Demon Star

by B. V. Larson

  “Were you a pilot? A technician? A passenger, a marine?”

  “I repaired machinery.”

  “What machinery?”

  “All machinery.”

  Okay, maybe they didn’t differentiate by specialty. Maybe I could approach this from another angle, because this bug didn’t seem very sophisticated. Maybe, if he was hive-grown and programmed, he wouldn’t know much about bullshit, sneakiness and interrogation.

  “What would happen if the slime coating inside your ship stopped flowing?” I asked.

  “I would repair the regenerative organs.”

  “Why would you repair it?”

  “To avoid crew efficiency degradation.”

  “How might they be degraded?”

  “Crew effectiveness suffers when the lining is breached.”

  I reached up to scratch my chin, but my gauntlet bounced off my faceplate. I wanted to crack it open, but if this prisoner had any chance of hurting me, it would be through an open visor, so I resisted the urge.

  “Okay,” I said thoughtfully. “What if the lining were entirely stripped away? What would happen?”

  “The crew would mutiny. But you know this already. Why do you ask me, a lowly repairer unit?”

  “You’re the only one left alive to ask,” I said.

  “You’re not Elladan, are you?” the bug asked me. “This ship is not of their design. This I know.”

  I didn’t answer. After all, I was supposed to be interrogating him.

  “We’re not Elladan,” I said. “We look like them, but we’re independent.”

  “I believe you are trying to deceive me,” it said. “You fought with the Elladan as allies. The battle briefings warned against the deceptiveness of Elladans and their allies, so unlike the honesty of True Ones like ourselves. You’re as pathetic as I was told. I will say nothing more.”

  True to his word, he wouldn’t talk after that. I considered breaking off a few extra antennae, but ruled it out. Who knew if he would even care? When we exited the cell, I was surprised to hear Kwon start laughing.

  “What a stupid guy,” Kwon said. “Doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground!”

  That made me think. “Yes, you’re right. But he gave me hints despite his stone-walling.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” I checked my chrono. “No more time, but this has been interesting. Let’s go.”

  On the way out, I told Kwon to provide the critter with water and whatever food or material Valiant said it could eat. I still wanted to talk to it later, but right now I had too many balls in the air. I decided to head for the bridge.

  “What?” I asked Hansen as I arrived.

  The holotank displayed the Ellada-moon planetary system, including their orbital fortresses and warships. The time stamp showed half an hour in the past, so Hansen had obviously set the view to get me up to speed on what had happened during the battle for Ellada—a battle that must be mostly over.

  “They redeployed based on the expected kinetic attack to preserve some of their fixed assets,” he said, gesturing.

  “I see what you mean.” The Elladans had formed their slow-moving forts into several groups, and then lined them up along the enemy axis of approach, with the largest of them set as shields for the smaller ones. There was even a group that had been moved behind their moon.

  Hansen touched a control, and the view advanced, fast-forwarding.

  “There are the bundles, breaking up.” The fake battleships, which had never decelerated, shattered and spread out into kinetic darts. “They have thrusters and control mechanisms to aim them at different targets within a narrow arc, but they’re going too fast to truly maneuver.”

  “Right.” I watched as the darts approached the fortresses lined up in front of the Elladan warships. They looked like too many children hiding behind too few trees. “How does it turn out?”

  Hansen looked grim. “Best to watch, Skipper.”

  I growled impatiently and ratcheted up the play-back speed until the darts began slamming into the closest fortresses. Mines detonated just before the darts landed, destroying some and knocking others off course—but there were too many going too fast. They tore the guts out of their targets and blasted on through.

  Fortunately, the impacts changed their trajectories enough so that most of them missed the fortresses hiding behind, but a few impacted the next in line, and one even struck a third.

  “What’s this bundle doing?” I pointed at a group of a dozen darts that were taking a different course.

  Hansen’s face turned grim. “You’ll see.”

  I watched as the group flew unopposed, diverging slightly toward…Ellada.

  “Crap.”

  “You said it.”

  At the last minute, Elladan warships raced to intercept the kinetic missiles, but it was too late. The metal bolts plunged down into the atmosphere, transforming briefly into bright fireballs before stabbing into the hearts of twelve Elladan cities.

  “Damn,” I breathed.

  “Yeah. They had to suffer millions of dead, unless they evacuated. Even then, the economic damage…”

  “The Demons suckered them,” I said with sudden realization. “They did the same thing to the Whales. They deliberately drew the Elladans out of position then went for the civilians. When the Elladans set up to counter the attack, they left the planet itself vulnerable. I’m actually surprised they didn’t get hit harder.”

  “Maybe the Demons want something left to conquer,” Hansen replied.

  In a few more seconds, the holotank display slowed down to a real-time view of the battle. I forced myself to forget about the obliterated cities and concentrate on the military situation.

  All told, about half of the Elladan battle stations survived, and all of their warships, of course. Still, between the stealth attack a few days ago and this, they’d lost at least half of their defenses. Combine that with the fact that half their mobile fleet—the best, most effective half, I strongly suspected—would arrive late to the battle. They were about to get hammered by an attacking force at least twice their strength.

  “This is ugly,” I said.

  “Would have been worse without our help.”

  I looked at Hansen’s haggard face. He’d aged in the last year. He was in his forties, but right now he seemed to be a decade older. “Still think we should stay out of it?”

  Slowly, he shook his bald head. “When it was the Whales…well, hell, they’re not human, and their planet could swallow a thousand Earths. They weren’t at risk of genocide, just being knocked back to the stone age. But these people are human, and Earthlike planets…”

  “Are small and fragile, by comparison,” I finished for him. I raised my voice enough for everyone to hear. “Also, if the Demons win here, we’re screwed both ways. If we can’t get back to Earth, we will have lost the only other planet we’re ever likely to feel at home on. And if we can get back to Earth, that means the Demons can reach Earth, too. Then we’ll regret we didn’t help our allies stop them here, even if that takes more sacrifice.”

  Hansen nodded, realizing instantly what I was doing. Speeches were most effective when they didn’t sound like speeches, when the crew thought they were getting accidental insight into their leaders’ minds.

  “Damn right, Captain. We’re behind you one hundred percent.”

  I almost choked but kept a straight face. I guess Hansen knew how to bullshit too. Hopefully, there was some truth mixed into that cow manure.

  Valiant spoke then. “I have Marvin on the com-link, audio only.”

  “Captain Marvin! I need you back here fixing Valiant.”

  “I thought you wanted me to create a weapon to use against the Demons. You used the idiom ‘bug spray.’ To create such a thing, I needed to examine their technology and biology in detail.”

  He was right. As usual, I had too much for him to do, so it was my role to set h
is priorities. “How close are you to coming up with something?”

  “I need several days at least, perhaps weeks.”

  “Then I apologize, but I need you to help get Valiant combat-ready again. We have to help the Elladans win this battle. Once that’s done, we’ll see about taking the fight to the enemy using your bug spray.”

  I could tell by the sound of Marvin’s voice that he wasn’t happy being diverted from a technical challenge, what he considered fun. “It is not efficient to disrupt my research at this time.”

  “Maybe you’ll stay an ensign forever,” I said angrily. “Promotions in Star Force aren’t automatic, you know. But I have a further incentive for you, Marvin. A technical challenge that’s right up your alley, one even more interesting than the bug spray.”

  Even though we were on audio only, I could imagine his cameras and tentacles perking up to stare at me. “What kind of technical challenge?”

  I had his full attention now. “I’ll give you the details after Valiant is repaired—in fact, after all our ships are repaired. The faster you get that done, the sooner you’ll hear the details of this challenge.”

  Clicking and metallic rasping sounds came clearly across the com-link, probably his tentacles coiling over each other.

  “I’m on my way. Please inform biotic personnel to limit their interference in my operations.”

  “Will do. Riggs out.” Once the channel had closed, I said, “Valiant, put out a general announcement that Marvin will be helping with the repairs and to stay out of his way.”

  Then I turned back to the paused holotank view and started it going again.

  Demon ships continued to slow, spiraling inward toward Ellada, with thousands of missiles and hundreds of heavy fighters leading them. I didn’t understand their tactics, sending such an enormous salvo ahead. If I’d been in charge, I’d have kept things together so that while the Elladans were trying to fend off the nukes and small craft, my battleships and cruisers could take a bunch of free shots.

  In other words, I’d try to overwhelm the enemy all at once rather than coming in waves.

  On the other hand, if they had enough to win the battle, this might minimize their casualties. But they didn’t seem to care so much about casualties…so it didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t help feeling there was some critical element to this whole situation I was missing, that if I could just figure it out, everything would suddenly become clear.

  The Elladan home fleet did their best to preserve itself. Instead of trying to defend the planet and its population, they abandoned any attempt to intercept the nuclear missiles.

  The Demons seemed to be playing along. None of the nukes were targeted at cities on the surface, though about five hundred of them arrowed downward toward planetary defense installations. Lasers reached up from the ground and speared most of those, but about fifty of them made it through to raise mushroom clouds into the upper atmosphere.

  “So they put up with this every year?” Hansen said from beside me.

  “No. The Demons have always hit the Whales before, which is why the Elladans fortified them. Looks like this year the Demons wised up and changed their tactics. Speaking of tactics…”

  We watched as the cloud of missiles chased the Elladan fleet around their planet. The Elladans had adopted our intel and kept ahead of the demon missiles picking them off as they sought to maneuver. The Elladan fleet allowed the Demon missiles into medium range and did its best with beams, knocking down at least a thousand. Then they ran, diving down into the planet’s atmosphere on the back side, where more, untouched, planetary defenses could assist them.

  At the end of it, all the Demon missiles and most of the heavy fighters were destroyed. The only Elladan ships to survive had slammed themselves into their oceans and hid themselves deep under the water, out of sensor range, where the nukes couldn’t follow, leaving the Demon fleet in possession of the planet, its moon and its ring—for now.

  -15-

  A few hours later, as the main body of the Demon fleet approached Ellada, I met with my command staff. They had haggard faces and serious expressions, but they were listening to me closely. No one liked what they’d witnessed the day before. This endless war between three races had taken a grim turn.

  “So far, the Elladans have done better than I thought they would,” I told the group. “Like the Macros, the Nanos and the Lithos, these Demons are tough, but they’re not all that flexible or smart. That seems to be a failing of hive-type beings, if I can generalize from only three examples.”

  The holotank recordings were all caught up to real time, and I racked my brain for ways to help our allies. “How soon until we’re in range?”

  “At our current speed, about four hours,” Hansen replied.

  “And…” I adjusted the holotank. “The Elladan relief fleet will get there in about three. So we need to speed up.”

  “If we speed up, we’ll have to slow down later,” Hansen said quietly. “You know how it works.”

  “I don’t want to make the same mistake as the Demons have—splitting our forces in time, if not in space. Ideally, I want to get there ten or fifteen minutes after the Elladans do, so the battle will be fully joined, and we can figure out where we want to throw in our weight.”

  Hansen snorted. “We have seven ships—only two of which are heavy enough to fight without getting fragged in one blow.”

  “Plus our drones and the missiles on them,” I added sternly. “Worst case, we’ll take our shots, whip on around and return to Trinity-9. There, we can join up with the Whales.”

  “And leave these humans to get wiped out?” Hansen asked.

  I frowned at him. He was full of objections today.

  “The Demons won’t wipe them out,” I said. “If they intended to do that, a thousand kinetic darts would have been aimed at the planet. No, they want to seize Ellada. Unless I miss my guess, they want to conquer Ellada. If they do, the weak-minded Whales will eventually fall.”

  Hansen remained unconvinced. “We need to kill them, Captain. That’s my opinion as your XO. We have to kill the Demons.”

  “I get that, but we have to play it smart.”

  “We have to kill them!” he shouted suddenly.

  I stared at him for a second, and he stared back. Was he feeling battle-fatigue?

  “Take a break, Hansen,” I said. “That’s an order. Get a beer, get laid, take a hot shower or grab a nap—whatever. Lazar can handle the cruise inward the next couple of hours. Come back fresh and ready to kick some ass.”

  “Yeah. Okay—sorry sir.” Hansen got up and walked heavily out of the ready room.

  I broke up the meeting and spent my time checking the ship and encouraging the crew. I made sure to look in on Sakura to see if I could detect…well, anything. Suspicious behavior, signs of cracking, whether or not she and Hansen had made up? I didn’t notice anything, but she was very hard to read.

  The repairs were going well. In fact, the crew seemed as energetic and focused as they’d ever been. I ordered the Raptors back to their cargo bay, but not into hibernation. They would be all right for a few hours.

  I noticed the marines helping with the heavy manual labor, as usual. What I didn’t expect to see as I rounded a corner were a couple of my Pigs taking swings at each other in full armor.

  As I didn’t have my suit on, I didn’t try to get between them. “Valiant, vector the nearest four marine noncoms here in full armor, ASAP, and relay me on a short-range com-link, max amplification.”

  “Marine noncoms on the way,” said the ship. “Com-link activated.”

  “Stand down, you two!” I roared.

  They should have stopped, held fast by the sound of my voice in their helmets. I yelled again but gave up after it became clear they were unlikely to harm each other. They were doing more damage to the walls and floor, actually.

  Internal laser turrets twitched and tracked the two, and I told Valiant to
put their stupid brains to sleep before a mistake was made. I wished I could do that to the suits, but no external command could override a marine’s own control—for good reason. I didn’t want anyone being able to hack them again.

  By that time, armored figures moved in to break up the brawling. Troops pinned the two in place. Kwon showed up and slapped each one in the helmet repeatedly with his gauntlets until they came to their senses.

  “Escort them to the armory, get them out of their suits and throw them in the brig!” he growled.

  “Thanks, Sergeant Major,” I said more casually than I felt. “Carry on.”

  We’d had more than a few brawls among the Pigs, but none when they were suited up and working. I took it as a sign that things were getting tense around here.

  All we had to do was help our allies win this next battle, though, and something could be done. It was an ugly thought, but maybe there was a tiny upside to Ellada getting creamed. Our people would be less likely to want to stay. Any R&R on the planet would not be as idyllic against a background of death, even if we took it at a place far away from the devastation.

  Far away…yeah, maybe that was the ticket. Ask the Elladans for the use of a tropical island and a boatload of supplies, and maybe a few dozen volunteer companions to balance our gender mix if their morality allowed such a thing. Party hearty, but in a controlled environment away from the rest of their society.

  We might even pick up a few additions to the crew, if things worked out.

  “Captain, I am receiving a call from Senator Diogenos,” Valiant said from a speaker nearby.

  “Speak of the devil,” I said. “Pipe it to my quarters.”

  Soon my wall screen showed the Elladan’s patrician face. He wore his translation device and loose-fitting robes as always.

  “Captain Riggs. I must thank you for your efforts thus far on our behalf. Our military leaders tell me your squadron did the enemy a great deal of damage.”

  “Thanks, Senator.”

  “Captain…I would like to know your intentions.”

  “Intentions? I plan to kill as many Demons as I can.”

  “Yes, but more specifically…” Diogenos’ brow furrowed. “Our strategists are concerned about the lack of coordination between us. Friendly fire and so on. I’m not a military man, you understand.”