The Mandate of Heaven

by Mike Smith

  “Uh, is that twenty thousand, per torpedo, my Lord?”

  “Don’t be daft man, what do you think I am, made of money? Remind the Captains that if they fail in their mission, best to do so spectacularly. As it would be most unwise for them to survive the failed attempt.”

  *****

  “I can see you Stanton,” the disembodied voice echoed from the darkness. “What did you expect when you threw me into the deepest, darkest hole you could find. You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

  The fusion beam snapped into existence, echoing the sound of the voice, unerringly finding its target—the chest of one of the few bodyguards that still surrounded the High-Lord. The man dropped to the floor, a smoking charred hole, all which remained of his chest.

  The remaining guards immediately opened fire, with weapons on full automatic. The corridor was briefly illuminated by the muzzle flashes of their weapons. When all ran dry, one of the guards pulled a pin from a grenade, tossing it back down the corridor in the direction of the voice. The entire corridor lit up like a roman candle and even from a distance of twenty or thirty feet away, they could feel the heat of the blast.

  A few seconds later, another beam snapped out from the dark, this time from a perpendicular direction, like the half-dozen before it, this also squarely struck a guard who fell wordlessly to the floor. Dead.

  “Fall back,” the Major screamed, pushing High-Lord Stanton ahead of him. “Covering fire!”

  “Have I told you about a conversation that I had while in captivity. I think you might be interested, as you were the sole topic of discussion. It was when I traded my soul with the devil. It was a very simple bargain really, my soul in exchange for sending you back to hell where you were spawned from. I thought it a fair deal.”

  Another beam pierced the night, and yet another guard collapsed to the floor.

  “You seem to be rapidly running out of men,” the discorporate voice called out, mockingly.

  *****

  Concealed behind the vast superstructure of the dreadnought, the ships lit up like miniature stars, as one by one, they powered up their fusion engines. The four ships, in close formation, were the oddest, most bizarre group ever seen. All looked like they’d been drafted by some eccentric ship designer, while drunk. They sprouted sensors, antenna and various other utility attachments in every direction imaginable.

  In short they looked like a prickle of hedgehogs, on a bad hair day.

  It wasn’t their physical characteristics, that most drew the eye however, but what they towed behind—a net. It was vast. Over twenty-seven kilometres in length, the individual constituent strands, each only a few nanometres thick, were a million times thinner than a strand of human hair. It was made of graphene ribbons, perfect two-dimensional sheets of carbon, which had a tensile strength greater than one hundred thousand kilonewtons. As the ships continued to accelerate, they moved laterally apart, casting their net even wider.

  Rounding the Dreadnought, the ships’ targets came into view for the first time, the incoming torpedoes. They were clearly visible, a tight cluster of stars, their own rocket motors burning brightly, as they continued to accelerate onwards. With a combined interception speed of over five thousand kilometres per hour, the graphene net would have shredded the torpedoes and the resulting megaton explosion would have been visible from the nearest star-system. It was for this very reason that while still fifty kilometres distant, the four ships flipped about on their axis, pointing the way that they had just come. Their engines at full thrust, they desperately tried to bleed off their speed, as they started to brake. When the two groups, ships and torpedoes, finally intercepted each other several seconds later, the ships had bled off almost all their unwanted velocity and the interception speed was measured in hundreds, not thousands, of kilometres per hour.

  The net slipped easily around the first five, but it was just slightly off-centre enough that it scraped along the side of the sixth. A tremor travelled along the length of the torpedo and its course wavered for a moment, before internal guidance systems corrected the trajectory and it continued onwards—heading directly for Elysium Fields.

  One of the strange, claw like, appendages of the nearest ship, rotated round until it was pointing in the direction of the rapidly vanishing torpedo and, with a brief squirt of compressed gas, shot from its housing, trailing a long, thin, filament of carbon nanotubes behind it. The grappler caught the torpedo two-thirds of the way along its length and immediately on contact the claw started to retract, biting into the thin surface of the weapon casing. But as soon as the trailing cable went taut, with the tremendous forces acting in opposite directions, the claw started to slice along the outer-casing, in the direction of the rocket engines and its volatile fuel tanks—

  Only for moments later to be hit by a second, third and fourth grappler from the remaining ships. Caught at perpendicular angles, this helped to stabilise the external force on the outer casing and slowly, but surely, the torpedo began to veer off track. The four ships, with cargo in tow, altered course, now heading in a parallel direction to the Dreadnought and enemy fleet, carrying away their precious, and extremely valuable, bounty.

  *****

  “What the hell just happened? Somebody, please, tell me that I just imagined that,” screamed a red-faced Admiral Sloane, in the middle of a full blown temper tantrum. “He just stole my torpedoes! That, that, thief.”

  “I believe that a more accurate term is pirate, Admiral,” the Operations Officer quipped, before snapping his jaw tightly shut, when Admiral Sloane turned the full force of his glare on him.

  “Well, I don’t care what the correct label is, Granville can’t have ‘em. They’re mine. Activate their self-destruct.”

  “Negative, Admiral,” the Tactical Officer shook his head. “The weapons aren’t responding to the destruct codes, something seems to be jamming our signal.”

  “The Dreadnought?” Sloane asked, shocked. “That ship is over two hundred years old, no way does it possess the transmitters to block our communications, not from this distance away.”

  “Correct Admiral, we’ve confirmed that the jamming signal isn’t originating from Elysium Fields.”

  “Then, by the High-Lords, where’s it coming from?” Sloane demanded.

  “Everywhere,” the Operations Officer responded. “It’s coming from all around us.”

  *****

  To describe the massive freighter as run-down, dilapidated and neglected, was to compliment all other decrepit hulks still in service. It was a miracle that it still flew at all. This was plainly clear from the large gaps in its hull, where poorly welded plating had simply, fallen off. With its large fusion engines at the stern, the rest of the ship was given over to bulk cargo containers, several thousand at full capacity. Such ships were the back-bone of the merchant fleet and carried everything from computers to duct tape. Everything that an advanced, space-faring, civilization needed. Obeying the laws of physics, such mass came at the cost of acceleration, which was roughly comparable to that of a similar sized moon.

  Therefore, it was perfectly reasonable that it continued, unimpeded, to approach the side of the destroyer Intrepid. The captain of the freighter, a grizzled veteran, that had been trawling the space-lanes long before most of the crew of the Intrepid had even been born, yawned in the face of their strenuous objections. The Intrepid was more than welcome to lend a hand, by giving them a tow, but nothing short of that was going to be able to move them away any quicker than they were already accelerating.

  Only a few hundred metres apart, the Intrepid was completely taken by surprise to discover that the contents of the freighter were not several thousand bulk shipping containers, but instead several dozen, short-range, high-explosive, multiple launch rocket systems. They also discovered that the gaping holes in the hull were perfectly concealed launch tubes and, therefore, the first that the Intrepid knew of the potential danger, was when the freighter opened fire—at point blank ra
nge.

  Over a hundred missiles, simultaneously ignited, left tongues of fire in their wake as they thundered from their launch racks, traversing the short distance to their target in seconds. The missiles detonated on impact, the full force of the blasts tearing apart armour plating, weapons blisters and hull. As soon as the first missiles left the launch rack, the automatic re-loader rotated the magazine, bringing the next missile in-line with the launch tube, before this too leapt from the launcher. This cycle repeated several times, until all the magazines were empty. The entire process took nothing more than a dozen seconds, in which time the freighter had launched almost five hundred missiles, into the side of the destroyer.

  A broadside of unimaginable destructive power.

  As the two ships drifted apart, the damage became immediately apparent, as the entire starboard side of the Intrepid was torn to shreds. Fires were clearly observable running the length of the ship, where missiles had penetrated the armour, breaching the side of the ship and igniting the atmosphere contained within. Several subsequent explosions could be seen, as fires raged unimpeded, finally reaching the ammunition magazines stored near the centre of the ship. These were clearly visible hundreds of kilometres distant, appearing like flares arching through the inky blackness of space.

  But worse was still yet to come, as dozens of other ships that had been floating, aimlessly, in the vicinity, suddenly powered up their engines, changing course to intercept the now crippled warship. One-by-one concealed gun ports opened on these ships, as weapon batteries were deployed, opening fire as soon as the ships were in range. The destroyer seemed to physically recoil from the incoming weapons fire as it broke formation with the rest of the fleet, trying to put as much physical distance between itself and its pursuers as possible. The attackers mercilessly gave chase, continuing to pour gunfire into the stern of the retreating warship.

  Still this was no isolated incident, as simultaneously the rest of the fleet came under fire from the surrounding ships. All were taken by complete surprise, having no advanced warning, and many ships were crippled before they even had a chance to return fire. The surrounding space came alive with gunfire, lasers and missiles, becoming a swirling maelstrom of death and destruction—with the Battlecruiser Valkyrie at the very heart of the storm.

  *****

  “By the High-Lords,” Admiral Sloane cried in horror, seeing devastation everywhere he looked. Crippled ships were all that remained of his fleet.

  “Admiral,” the Operations Officer shouted. “We’ve lost the Intrepid, Dauntless and Spirit, all remaining ships are reporting massive damage. It was a trap. We were so focused on taking Elysium Fields, that we didn’t give a second thought to the other ships. Admiral, we must retreat!”

  “No,” Sloane bellowed, turned his back on the carnage taking place outside. “I won’t allow some fool to make a mockery of me and this fleet. What is the status of the Valkyrie?”

  “Only superficial damage, Admiral. The rest of the fleet was in close escort formation around us, hence none of the enemy ships could approach, but what can we do? We can’t fight all of them.”

  “The rest of these ships are not my concern, our primary objective is Elysium Fields. Helm, full power to engines. Tactical, bring our main guns on-line, clear us a path to that station, I plan on finishing what we started.”

  Slowly, but with gathering speed, the Valkyrie started to pull away from the rest of the fleet. The surrounding pirate ships, taken by surprise at the movement tried to intercept. However, most couldn’t match the powerful engines and rapid acceleration of the battlecruiser. They were the fortunate ones, as the smaller, more agile ships that could match its acceleration and moved to intercept, soon came within range of its powerful guns.

  Armed with thirty inch, fifty calibre guns, they could fire a two thousand kilogram armour piercing, or high explosive shell, accurate to one hundred metres.

  For the smaller, more lightly armoured ships that were able to keep pace with the battlecruiser, their effects were devastating, with several smaller frigates disintegrating under the withering fire from the main guns. A large, lumbering freighter, blocking the path of the rapidly approaching warship, took several rounds of incoming fire. These penetrated the side of the ship, passing clear through its superstructure before exiting the other side. The freighter managed to survive these, only for the guns on the Valkyrie to switch to high-explosive rounds. The next barrage cut the freighter to pieces, the debris that remained was left in the wake of the fusion engines from the battlecruiser.

  The few remaining ships, recognising the futility of stopping the battlecruiser and not being paid enough to commit suicide by getting in range of its guns, fell back from the pursuit, turning their weapons on the few ships remaining of the Fifth Fleet.

  Meanwhile the Battlecruiser Valkyrie, now unimpeded, continued to accelerate in the direction of Elysium Fields, which minute by minute, drew closer, and into the range of the battlecruiser’s guns.

  *****

  Bullets flew everywhere. Literally.

  For the soldiers had forgotten Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Hence, when they opened fire, for every pound of force exerted by the expanding gas, which forced the rounds out of their weapons, an equal, and opposite force, was being exerted on them. The result was instant, and spectacular, as they were propelled around the corridor like miniature rockets. While the first few rounds went in approximately the right direction, the rest sprayed everywhere. Several of the troops suffered self-inflicted gunshot wounds, although fortunately, none were fatal.

  “I’ve never seen such a bunch of useless amateurs,” Sanderson sighed, shaking his head in disbelief, as he watched, wide-eyed, at the unfolding scene of carnage. There was nothing that he needed do, as he was already forgotten, as instead the troops tried, haplessly, to control their flight. This was mostly achieved by impacting, at terrifyingly high speed, into various doors, floors, ceilings and bulkheads.

  Sanderson winced at every collision.

  When things finally settled down, and the corridor, once packed with heavily armed troops, but now consisting of an assorted collection of bruised, bleeding, or concussed bodies, he pushed off, sailing serenely through the group and, catching hold of a door handle, pulled himself to a stop in front of one of the few remaining conscious and relatively uninjured soldiers, who promptly raised his rifle.

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Sanderson said casually. “The last time you tried that, you ended up in far worse condition than I.”

  Glancing left, then right, the soldier observed the broken and bloodied bodies all around him and carefully removed his finger from the trigger.

  “Good choice,” Sanderson nodded approvingly, withdrawing yet another cigar from his pocket. “Perchance, you don’t happen to have a light, do you?” At the wide-eyed look from the man, Sanderson sighed, reluctantly stuffing the cigar back into a pocket of his armour, that seemed suspiciously well placed, as if for just such a purpose. “Next question, how many men do you have stationed between here and the docking bay?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Fair enough,” Sanderson nodded understandingly. “Well, I’ll just step aside then and let Lady Hadley continue with the questioning. If you decide to change your mind, just holler and I’ll come and try my best to re-attach your various appendages. You do already have kids, right? As I’m fairly sure that fatherhood is going to be completely out of the question from here on.”

  The soldier gave him a wide-eyed expression, before leaning slightly to the side, to give him an unimpeded view of Jessica.

  “She’s highborn and, accordingly to Colonel Grey, a completely ruthless, bloodthirsty, savage. Come on man, work with me here. This is Colonel Grey we are talking about, you know the killer of Capella? According to him, she ripped the head off the last man that crossed her and all he did was proposition her!”

  “Fine, fine, just
keep her away from me. We’re the rear-guard and except for the pilots there’s nobody else between us and the shuttles. We thought we would be able to take you by surprise, and had been expecting reinforcements, although only the High-Lords know where they’ve gotten to.”

  “Don’t feel too bad,” Sanderson commiserated, bashing the man over the back of the head with the butt of his pistol. “You’re just the latest in a long line that’s underestimated the Colonel. I doubt you’ll be the last, as I expect Stanton is finding out right this very minute, much to his dismay. Moving on,” he called out loudly to the rest of the group, motioning them forward with his hand.

  “What did you say to him?” Jessica asked as she passed the body of the man. Watching him float away, adding him to the ranks of unconscious bodies already drifting in the eddies created by the station’s oxygen regeneration systems. “He looked completely petrified.”

  “I was just waxing, lyrically, about your many, fine, attributes,” Sanderson shrugged. “The Colonel listed them to me, in excruciating detail. I think he’s totally smitten with you.”

  *****

  Major Hargreaves was still several feet away, crawling on his hands and knees, to recover his pistol, when the boot came down, hard, on the back of his hand. Crying out in pain, he instinctively snatched his hand back from underneath it. Considering that his only remaining hand was not up to the task of taking his full weight, as it had already been cauterised from a fusion beam, it wasn’t surprising that he collapsed, landing face-first into the floor.

  “Ouch. Hargreaves, why am I not surprised to find you here. A boot-licking toady like yourself, I would have thought lying prostrate on the ground would be your default posture.”

  “Major Hargreaves,” the Major uttered between clenched teeth.

  “Congratulations on your promotion. If I had known, I would’ve sent flowers.”

  “You always were a smug bastard, Colonel. Now just get on with it, spare me the gloating and shoot me.”