by B. V. Larson
In the back of my mind I was thinking the woman might have bugged me. Could she be checking my location? Was she wondering what I might be doing in a tight office in Medical, Brick Seventeen and decided to interrupt? I wouldn’t put it past Jasmine, who’d had a thing going with me for years.
“Colonel, sorry to interrupt, but we have contacts.”
“What kind of contacts?”
“We don’t exactly know, sir. At first, we thought it was a shower of ice chunks. Something like a broken-up comet. We’re passing Pluto, after all.”
“Ice chunks? I’m envisioning platoons of cyborgs in frosty shells. Shoot them down. Don’t let anything get to the hull.”
“We’ve been firing on them, but shooting at ice with lasers isn’t easy. Almost all of our defensive turrets were taken out during the last action. We haven’t had time to replace them.”
“Pull in the fleet. Have our ships shoot them down for us.”
“Working on that, sir. I just thought I should report the situation.”
Kate was walking out the door by then. I grabbed her for one last kiss. Then she slipped away. I left Brick Seventeen and growled in frustration. There had been very little in the way of feminine companionship for old Riggs, lately.
Little did I know that that was about to change—everything was. I contacted Jasmine as I hurried back toward the bridge.
“Have you identified the incoming objects?”
“We can confirm they aren’t cyborgs, Colonel. They don’t look dangerous at all. Little or no metallic content, shape and size random and apparently natural. But there are so many, and a number have already rained down on Phobos over the last several minutes. I thought you should be alerted. I think we should send out a patrol on the outer hull to investigate.”
“Do it,” I said. “Destroy every one you can. We should have started building our defenses back up faster. We’ve been too busy, I guess. I’ll be right there.”
I didn’t even make it to the bridge before I knew something was wrong. First, a series of booming sounds rumbled overhead like distant thunder. As a long-term veteran, I lowered my faceplate and tuned in to tactical chat.
“Something on the roof,” said a voice, reporting in.
I frowned. The “roof” was the term my marines had begun using when talking about the outer shell of Phobos.
I contacted Captain Sarin. At the same time, I urged my suit into a lumbering run which amounted to a series of awkward leaps in low gravity.
“Talk to me, Jasmine,” I said. “What’s going on outside?”
“We don’t see anything, Colonel. Nothing’s confirmed. Just chunks of ice impacting with the hull.”
“Are there cyborgs in those ice chunks? Are they landing near a particular area, like the main shaft?”
“No sir. Random distribution. Really, the phenomena looks natural.”
“Yeah, it might be. But just to be sure, I want you to send out some surface teams to find those ice-balls and recon them—and do it yesterday.”
“Already done, sir.”
That was the Captain Sarin I knew. She was always on the ball. I could trust her to follow an order and still think for herself on the fly.
I got no further with my bouncing journey from the bricks to the makeshift bridge before a huge series of explosions shook the ship. I didn’t think anything as large as this vessel could be rattled, but these bombs were big.
I looked up, fogging my faceplate. I didn’t bother shouting for Jasmine’s attention. As she was on deck under the bridge dome, I knew she had more than enough to do without spoon-feeding me information over a com-link.
Instead of running and hopping, I stared upward. I thought I’d—yes, there was a crack up there. A black jagged line in the endless smooth expanse of the upper dome. It hadn’t been there a moment before.
The crack expanded and lengthened. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. All my life I’d figured that when the time came and I saw a disaster in the making before my very eyes, I would be the smart guy. I’d pick up and run, or save someone else.
But like every other sap who can’t comprehend his own doom, I watched it come with my mouth hanging open.
“Jasmine, the roof is rupturing! We have a breach! I repeat, we have—”
That was as far as I got before the winds began to howl. The noise wound up quickly into a long, low, roaring sound.
The entire vast chamber was depressurizing. I could see it, and I could feel it even through my heavy armor.
“Seal the bridge! Seal everything!”
I have no idea if they were listening to me on the buzzing command channel, but I couldn’t help but shout the instructions anyway.
Behind me, back in the shanty town of scattered metal bricks, a funnel cloud had begun to spiral. I knew I was seeing a tornado—but this tornado was upside down. The dark silvery point of it grew like a twisting finger from the crack in the ceiling, and the broad funnel touched the collection of bricks we’d placed in piles around the shaft.
I reversed my course. I watched as shapes—people and crawlers—were sucked up into the hole in the ceiling.
I wasn’t worried about being carried away myself. My heavy armor had grav boots and magnetics that were more than enough to keep me planted on the deck. But many of my people weren’t in armor. It was uncomfortable and usually only issued to marines.
I screamed myself hoarse as I ran, but I doubt anyone could make out what I was saying. The inverted tornado was like a freight train of noise. It screamed and rattled everything like a continuous hail of bombs.
I was angry and stunned at the same time. Those ice chunks…if the pattern of distribution had been random, how had they managed to get one perfectly placed where it could rupture the hull?
When I reached the bricks, it was pretty much over. The atmosphere we’d painstakingly pumped into Phobos had all been sucked away into the void.
It was strangely silent now. Without air to carry sound, all I could hear was my own footsteps and breathing.
I helped a few people who were lying like broken dolls here and there on the landscape. They couldn’t breathe, of course. But if I got them into a medical brick and connected them up to life support quickly enough, they could be revived.
I pushed my way through the airlock of Brick Seventeen. I popped my faceplate and shouted for Kate. A nurse appeared, looking upset.
“What have you got?” she asked, taking the man from my arms.
She was a thin woman, but strong enough to carry him like a baby. She probably could have carried me in my armor as well, if she had to. I’d long ago insisted that all my personnel be nanotized, even Fleet people.
“Broken clavicle, looks like. I found him wrapped around the base of a brick on the first tier. Hey, do you know where Dr. Swanson is?”
She glanced back up at me, giving me an odd look. At that point, I recognized her. She was the same nurse who’d first given me a hard time about locating Kate. She knew I had a thing going with her.
The expression on her face wasn’t a good one. It was the face people wore when had to tell you they’d found cancer—lots of it.
“She went out Colonel—I actually thought she might be with you. Maybe she wanted to watch you leave, or something… You didn’t see her, did you?”
I turned around without a word and went outside.
I didn’t bother to shout Kate’s name as there was no air to carry the sound. I walked around checking every brick, helping people with the rescues. I should have gone back to the bridge, I knew that, but I felt like I had to find her.
We never did. We didn’t even find her com-link. Probably, when she’d been carried off by the funnel to the crack in the ceiling, she’d smashed it on something. Without the com-link, there was no trace.
Finding a body floating in the Oort cloud is pretty much impossible. We retrieved a few of them, but we were flying away laterally from the breach, under acceleration. Kate’s corpse was back ther
e floating in space, somewhere in our wake. I knew this, and it bothered me.
“Well Jack,” I said to no one as I headed back to the bridge with dampened spirits. “You got me again. But maybe it’ll be my turn next.”
-34-
Every underling learns to read their boss’ face eventually. There was no mystery for my staff when they caught sight of mine. They stopped talking and broke apart as I stepped up to the command table and put my hands on the rim.
I leaned over it and looked at the few brave people who had lingered. Jasmine was there, working the screens. Miklos appeared almost as upset as I was.
“Sir,” he said, “I don’t understand this latest attack. If they don’t have any fleet left, why take a shot like this? Why not sue for peace? On the other hand, if they do have a fleet, why not expose it to us and use it as a threat?”
I swallowed and tried to think. We’d all had to deal with the death of friends and even loved ones. I could tell from Miklos’ preoccupation that word of Kate’s disappearance hadn’t gotten to the bridge yet.
Kate’s death was, in truth, occupying my mind. I gave myself a little shake. I had to get back into the game. She was gone, and crying about it wasn’t going to change anything. The goal I had to focus on was not losing the rest of my people.
So far, I had to admit, Crow wasn’t doing too badly at costing me personnel and equipment. He’d been bullshitting his way through from the start, sniping and dancing away, never letting me know exactly what we were up against or what might be slapping me next.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “it’s time we hit back.”
They looked at me quietly. While they watched, I applied my fingers to the screens and zoomed in on Earth. The blue of the seas, the white of the clouds—our homeworld filled big space between us, bathing our faces in soft light.
“What exactly did you have in mind, Colonel?” Miklos said.
Marvin snaked up behind me out of nowhere. I hadn’t even noticed him previously. The bridge had escaped serious harm during the latest disaster. Depressurization was bad for air-breathing humans, but it didn’t damage equipment. The bridge area hadn’t been hit by high winds, either. The tent surrounded the bridge was still pressurized, in fact. The winds hadn’t been as bad at the far ends of the huge central chamber.
I glanced at Marvin’s cameras, and they studied me in return.
“I’m not thinking of terror bombing them with missiles, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “We’re not here to destroy Earth, we’re here to liberate her.”
“What else might we do from this range, Colonel Riggs?” asked Marvin.
I thought, in the back of my mind, that Marvin had already figured it out. He didn’t want to let on, however. He wanted my name associated with any accidents—or atrocities—that might ensue. At this point in time, I didn’t care.
“We’re going to turn the big gravity weapon on Earth. It’s a big target—we can’t miss.”
Jasmine made a gasping sound. “I thought you said we weren’t going to engage in terror bombing.”
“There won’t be any firestorms or radiation. Nothing will be poisoned. We’ll just choose targets and scoop them from the surface, crushing them down to size in an instant.”
“Very clean and neat,” Miklos said.
I thought I detected a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
I threw my hands up in response. “All right,” I said. “How do you think we should go about winning this? I’m all ears.”
They shuffled around the table and stared at Earth. It was hard for me not to do the same.
“Will you destroy a city?” Jasmine asked. “Which city? Should we draw lots?”
She had me there for a moment.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think we have to do that. At least, we don’t have to start there. I need answers and suggestions, not questions and moralizing. Let’s argue after we’ve heard some proposals. How do we go about subjugating a planet?”
“We destroy their military hardware,” Miklos said. “That is standard procedure.”
I shrugged. “We already ran off their fleet. If they have more ships, they’re in hiding. Give me something doable.”
“Then the political leaders must be removed. Their command and control. If we take the head off the snake, the rest will surrender.”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s what I’m thinking. We’re pretty far out to hit something smaller than a city, but I think Marvin might be able to do it. What do you say, Marvin?”
A single camera crept up over the rim of the table. I could tell he wanted nothing to do with this topic, but he was nonetheless intrigued.
“We’ll have to take a long time to achieve a lock on a target from this range,” he said. “I think we could destroy a single, very large building—but the surrounding area would probably be lost too.”
“How big of an area?”
“Will I be held responsible for slight miscalculations in this matter, Colonel Riggs?”
“Only if you withheld the real data.”
He perked up at this and slithered closer. I could tell he was excited. He relished the idea of wiping out a city—not because he was cruel and evil, not really. I understood him a little better every day. Marvin craved experience. He wanted to crush a building on Earth precisely because no one had ever done something like that before. He knew it would surprise everyone and would test his technical skills to the utmost. That was just the sort of thing that got him up in the morning.
“Very well,” he said, “I would estimate we could take down a minimum of a standard city block—again, I caution that would be minimal damage. Any slight variations would increase the size of the affected region up to a circular area encompassing nine city blocks.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s get down to specifics. Who has a target worth the effort? What will shock the system the hardest?”
“You can’t be serious,” Jasmine objected. “Nine city blocks? That could include hundreds of thousands of civilians.”
“We’re not going for targets of that kind,” I said. “We’re talking military, government—political buildings. Pick one.”
“Their military headquarters is in Geneva,” Miklos suggested.
“How about Crow’s palace in Tasmania?” Jasmine said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and nail him.”
“If I may, sir,” Marvin said politely.
“Be my guest.”
“It occurs to me the target should be one hated by the people. Make them feel glad you did it.”
“Yes,” Jasmine said, leaning on the table now and staring. She zoomed in on Australia. “Destroy his best house. The one where he spends the most time.”
“How do you know that’s the one?” I asked.
She looked at me. “I’ve watched videos, interviews. You’ve seen some of them.”
I cleared my throat. I realized she meant the amusing terror vids from Earth. After watching enough of those, she did know what she was talking about, probably better than most. But her suggestion gave me a better idea.
“Marvin,” I said, “would it help your targeting if you were able to trace a signal, a broadcast?”
“Undoubtedly.”
I smiled grimly. “Then I’ve got it. Let’s blow away the Ministry of Truth.”
Miklos nodded slowly. Even Jasmine flicked her eyes to me and gave me a tiny, assenting nod. We all knew the sort of people that inhabited that center of propaganda and terror. Even the convicts would probably welcome the quick relief from torment.
“Lock onto their signal, Marvin,” I said. “Let me know when you’re ready to fire.”
I crossed my arms, thinking ahead to a second target.
Less than ten seconds later, Marvin surprised me.
“Ready to fire, Colonel Riggs.”
I looked at him with raise eyebrows. “Already?”
“Yes. I took the liberty of predetermining the most likely targets you would select. I’ve been working on the ta
rgeting. All that was required was to make final aiming adjustments.”
“That fast, eh?”
“Yes. I aimed the weapon between Geneva and Brussels. Since the Ministry of Truth is located in Brussels, only a small adjustment was necessary to retarget.”
“You could have saved us all a lot of time by blowing it up yesterday,” I said in irritation. Sometimes Marvin’s tendency to predict outcomes was annoying—especially when he was proved correct.
“No sir,” he said seriously. “The ship was out of range at that point.”
“Let’s wait,” Jasmine said suddenly. “Let’s talk it over some more. Let’s get closer, so we can be more certain of a precision strike.”
I could tell she didn’t like any of this. I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t comfortable with it, either. Was the Ministry a fair target? Since time immemorial, nations at war had targeted communications centers. But this felt different. Without warning, from a clear blue sky, mass death stalked thousands. They had no idea it was coming, and we were engaged in the simultaneous roles of judge, jury and executioner.
We were military people who were accustomed to fighting alien robots. We didn’t want to kill biotics at all. Unlike most military people of the past, we were unaccustomed to killing humans. But here we were, faced with the realities of the situation. When a commander is forced to conduct an unpleasant war, I knew dithering was always a mistake. It was best for everyone to end it as quickly as possible—in your favor.
“No,” I said after a long pause. “We’re firing now. Marvin, destroy the Ministry of Truth. Do it as precisely as you can. No missing by a quarter mile and taking out a hospital or a nursery school.”
A shudder ran through the ship the moment I stopped talking. I stared at Marvin; he hadn’t even gone near his consoles. He’d had this ready in advance and preprogrammed. He must have sent the go signal remotely.
“Done,” he said cheerily.
I looked back down at Earth. The targeted area was a tiny yellow circle on the northern coast of Europe. I knew the strike had already been made, we weren’t able to see the effects yet, not until the light being reflected from Earth reached our eyes. If we had hit them, they were already gone by now. But we wouldn’t get confirmation for some minutes due to the distance and the realities of physics.