realized immediately, he had made a mistake, and an even worse one once he had recovered enough to recognize that the enemy was closer than he had expected…that it was blasting for his ship at its maximum remaining thrust, trying to use the period of time before he regained full control to destroy him.
He shook his head, and he forced it to turn toward Til. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t yet, and his friend managed to say something before he did.
“Sir…the enemy…is attacking…” Til forced the words out, but he, too, was still affected by the transit. He tried to move, just as Gosnard did, but he couldn’t do it fast enough. The ship shook hard, another hit, he realized, even as he still struggled to get past the disorientation. He knew his ship could be destroyed, even by a single shot if it was dead on, but as the seconds passed and he was still there, he realized that it hadn’t. He wondered at the damage, at what was still working, and what wasn’t. But the systems that could tell him that were still down.