The Mandate of Heaven

by Mike Smith

  For a long moment nothing happened, as if the mighty Dreadnought was taking a deep breath, in preparation for breathing fire. The first time in almost two centuries, back to when the mutual disarmament treaties had been signed, consigning this ship, and its sisters, to the history books.

  However, Elysium Fields had no intention of quietly passing into the night—instead it breathed fire.

  The four thousand kilograms, mark eight, ‘super-heavy’ armour piercing high explosive capped shell, was propelled out of the barrel with a muzzle velocity of five thousand feet per second, fourteen hundred meters per second. Propelled by a D640 propellant, containing smokeless powder grain, with a full charge consisting of twelve silk bags each filled with two hundred pounds of propellant. This resulted in the projectile travelling at close to its maximum speed, of fifteen thousand feet per second. At a distance of forty kilometres, this resulted in an almost ten second traversal time to the target.

  Using navigation and fire control computers that measured time in nanoseconds, this was an infinitesimally long time, but there was little or nothing that could be done, for the battlecruiser was so massive and travelling at such velocity that altering course to avoid the incoming fire was impossible. The battlecruiser possessed a few point-defence guns, and these half-heartedly tried to intercept the shell, but without success. Unlike the Dreadnought that numbered these weapons in the thousands, the battlecruiser’s strength was in its speed, but lacked the armour and firepower of the massive dreadnought.

  Therefore, almost unimpeded, the shell rapidly closed the distance, watched with bated breath on the bridge of the dreadnought and horror from those on the battlecruiser—as it passed several meters distant across the front bow of the battlecruiser.

  “Miss!” cried the Tactical Officer on the bridge of Elysium Fields, unnecessarily, as every eye on the bridge had been following the trajectory of the shell. Still, if his first word had no visible impact on the crew, the next words out of his mouth had the opposite effect. “Battlecruiser Valkyrie is now alongside, she’s commenced firing. Thirty seconds until impact.”

  “May the Gods have mercy,” Granville prayed.

  “I’m fairly sure all the Gods belong on the side of the High-Lords,” the Captain sighed, dejectedly.

  *****

  “Fire!” the voice screamed, again and again, reverberating around Jessica’s head. Yet, every time it was drowned out by another, far louder voice, that originated from her heart. “No, no, no,” it repeated incessantly. She found herself being torn between the two voices. Racked by indecision, she discovered, far too late, that the fusion pistol, clutched tightly in her grasp, didn’t respond well to indecision, instead requiring a clear purpose of intent.

  Still glowing, it stubbornly refused to release its payload of death.

  Therefore she could only watch, helplessly, as Alex’s pistol grew brighter and brighter, until she had to look aside, for fear of being blinded forever, the weapon continuing to feed on Alex’s emotions; a decade worth of pain, hatred and loathing. A single shot that would wipe out any trace of High-Lord Stanton’s existence forever.

  It began as a small, almost unnoticeable tremor, running along the length of the hull. It quickly grew in size and intensity, when a sudden large jolt knocked them from their feet. This wasn’t the end of it however, but simply the first of many that continued to swell, with the rolling and shaking now non-stop. The sound, distant at first, like remote claps of thunder, quickly followed. An unceasing rumbling, which grew in pitch and volume, until Jessica had to abandon her weapon and put her hands to her ears. As the shaking and noise reached its zenith, it sounded like somebody striking a massive bell, with her underneath. As she began to think that it would never end and continue until everything fell to pieces, it slowly abated, the shaking coming to a stop, like a massive express train which had finally passed by.

  Jessica stumbled to her feet, shaking her head to clear the effects of the combined shaking and noise. Once steady on her feet, she reached down to retrieve her pistol. Looking up she wasn’t surprised to find her betrothed lying on the floor, but still alive, just, as she could see his chest continuing to rise and fall. What was more astonishing was that somehow Alex had managed to weather the storm and miraculously remained standing—although his pistol no longer glowed brightly, obviously unable to keep focused on it during the onslaught. However, he was just as quick to recover as her, pointing it at the prostrate form on the floor, and once again light began to consolidate around its barrel.

  She was just about to call out to him again, to plead with him to stop, when she felt movement behind her. Taken by surprise, she pivoted around, just in time to make out a face from a nightmare, with glowing eyes and a scar that ran the length of his face. She just had time to register the fist that was flying at her with terrifying force, before it caught her under the chin. The power of the blow lifted her from her feet, throwing her back several metres, where she collided with a sickening thud with a bulkhead, before everything went black.

  *****

  So intently focused on his objective to send Stanton back to the hell from whence he’d came, Alex failed to notice the new threat. It was only Jessica’s cry of pain, so very different from her earlier pleading, which finally impeded on his consciousness and had him looking up. Just in time to see the nauseating impact of her body hit the bulkhead and then slide to the floor, motionless.

  For a horrifying moment he thought she was dead, and fear overcame reason, as he moved in her direction to check on her.

  That act almost cost Alex his life, as by the time his thought process finally caught up and he started to raise his pistol, it was already too late. A single, solitary, shot rang out, which caught him in the chest. The blow felt like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to him and the breath was immediately knocked out of him, the pistol falling from his nerveless fingers.

  Almost immediately his attacker lunged at him.

  Gasping for breath, off-balance and with his head spinning, Alex was catapulted back against the corridor’s wall and for a moment all he could see was stars. But his assailant gave him no respite, swinging the pistol back round to point at Alex’s face. Still unable to process rational thought, instinct saved his life, as his arm swept up, deflecting the pistol away, and hence the weapon discharged into the ceiling, ricocheting around the corridor like a cork.

  For the second time that day, Alex found himself in a test of strength, and losing, badly. The man was just as strong, if not stronger than Stanton himself, and while his anger, fear and frustration allowed him to match his attacker, this time he found his body severely lacking, being bruised, battered and bloodied, pushed beyond its breaking point. With the last vestiges of his strength, Alex reversed his grip and the pistol slammed against the wall. Once, twice, three times he smashed the weapon and the man’s hand against the wall. On the final attempt the assailant released his hold on the pistol and it dropped to the floor like a stone—where it discharged for a second time, the bullet missing Alex’s face by inches.

  He breathed a sigh of relief, but not for long, as his attacker didn’t hesitate in retaliating, using his remaining free hand, he balled up his fist and rammed it with full force, but not into Alex’s face, or chest, but instead his shoulder. The pain was like nothing Alex had ever felt before, like a ball of flame igniting his arm and travelling along the tendons, lodging in the base of his skull. Alex screamed, a sound that was muted seconds later by another fist crashing into his face. Only hanging onto consciousness by a thread, he slumped against the wall, before sliding to the floor, when his legs could no longer support his weight. Alex watched with one eye, the other swollen shut, as his assailant calmly reached down and picked up his fallen pistol, before levelling it at him.

  “My how you’ve lead me on a merry chase. I’ve been hunting you for weeks. My master was most displeased when I informed him that you both had survived. He made his displeasure clearly known to me. I think I prob
ably owe you for that—” Before Alex could register the movement, the man took a sudden step forward, ramming his boot into Alex’s stomach. It took a long time for him to recover, his hacking coughs a clear indication of his inability to draw breath, but finally he recovered enough to look up, facing his antagonist for the last time.

  “I remember you now,” Alex coughed. “You were there that day, on Babylon Station, the one that Rifkin called Javier, but you disappeared before I could track you down. It was you that wanted us both dead, but why?”

  “Not I, but my Lord. A powerful man, who rewards his most loyal subjects well. Strength. Power. Eternal life. What use is money, when compared to such rewards?” Javier smiled cruelly, exacerbated by the injury to his face.

  “It’s also against the rules.” Alex spat blood onto the floor beside him.

  “My master is a God,” Javier barked with laughter. “What does he care about petty rules?”

  “But why the other man, if it was just me that was sent to kill her?”

  “He was our insurance policy,” Javier shrugged indifferently. “While we could have dispatched her at any time, it would have been messy. My Lord wanted no loose strings attached. You kill the girl and the heroic guard slays the lone, crazed assassin. All nice and tidy, it’s a timeless classic.”

  “But why?” Alex coughed, blood bubbling from between his lips. “She was innocent, not deserving, who would go to all that trouble?”

  “Something that you can ponder together, as you’ll be seeing her very soon, when you meet her in the next life. Be sure to pass on my regards.” Javier once again raised his pistol to finally finish the task that he was meant to complete so long before.

  *****

  “We’re still alive?” Granville whispered in hushed awe, as the shaking and tremors finally receded.

  “It looks like it,” the Captain replied, equally surprised. “It would seem that we’ve still got at least one God left on our side.”

  “The Valkyrie has changed course, looks like she’s coming about, in preparation for another attack run,” the Tactical Office added.

  “Looks like we only brought ourselves a brief reprieve then,” the Captain sighed dejectedly.

  “I’ll take whatever the Gods are prepared to offer,” Granville exclaimed, stabbing his finger down on the communication button. “Reynolds! Get off your ass, I’m not paying you nothing to sit idly around all day. Load another shell.”

  “Nay, ya’ penny pinching, foul-mouthed, miser,” Reynolds bellowed back. “Ya’ gone and cracked the main breech. Gonna be weeks to replace that.”

  “Weeks? You senile old fool, we don’t have weeks. Fire again or I’m coming straight down there and I’ll stick that shell up your—”

  “My Lord,” the Captain interrupted. “If I may?”

  “Fine,” Granville huffed. “You try and talk some sense into the doddering old fool.”

  “Peter, Nick here, what’s the sit-rep?”

  “Doesn’t look good, Nick. I’m looking at least a six-inch crack in the main gun breech.”

  “Any chance of sealing it?”

  “Not a chance, not with anything close at hand.”

  “Understood. Can you still close the breech?”

  “Should do, cracks on the side.”

  “Very well. Go ahead and load another shell, close and seal the breech, then get you and your team out of there. I’ll hold fire as long as I can to give you enough time to get to a safe distance.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  Granville could only stare, wide-eyed, as he overheard the entire, succinct, conversation. “Your name is, Nicholas?” he asked astonished.

  “Yes, my Lord,” the Captain replied calmly, as he turned back to the weapons console, resetting all the systems in preparation to fire again.

  “I never knew,” Granville trailed off.

  “Knew what?” the Captain asked incredulously, turning to face him. “That I was named at birth, by my parents?”

  “You’ve got parents?” Granville replied, horrified. “Do I have to feed them too?”

  “Yes. It’s considered good governance to feed your citizens. We’ve got a master warning light for the main gun on the forward battery. Overriding the safeties.”

  “I feed you. Every day. I checked, as somebody kept billing me for the cost of the food.”

  “That would be cook, my Lord. We’ve now got a green-light on the main gun battery.”

  “Well, fire.”

  “Wait for them to get closer. We’ve only got one shot at this.”

  “Closer? Are you mad?”

  “Probably, as I can’t see myself working for you lucid,” the Captain replied, candidly.

  “I’m ordering you to fire, right this very instant.”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re fired then. You,” Granville pointed an accusing finger at the youth, who’d recently vacated the main weapons console and was currently floating behind the Captain, looking on wide-eyed. “Get back in this seat and fire these guns.”

  “Me?” the boy replied aghast. “I just sit here, not getting paid, to watch the glowing lights.”

  “It’s a conspiracy,” Granville grumbled. “Everybody is out to get me.”

  “You’re not wrong,” the Captain muttered.

  “What did you say?” Granville demanded.

  “That I’m firing, right now,” the Captain replied, straight faced.

  *****

  The sight of the second shell being ejected from the barrel of the forward gun turret would have been as equally awe inspiring as the first, were it not surpassed by the even more impressive explosion of the forward gun turret. As the two thousand pounds of propellant force ejecting the shell along the length of the barrel generated by the gas constant of the propellant, multiplied by the adiabatic flame temperature had to go somewhere, and that somewhere was the point of failure in the breech.

  It exploded.

  The thirteen thousand kilogram breech separated completely from the barrel of the gun, travelling in the reverse direction of the shell at two hundred and fifty metres per second, impacting into the wall of the armoured turret, perforating the side of it and causing an explosive decompression. That vacuum was immediately filled by the super-hot gasses escaping from the barrel and instantly igniting the remaining powder grain, which were stored in silk bags that had been stacked haphazardly in the corner of the turret. The explosion of these was certainly extraordinary, but nothing compared to the half-dozen shells that had been stacked, safely, twenty metres away, on the other side of the turret.

  Fortunately, the majority of the force of the resulting explosion was directed upwards and outwards, through the roof of the turret, which shattered, bursting away from the ship in an extraordinary display of pyrotechnics. The explosion was clearly visible almost forty kilometres distant, on the bridge of the Battlecruiser Valkyrie, where a cheer went up, along with a few muttered prayers of thanks. But such celebrations were short lived, as lost within the disintegration of the turret and resulting shrapnel, was a four thousand pound shell. Travelling at a velocity of over five thousand feet per second, slightly less than ten seconds later it impacted directly into the hull of the battlecruiser.

  The armour piercing, iridium capped shell worked exactly as designed, slicing through the external armour of the battlecruiser like a hot knife travelling through butter. In total the shell travelled almost seventy-five metres into the interior of the ship, cutting through armour, missile batteries, guns, bulkheads, corridors and compartments, before lodging not far from the centre of the ship—only twenty metres short of the battlecruiser’s main weapons magazine, where it came to a halt.

  At which point the mechanical time delay fuse detonated the second stage of the shell—the high-explosive bursting charge. This instantly shattered the case, scattering sharp, hot iridium tipped fragments, at high velocity. The initial blast punched holes, six inches in diameter, within a radius of twenty metr
es around the exploding shell. Several of these pierced the thick protective armour around the main weapons magazine, igniting a ferocious fire that the crew valiantly tried to battle, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

  The main weapons magazine exploded, producing an initial explosive blast in excess of thirty kilotons.

  The resulting shock and pressure wave rippled out from the heart of the ship in all directions, initially at a velocity greater than the speed of sound, it was analogous to thunder generated by lightning. But behind this shockwave came temperatures in excess of several thousand degrees centigrade. Dissociating molecular bonds of the surrounding ship resulted in increasing numbers of electrons, which created positively charged ions. The ship was instantly converted into plasma, that fourth state of matter that wavers between a gas, solid and liquid. Eventually the energy released by the blast started to dissipate, the blinding light started to dim and the explosion shrank, to collapse within itself. Finally, even the light completely faded, leaving behind absolutely nothing.

  The Battlecruiser Valkyrie, flagship of High-Lord Stanton’s Fleet, was no more.

  *****

  Jessica groaned and the first thing that registered was the pain, it was like an ever tightening vice, with her head trapped in the middle. Blinking back the agony, she opened her eyes, but couldn’t see as everything seemed distant and blurry, fading in and out of focus. She briefly wondered why everything appeared perpendicular, before realising that it was her, lying prostrate on the ground, with her cheek resting against the floor. Biting back a wave of nausea she struggled to sit up and turning to her side the first thing that she noticed was Stanton—gone.

  “That’s the reward I get? Having just saved your miserable excuse of a life,” she groused, her head still spinning. However, her own discomfort was quickly forgotten when she heard a muffled cry of pain. Jessica would have recognised that voice anywhere and turned towards the sound. She immediately spotted the man who had struck her earlier, now with his back to her, but the noise hadn’t originated from him, but instead Alex. She could only watch, horrified, as the man struck Alex in the face, laughing, as he watched Alex crumple to the floor at his feet.