by Ian Douglas
News downloads referred to the hurricane as the Starstorm, and predicted that the cloud disk would reflect so much of the sun’s infalling light and warmth that it would trigger a new ice age. Winters were cooler for the next five years, but with the Starstorm’s end, the climate returned to what currently was normal for the planet.
Other strikes across the Inner System were smaller in scale, less devastating. An impactor massing several hundred kilograms struck a cluster of manufactories anchored at SupraKenya. Thousands were killed, and other structures anchored nearby suffered significant damage, but the elevator, as some feared, did not fall, and the calamity of Aethiopis was not repeated on Earth. The bulk of the impactor, fortunately, missed the Earth.
At Phobia, the Confederation destroyer Emmons had been in spacedock, preparing for boost to join the rest of the fleet, when an impactor struck the dock facility. The Emmons, the facility gantry, and perhaps eight hundred naval and civilian personnel were instantly vaporized, and thousands more were killed as fragments from the disaster slashed through the delicate web of habs and crew modules in Mars synchorbit…including Mars Fleet CIC.
Among the dead were Admiral Henderson and one of his senior aides, Rear Admiral Karyn Mendelson, killed when the base command hub was torn open and its atmosphere vented into space.
The near-c impactors flashed across the Inner System over the course of some minutes, and then were gone, vanished into the outer depths. Hours and even days later, however, the Inner System was bombarded again by the in-falling debris of blasted and shattered spacecraft, both Turusch and human.
A robotic nitrogen freighter, on the long, curved, infalling trajectory from Triton to Mars, was struck by what was probably a large piece of a Confederation fighter—ironically, later identified as Lieutenant Robert Hauser’s ship from VFA-31, the Impactors. The fragment struck with a relative velocity of nearly 90 kilometers per second. The freighter and its cargo were a total loss.
Two emergency-rescue team members were killed at Schiaparelli, on Mars, when a five-kilogram fragment that might have been from a Turusch warship struck their crawler on the south rim of the crater. They’d been trying to get to a terraforming team trapped when the Aethiopis impactor strike had overturned their pressure dome.
The Tsiolkovsky Observatory was damaged and three astronomers killed when fragments scattered across the far side of Earth’s moon. Three of the ships waiting at the muster point between Earth and Mars took damage from high-velocity meteors—likely fragments from the battle.
The dazed human defenders began taking stock. On the one side, the invaders had lost forty ships, a hundred fighters, perhaps several tens of thousands of their military personnel. On the other, the humans had lost a handful of fighters…and perhaps sixty million people—most killed by the tidal waves on Earth.
The defense of Earth, it seemed, had not been so one-sided after all.
Landing Bay One
TC/USNA CVS America
Outer System, Sol System
2105 hours, TFT
“Lieutenant Gray! Lieutenant Gray! Over here! Look over here, please!”
Gray stepped onto the deck, startled by the crowd. Close by were his squadron mates, pounding him and one another on the back, cheering, even singing. Farther out, though, there were civilians…news media personnel wearing the high-tech headgear that turned their heads into living high-definition cameras and recorders.
Where the hell had they come from? They must have been on the America when she boosted clear of Mars early that morning, before her seventeen-hour run to the edge of the system.
“Lieutenant Gray!” one of the reporters yelled, her voice shrill above the mob noise. “Your CO says you’re a hero! What do you have to say about that?”
He turned his head slightly and caught the eye of Marissa Allyn. Presumably she was the “CO” in question. She just grinned at him, then gave him a jaunty thumbs-up.
Gray shrugged, and shook his head. “I’m not a hero,” he said. “The heroes are the ones that fought it out toe to toe with the Turusch.”
“The Turusch don’t have toes, idiot,” Lieutenant Tucker said, nudging him in the side.
“Lieutenant Gray!” another called. “Your records say you’re from Old Manhattan. Are you aware Old Manhattan got washed away by a tidal wave?”
The news had only just reached the America. News reports were still filtering in. Apparently, things were pretty bad back on Earth, in the Inner System.
“Lieutenant Gray! What do you think about the news that the Confederation Senate is going to talk to the Turusch about peace?…
“Lieutenant Gray!…”
He was too tired to answer, too tired to care. The next thing he knew, though, was that a dozen of his squadron mates—the kids of Green Squadron—had scooped him up and hoisted him to their shoulders, were chanting as they carried him toward the elevator down to the crew hab.
“Lieutenant Gray!…”
Good. If he didn’t have to listen to any more nonsense questions, good.
Manhattan washed away? There was a pang there…a lingering grief.
But it didn’t seem to matter any longer.
Koenig’s Office
TC/USNA CVS America
Outer System, Sol System
2150 hours, TFT
“Admiral? The last of the fighters are being brought on board.”
“Thank you. Tell Intel to stay off their backs for a little while, will you? The debriefs can wait until tomorrow. Our people deserve some downtime.”
After what they’ve been through…
“Aye, aye, Admiral.”
“What’s our SAR status?”
“Both SAR squadrons are still on deep-search patrol. We’ve recovered and towed in five Starhawks. The pilots of two of them were picked up alive, will probably be okay.”
“Good.”
Two out of…how many? It wasn’t enough.
“We’ve also recovered three Trash fighters with their crews alive…and are trying to communicate with the crew of one of their battleship asteroids. We may have as many as several thousand prisoners after this.”
“Keep me informed.”
“Yes, sir.”
Koenig looked again at his desk display screen as he cut the mental connection. He wasn’t particularly interested in Turusch prisoners at the moment. He’d just learned that one of their hivel rounds had hit Phobia CIC, or a dockyard facility right next door. Reports filtering out from the Inner System were still fragmentary and maddeningly vague…but it sounded like much of the Phobos command staff had been killed.
Karyn…
He felt so damned fucking helpless out here, four light hours from Karyn, from the chaos rippling across the Inner System. The awful, sick irony was that he’d expected the America battlegroup to engage the enemy after the fighter strike softened it up but, in fact, and except for the launch of the carrier’s fighter squadrons, they hadn’t fired a shot. Lieutenant Gray’s rather unorthodox use of sandcaster AMSOs had proven to be the tactical innovation that had changed near-certain defeat into victory.
But it has turned out to be a terribly, terribly expensive victory. The Navy, the Confederation, hell, all of humankind, would be recovering from the effects of that victory for a long time to come.
For the moment, at least, the invaders were gone. Force Alpha, the ships that had hit Triton, had turned around and fled once news of the defeat of Force Bravo had reached them, out across on the far edge of the solar system. Almost contemptuously, they had demolished the surface of Triton, giving it a thick but short-lived atmosphere of gaseous nitrogen, and erasing all traces of the human presence on the frigid surface. The nitrogen would freeze out as snow soon enough; the question was why they had done it. A show of force? A fit of pique?
How did you interpret the emotions of an entity so alien as the Turusch?
A battlefleet was on its way out to Neptune now, partly to secure the region and make sure the enemy was gone
, partly to dispatch SAR vessels to look for the five High Guard ships lost out there. There’d been weak radio signals picked up hours ago, signals that suggested that the Gallagher might have survived. That would be excellent, if true, and if the survivors could be rescued. Those men and women were as much heroes as anyone in America’s fighter wing. They’d pulled that close flyby of the enemy fleet unarmed, knowing that they probably wouldn’t survive.
And they’d transmitted everything they’d seen, information vital to the final battle all the way across on the other side of the solar system.
“Admiral? Dr. Wilkerson wishes to speak with you.”
Koenig sighed as he opened the mental window. He would have to deal with the Turusch POWs after all.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Excuse the interruption, Admiral. I just wanted to know how many more Turusch you were sending us.”
“Unknown, Doctor. We may have a few thousand of them sitting in that battleship hulk out there.”
“We have eighteen on board now,” Wilkerson told him. “That’s pushing our capacity here in the research lab.”
“Don’t worry, Dr. Wilkerson. I have a request on its way to Earth. They should have a high-acceleration transport out here within the next day or so. The prisoners will probably end up in a special facility on Luna.”
“Ah, good.”
“How’s the communication project going so far?”
“Surprisingly well, Admiral. Our…guests are talking, and we are understanding them. Or at least we think we are.”
“I understand.” With the Turusch, it was difficult to tell, sometimes, whether you were getting a straight answer to a question or not. Even now, with the AI interrogators pulling third-level LG messages out of twinned Turusch sentences, the aliens’ communications tended to be somewhat enigmatic. The xenopsych people hadn’t yet been able to determine whether that was because they were playing it coy and mysterious, or simply because their psychology was genuinely alien. “Just try to keep them alive this time.”
“Ah. Yes. We don’t think that will be a problem now, Admiral. We’ve been talking to them about it. Apparently they require a community.”
“How big of a community?”
“It seems to vary. We think they develop a need for others close by just because of the internal dialogue, the separate brains talking to one another.”
“I’d think that would just mean they could never be alone.”
“Maybe. But they tend to form close pair bonds, two individuals who identify with one another so closely they share the same name, the same job, identify with one another very strongly. They always have a crowd around them…to the point that their philosophy seems to be the more, the merrier. Those first two—Falling Droplet—they…it…” He shook his head in frustration. “Whatever the damned pronoun should be. The two organisms apparently died of loneliness.”
“I thought they stabbed each other.”
“Used their caudal probosci to inject one another with digestive juices, actually. But suicide, yes. Whether it was a mutual suicide by two individuals or a single suicide is a very interesting question. We don’t understand their psychology yet, but we think we’re seeing all the earmarks of profound depression brought on by separation anxiety.”
“But that won’t happen again?”
“Not with eighteen of them. Funny thing. When you talk to one, they all get to buzzing and humming in the background…and it’s like the one you’re talking to gets smarter and smarter, quicker, more reactive. They really do have a multiple mind, a gestalt, one that probably works on several levels.”
“Well, keep me informed, Doctor.” He thought of something else. “Oh. Any reaction when you’re questioned them about Alphekka?”
“No, sir. The fact of it is…we don’t share a common mapping system, a common set of coordinates. We don’t know what they call Alphekka, and they wouldn’t know what we meant by that name. We’re hoping to teach them enough astronomy that we can find the right way to ask the question.”
“Well, it was probably too much to expect an answer immediately. Like I said, keep me informed. And good luck with the project.”
“Thank you, Admiral.”
The window closed, and Koenig was alone with his thoughts.
He would be talking to the Military Directorate about Crown Arrow soon—as soon as the battlegroup returned to Mars. The one thing Koenig knew beyond any shadow of a doubt was that the Confederation had to strike back, and strike hard. If they didn’t, the Turusch would be back, this time with an even larger force.
The only way to stop that from happening that Koenig could see was to assemble a large and powerful strike force and take the war to the enemy. Alphekka. That had to be the key.
And perhaps some of the prisoners would be able to add to the Confederation’s understanding of the strategic picture. Who were the Sh’daar? What was it they feared about human technology, and why?
Why were they determined to keep humankind from following their current technological path?
Already, Koenig was mustering his arguments. His next battle, he knew, would not be one of starships and nuclear warheads. It would be the far harder war, the sort of battle he detested, a political war fought with members of his own species.
Battles with alien empires he could understand. It was his own people, and, most especially, the politicians that left him wondering if humanity could even hope to survive.
Pilots’ Lounge
TC/USNA CVS America
Outer System, Sol System
2214 hours, TFT
“Hey, Collins,” Gray said. “I’m glad you made it.”
The woman looked through him, stared past him as though he wasn’t even there, then coldly brushed past on her way out the compartment door. Gray shrugged at the snub. She blamed him still, somehow, for Spaas’ death…or for his not being there when Spaas had been killed out at Eta Boötis. He understood that. With luck, the reorganization of the America’s strike fighter squadrons would end with him and Collins in different squadrons, and they wouldn’t have to deal with each other at all. And that would suit Gray just fine.
Despite her bitterness, his prestige within the carrier fighter wing, he had to admit, had gone up considerably since the Defense of Earth, as the reporters were calling the battle now.
He was still a bit in shock by the reception down up in the landing bay, the reporters, the shouted questions. There was even talk of a formal interview later. So far, he’d been able to push that back into the background, to put it off for another day or two. Damn it, he was tired after the long trip out from Oceana, after the battle, after the recovery on board the America.
And as for his squadron mates…
Not a word about him being a Prim or a squattie, not a word about his not fitting in. And not a word, he was happy to realize, about his not being on flight-approved status.
Even more to the point…he now felt like he belonged.
He still wasn’t entirely sure what he thought about that. If what they’d said about Old Manhattan was true, he would be grieving when the realization finally hit him. There were rumors, even, that new New York had been hurt as well, that Morningside Heights and the Columbia Arcology were gone, along with so much else.
Angela…
But Earth and the people he’d left behind now felt very far away, felt like a part of another life, one lived long ago, separated from the now by light years and by years.
His life now was centered on board the Star Carrier America.
Koenig’s Quarters
TC/USNA CVS America
Outer System, Sol System
2255 hours, TFT
“Admiral Koenig?”
“It’s late, damn it.” His personal AI could pick the damnedest times to break into his thoughts with incoming communications, data, or unimportant details. He’d only just left his office, come down to his low-G quarters where his bed awaited him.
“I know. But
it’s fourteen fifty-five in Mecca, and I thought you’d want to know.”
“Know what?”
“You’ve officially been declared a Grand Hero of the Islamic Theocracy. For your rescue of those civilians from Eta Boötis.”
“Ah. I would imagine that saving the Earth had something to do with that. I’m more pleased by the decision of the Directorate.”
“You should know, Admiral, that the Fleet’s political liaison, John Quintanilla, is still trying to have that blocked…at least to have the Military Board reconsider its decision.”
“Quintanilla is an asshole.”
The AI, designed to provide information rather than to hold conversations, remained silent. “He is an asshole with power and with friends,” Koenig added. “We’ll have to watch our backs. But…I think we can discuss Mr. Quintanilla’s shortcomings in the morning, don’t you think?”
He was exhausted. He’d not slept since the alert had sounded, and he’d left Karyn’s side for the ship…had that only been early this morning?
The memory gnawed at him, sharp and biting.
He began undressing, getting ready for bed.
“We will be going out there, again,” he told his AI after a moment. “Arcturus. Alphekka. And as deep into the Beyond as we need to go to keep the Turusch from doing this again. They got entirely too close today.”
“Twenty-nine astronomical units from Earth,” the AI said. “Approximately.”
“We got lucky. That young pilot, Lieutenant Gray. His idea was brilliant…and it almost didn’t work. The AMSO warheads were triggered early by the Turusch impactor salvo. The sand clouds were so scattered by the time they hit the enemy fleet, it’s a miracle they did any damage at all.”
“Enough sand grains impacted enemy targets to destroy shields and cause ablative damage,” the AI said. “There was sufficient damage to render the enemy fleet vulnerable to conventional attack.”