Demon Star

by B. V. Larson

  “The channel has closed, sir,” Valiant said.

  “Dammit. That robot is always playing hide-and-seek, pretending to have communication problems and the like.”

  The communications officer worked steadily for several minutes to no avail.

  “The ansible can’t connect,” she said, giving up at last.

  “Dammit. I wonder if that Slab ate Marvin,” I commented aloud.

  “Good riddance,” I heard one of the watchstanders mutter.

  I thought about reprimanding the junior officer, but I didn’t bother. Marvin was irritating and deceptive. He might have made the whole thing up just so he didn’t have to talk to me right now. It was hard to tell what was what out in deep space.

  The rocks we’d tossed toward the ring closed in and began to vanish.

  “Signal the Whales to advance their first wave,” I said.

  Farswimmer had allowed me to be the battle’s overall coordinator. The Whale attack fleet now accelerated to place themselves behind the rock swarm. I resisted the urge to send the stealth probe through once more. The spy machine’s peeping presence was the only thing that might tip off the enemy now. Our maneuvering ships were so far from Tartarus in normal space that it would take more than a day for even a speed-of-light warning to reach them.

  I nodded at Hansen, and he took his place at the controls. “Let’s go,” I said, and our two ships moved in behind the Whales.

  As we were still half an hour from ring transit, building up speed from a dead stop, I had plenty of time to visit the armory. Once I’d suited up, I clomped back to the bridge and sat myself in front of the holotank, faceplate open. No one looked askance at the armor. I think they all thought I wouldn’t be able to resist rushing off to help with any marine action. In reality, I wanted to be sure no assassin would have an easy shot at me. Knocking out a commander at the start of a critical battle would be a coup for anyone trying to interfere with my plans.

  Long minutes passed after the rocks flashed into the ring and disappeared. We released several more probes—but this time, they didn’t come back to report.

  There was a grim silence on the bridge. I forced myself not to pace.

  “The Whale fleet is almost at the point of no return,” Bradley commented.

  I looked at him, but he didn’t look back. He was hinting that maybe I should call them back, that maybe there was a trap or some unforeseen disaster going on beyond the ring.

  “Good,” I said. “Tell the Whales I wish them luck.”

  No one spoke as the Whale fleet trundled into the ring and, one by one, transited. Thirty seconds later, we did the same.

  Everyone’s gut was in a knot by that time. We didn’t know what we’d find, but we didn’t have long to wait to find out. Something hit the hull.

  “What was that? Update those sensors!”

  “Debris, sir. Unknown origin.”

  I gritted my teeth. I could taste disaster. I didn’t dare make eye-contact with anyone on the bridge.

  The holotank began updating sluggishly. Tartarus, the brown dwarf, hung huge and close, glowing faint and cold by stellar standards, but warm enough to give life to the Demon planet. The mini-star looked much like a gas giant, only somewhat larger.

  A peculiarity of physics caused the biggest of sub-stellar bodies not to grow much as their mass crossed the boundary between gas giant and tiny glimmering star. Instead of swelling, their density climbed with the heavier gravity, squeezing the material at the center. The compression caused scattered fusion and heat. These dim stars were like a flame sputtering to life. As more and more material was sucked in, the fledgling suns might eventually grow, but this one had stalled. It didn’t have enough mass to gather out here in its lonely orbit to become a true star.

  My eyeballs roved the display. There were hulks everywhere—Whale hulks. At least half the Ketan fleet had been destroyed.

  I swallowed hard. “Report!” I shouted. “What the hell is hitting us?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Hansen said, his voice stressed. “Something happened to them.”

  “Mines? How did we miss detecting them?”

  “I don’t think it was mines…I…I think our own rocks hit them. The Ketan ships are swarming with silicate nanos.”

  “That shouldn’t affect metal hulls,” I pointed out.

  Hansen glanced at me. His face was pale and drawn.

  “The Ketan hulls are largely ceramic, sir. Not all metallic. There isn’t all that much metal on their gas giant, I gather.”

  I let this sink in. The magnitude of the disaster was beginning to dawn on me.

  In the meantime, Hansen turned back to his boards and kept heaping on more bad news. “There are punctures in the hulls with patterns matching the rocks we sent through… I don’t understand how this happened, Captain.”

  “Get Hoon on the line. I want answers.”

  The bridge crew scrambled to obey, and I tried not to look sick. Had I shot my own allies in the ass? Had I doomed this taskforce somehow? My face was ashen, and I refused to meet anyone’s eye.

  “Hoon here. Could it be my paltry services are valued again?”

  I ground my teeth. I’d made a point of ignoring the lobster for weeks. But now, as he’d surmised, I desperately needed him.

  “Study the sensor data we’re piping down to you, Hoon. Tell me what happened.”

  “Ah, plans gone awry? Is that it?” he demanded. There could have been joy in his voice, but it was hard to be sure. It could have been an affectation of the translator.

  “What do you think happened? According to the data?”

  “Hard to say…some kind of repeller effect. Have you done a gravimetric scan of the region yet?”

  “Get up here, Hoon. On the double. If you’re not on this deck in one minute, I’m sending Kwon to drag you up here.”

  “Fine,” he said petulantly.

  “Sir, Farswimmer wants to talk to you,” Hansen said.

  I finally looked at him. He looked as grim-faced as I was.

  “Open the channel. I’ll talk to him directly.”

  “Captain Riggs,” rumbled the bulky creature superimposed over the scene of wreckage on the holotank. “Something has gone very wrong.”

  “Yes,” I said, “that’s clear. What’s your status, Farswimmer?”

  “My ship was struck twice by your cast stones. Very strange. They flew forward then bounded back into our faces.”

  Hoon made an appearance then. He was dripping wet and his environment suit was leaking. That left me with a pang. I’d forgotten that he had to suit up in a water tank before humping it up to the bridge. He really had needed more time.

  “Hansen, get someone up here to help Hoon with his suit before he dehydrates.”

  “On it.”

  Hoon waved his eyestalks at me angrily. “Another aquatic abused by you land-apes,” he said, indicating Farswimmer. “I feel I’ve crossed a moral barrier by signing on with this crew of destructive beasts.”

  “Hoon,” I said, ignoring his tirade, “tell Farswimmer what you think happened.”

  “I’ve been reviewing the data on the way to the bridge—although I was given precious little time to do so. I believe there is a system of repellers set up in space around the ring. The spray of asteroid shards activated the network of probes, and they sent the barrage caroming back into our fleet.”

  “Interesting,” Farswimmer said. “That indicates the enemy either knew we were coming, or they had the foresight to prepare a defense in case this route of attack was ever used against them.”

  “Further,” Hoon continued, talking over Farswimmer in an annoyed tone, “I now theorize the system was originally designed to stop a missile barrage. Fortunately, some of the shards got through the network. Examine your sensors that are focused on the approaching fleet.”

  My head snapped to the holotank again. Hoon was right. The forty-odd ships that the Demons had
stationed in orbit were coming our way.

  “Jackpot!” I crowed as I saw two of them explode into brief puffs of burning gas and debris. Not all of our rocks had been thwarted.

  We’d sent in almost a hundred big rocks, each of them a quarter mile across. They’d been aimed at the enemy shipyards and other orbital facilities, where vessels clustered in convenient groups. I hoped the few stones that slipped by their repeller system would cause massive disruptions on impact, spreading the nanites to the planet’s orbital infrastructure. If nothing else, we might disrupt their plans to build a new fleet.

  My ships caught up with Farswimmer’s devastated force. We fell into formation and our combined fleet thrust forward, building up speed.

  At first, the element of surprise was still in our favor. Our ships spread out and easily began picking off ships and facilities the asteroids had missed. Without crews or ammunition, the best the Demons managed were a few scattered beam shots, which the Whales’ big ships shrugged off.

  As the two fleets closed, it became impossible to follow all the action, so I didn’t try. Instead, I concentrated on calling the shots for my two ships. The Whales would have to manage on their own for now.

  “Open fire with the mains,” I said. Immediately, our four heavy lasers licked out, targeting the smallest, most vulnerable enemy ships. “Tell Cornelius she is weapons-free as we come into the midranges.”

  “Missiles?” Bradley asked, clearly eager.

  “Let’s wait. I want to hold something in reserve.”

  Just when I thought the worst was over, disaster struck anew. Off our port bow, a Whale ship listed and inverted. One of her engines had failed, and we had to take drastic evasive action to get out of her wake.

  “What the hell is wrong with that pilot?” I demanded. “Nothing hit that ship—nothing that I saw.”

  “Wrong again,” Hoon crowed from behind me.

  I wheeled and loomed over the irritating alien.

  “What happened, Hoon?”

  “You happened, young Riggs. Those rocks you fired into this system are infecting many ships. Both ours and theirs. The nanoscopic silicates are like venom. Even a glancing blow on one of these fine vessels may turn out to be fatal. That particular Ketan ship was struck near the engine, and the engine failed some minutes later.”

  Nodding grimly, I turned back to stare into the holotank. The crew of the stricken ship had gotten control of her again—but for how long?

  I had the feeling any commander must experience when an evil weapon rebounded upon them. It was as if I’d fired rockets loaded with chemical and biological agents at the enemy line, only to see the wind change and watch my own troops die in agony.

  “Spread out!” I shouted. “Relay this to Farswimmer. Spread out all our ships. We can’t afford to allow ships to infect one another. Increase speed, too. We have to engage the enemy before we take more losses in transit.”

  My orders were heeded. Farswimmer obediently opened up his formations, and we turned from a tight disk into a flying shotgun pattern of ships. It was far from optimal, but it was all I could think to do.

  Whales and Demons began annihilating each other as the range closed. Our numbers were still greater but just barely. This thin advantage was balanced by the enemy’s more organized formation. They came into range of our ships all at once and could better concentrate their fire.

  “Keep us at the midranges, Hansen,” I said as we edged closer. “Break formation. Don’t let them box us in. The last thing we want is to take the brunt of this.”

  Stalker reversed for a moment, using her point defense phalanx to knock down a salvo of missiles. Hansen followed suit, and we kept sniping at the Demons, patiently whittling them down.

  Unfortunately, my tactic made my two ships less effective. We had to play keep-away with the enemy chasing us while trying to maneuver around to the flanks and take what shots we could at the Demon formation, which was now surrounded by a cloud of Whale ships.

  Both sides were firing and inflicting serious damage at close range. The casualty count was running about even so far.

  Suddenly, my worst fear was realized. The ship trailing us exploded in a fireball of fusion. The shockwave hit us in the butt, and I was thrown sprawling onto the deck.

  Fortunately, I had armor on. Several other staffers were broken like dolls. I climbed over a tangle of limbs and stood up again, servos whining. The Holotank was cracked, but still operating.

  The Demons had found their self-destruct buttons.

  Once they’d decided to go that route, I knew they could drive ship after ship into our lines, blowing themselves up.

  The clock was ticking, ticking fast.

  “Move back into the center, now!” I ordered, and a bloody-faced Hansen complied. He turned us into the core of the fight. Stalker followed, pulling up next to Valiant, so that we charged the Demons like two armored knights, side by side.

  “Full salvo, Bradley, everything we have. Dump the Daggers!”

  “Bradley is down, sir.”

  I swiveled my armor. The person speaking was Lazar.

  “Then you take over. You’re my CAG now.”

  There was a quiet hesitation, but then the ensign did her job.

  “Got it,” she called.

  Over a hundred missiles, most of our available load, blossomed from the racks of our drones and from Valiant’s tubes themselves. Stalker added hers to the mix a moment later.

  Lazar used the short flight time to sort the weapons into groups of five to ten, each concentrating on an enemy battleship in hopes of getting one through and taking it down. Space lit up with dozens of fusion explosions, rogue Whales bursting and nukes slamming home, so fast I could hardly follow it all.

  When the smoke cleared, nine damaged Demons remained, and about a dozen Whales.

  “Pass to Farswimmer: move in close and finish them off as fast as you can. The longer this takes, the more Demon ships will suicide into us and explode.”

  The Whale fleet fell on the remaining enemies like a cloud of hawks, and we followed them in, concentrating all our fire on enemy ships in turn. Lazar and her techs used the Daggers as a separate squadron, moving into point blank range and slicing the battleships up with AP beams.

  When only two Demons remained, I yelled, “Tell Farswimmer to run for home, now! Get as many of his people out as he can.”

  The Whale ships pulled out, leaving us to finish off the near-wrecks that faced us. We dismantled them easily, but five more of our allies’ ships exploded before the last Demon ship went down, leaving us in possession of the Tartarus system.

  It had been a costly battle full of mistakes—but we’d won the day.

  With Stalker at our back, Valiant moved away from Tartarus-1, the Demons’ home world.

  “Damage report,” I said, staring at the holotank.

  First Hansen, then Lazar read out numbers and facts. We’d been hurt—but the Whales had taken the worst of it. They were down to less than fifty percent effectives.

  Even while my staffers read me the grim news, another of the Ketan cruisers cascaded into a blazing inferno. The white light of burning metal and plasma quickly died as the vacuum snuffed the flame. A shower of metallic fragments came toward us.

  “Get those shields up,” Hansen shouted. “I don’t want our ship to catch the plague.”

  I winced, but said nothing. He was right. The Ketan cruiser’s fusion core had been breached—doubtlessly by the Lithos nightmare I’d released and which had rebounded into our faces.

  When we’d finally begun to relax, convinced the Demons didn’t have anything left to throw at us, I attempted to leave the bridge.

  I didn’t make it to the door.

  “Sir?” the com officer called. “Uh…there’s someone here to talk to you.”

  “Here? Who?”

  “It’s Marvin, sir,” she said. “Put your headset back on. He’s right outside our hull, an
d he wants to talk to you.”

  Frowning, I did as she asked. I was confused. The last time I’d talked to Marvin, he’d been hanging around another ring—very far away. In fact, in order to get here so fast, he most likely had some kind of new engine…unless…

  “Marvin?” I barked into the mouthpiece. “Did you use the ring to get here?”

  “Obviously, Captain Riggs.”

  “No, I mean did you use the ring you were hanging around earlier—”

  “Sir, there’s a much more important matter to discuss.”

  I already felt like I was being bamboozled, but I bit on the bait anyway.

  “Talk to me. Why are you here?”

  “This must be discussed privately, and in person.”

  Craning my neck around, I looked for him on my screens. There Greyhound was, lingering near our hull and setting off all kinds of blinking proximity alarms. He was a tangle of tentacles and scorched metal.

  “Looks like you’ve been taking a little heat yourself, lately,” I told him.

  “Heat, yes—that’s related to what I want to talk to you about.”

  “I’m not following, Marvin.”

  “Could you come out here? I’m near the port side hatch. It’s only a few steps from the bridge on the main passageway.”

  Snorting, I walked through my ship to the hatch he’d designated. “I know my own ship, robot.”

  The airlock cycled, and soon I was floating in open vacuum. I hoped there weren’t any more of those sand-grain-sized Lithos around. Our shield should deflect them, but nothing was one hundred percent on Valiant.

  Suddenly, a coil of tentacles lunged at me and gripped my limbs. I was snatched from my nice, floating position in space and sucked into Greyhound’s metal guts.

  Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like being grabbed and yanked around by surprise. Reflexively, I fought with the tentacles.

  My father had suffered a fate like this once, back on the first day of the Nano ship invasion…so long ago. I wondered if he’d struggled and torn at the tentacles—I bet he had. I knew that something like this had killed my two older siblings when they were just teens.

  With a sudden fury, I summoned my strength and managed to tear one of the offending limbs apart. It thrashed in my gauntlets as I was drawn into Greyhound and released. I dropped the tentacle on the floor, and it writhed there.