Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova.

by Doug Dandridge

  “I’m not sure how the Honish will respond, sir,” said Albright, already seeing trouble on the horizon. “They are the most problematic of the people down there. They want to see this supernova cleanse their planet. They see it as a judgment from their God, a judgment that applies to all the people of the planet, believers and non both.”

  “Then we will have to guard against their obstructionism, Captain,” said the Admiral, his eyes almost glaring at her. “Let me make it clear. Our mission is to get the most of these people to safety that we can. How they feel about that is not really my concern. We will evacuate as many as we have room for. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now,” continued the Admiral, his features relaxing a bit. “Our next priority is this thing. Or should I say things.” The holo changed to show one of the massive quarter arcs that arose from the planet to reach into the near space. “If not for the singular attributes of the natives, and the threat of the, what did you label it, Big Bastard, these would be our primary focus. From your report, these things represent a technology well beyond our own. And what we might gain from it?” He shook his head as he stared at the holo.

  “The only problem, sir,” said Albright, “is that we cannot find out anything about them, besides the fact that they seem to repel any kind of energy we have tried to probe them with.”

  “That is a problem,” agreed the Admiral, nodding. “And not one I have an answer to. And these objects in orbit around the blue giant? They seem to be made of the same material?”

  “They sure look like it,” said Albright. “Of course, since we can’t take a sample, that’s the only connection we have between them. The way they look.”

  “Then let’s just assume that they were put there by the same people,” said Nguyen, looking at the Captain, then back at the holo. “Which, to my intuition at least, means they are there for a purpose. The same purpose. But what is that?”

  The Admiral looked at the holo for some moments, everyone else in the room silent, letting him think. He looked over at his Chief of Staff. “I want as large a research team as we can gather looking at these arches. If we can’t look into them, we can at least look at the geology around them. Let’s see how far they go down, and if there might possibly be some entry way below the ground.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lee, making some notations in her flat comp spread on the table to her front.

  “Obviously they have something to do with Big Bastard,” continued the Admiral. “And if I had to venture a guess, the pending supernova is also something that led to their placement. But why? That’s the question.”

  “We may never find out, sir,” said Sekumbe.

  “But we can try, dammit,” growled the Admiral. “One thing I can’t stand is a mystery. I have to solve it. It’s part of my nature. And we will do our best to figure this one out before that star blows. And if we can’t by then, we’ll come back after the radiation wave has cleared.”

  Albright nodded to that. After all, the blue star was too far away for its thermal wave to destroy the planets of this star system. That was not the problem. No, the problem was the particle radiation storm that would come along just a little after six months, crossing the six light months at point nine nine light. Slower moving particles would sustain the storm for about two or three weeks. Then it would clear, and all life, even down to microbes, would be dead all across the system.

  If given time, they might have been able to prepare deep shelters, far into the bedrock of the planet, shielded with heavy alloys and electromag fields. They didn’t have that time, and besides, the planet would be sterile when they left the shelters, and there would not be any way to grow enough food to prevent starvation. Even if the Imperials were able to move in protein tanks, large manufactories that used nanotech to build eatable food, they would not be able to get enough of them in place in the time they had, and ninety percent of the population would still die.

  So we do what we can, thought Albright as the Admiral dismissed them from the conference. We save what we can, and have nightmares for the rest of our lives, seeing the billions we couldn’t save.

  Chapter Seven

  And on the twelfth night Hrrottha create the people, that they might worship him, and do his will in all things. And Hrrottha looked at those who already inhabited the world, and in his wrath commanded his people to smite them.

  From the Holy Book of Hrrottha.

  OCTOBER 8TH, 1000. D-271.

  “What the hell are they doing?” yelled the Warrant Officer piloting the assault shuttle as it dropped into the lower atmosphere. For the last day every shuttle in the small force had been dropping toward and lifting from the planet, delivering personnel and equipment to the several compounds that had been established before the arrival of the battle cruisers, reinforcing them. And it had proceeded without incident until now. When a squadron of atmospheric fighters had climbed into the path of the shuttle at high Mach.

  “Just make sure you don’t hit them,” cautioned Lieutenant Junior Grade Helen, occupying the copilot’s seat.

  Everyone in the shuttle was in battle armor, as per the instructions of Admiral Nguyen. For the naval personnel that meant the medium armor that most wore aboard ship during battle drills, or real battle. There were ten Marines aboard as well, six in the medium suits that the naval infantry wore aboard ship, four in the heavy suits used for landing operations. The medium suited Marines would provide normal security for the naval personnel, while the heavy suits would provide part of the reaction force. If we can get to the ground, thought the young Command officer.

  There were a dozen of the fighters, all approaching fast, paired in six close teams. And it looked like two of those pairs were going to pass close enough where a collision couldn’t be ruled out. A collision would take them out, though we would probably survive, thought the woman. Why the hell would they even attempt it?

  The fighters blew by at Mach three, their passage rocking the shuttle. The shuttle itself had slowed down to Mach two after atmospheric entry, part of the policy to not cause too much of a disturbance in an atmosphere that was teeming with military and civilian aircraft.

  “They're turning around,” shouted the Warrant Officer, and the tactical plot above the cockpit control panel showed the twelve objects going into turns, six to each side, that might have been impressive to those of their tech level. Imperial craft, with inertial compensators, could turn well within their arcs.

  “I think they’re playing chicken with us,” said Moyahan, looking over at the Warrant.

  “I could fire a couple of particle beams their way,” said the Pilot. “Not anything that would hit them, you know. Just something to frighten them off.”

  “You will not fire,” ordered the Lt. “They may be looking for an incident, and we are not going to give them one.”

  “We’re being painted by radar, ma’am,” complained the Pilot. “They’re targeting us for missiles.”

  “How much damage will their weapons do?”

  “I have no idea, ma’am,” said the Pilot, shaking his head. “Probably not enough to splash us, unless they get really lucky, but I wouldn’t want to stake my life on it.”

  “Right. Then get us the hell out of here. Maximum acceleration, and full velocity to the base.”

  “The Admiral won’t like that.”

  “He’ll like it even less if we get hit. So power up the grabbers and get us out of here.”

  The Warrant nodded and advanced the throttle. The shuttle jumped forward at a hundred gravities, the motion of which they could not feel at all inside. In seconds they were past Mach three, then on to four, five, six, seven, finally up to Mach fifteen.”

  “That’s probably enough,” said Moyahan, tapping the Warrant on the forearm. “Decelerate when we get within twenty klicks of the base, then bring us in slow and easy.” And I need to get on the com and make sure that the flag knows about this.

  * * *

  “That�
�s the seventh incident so far, sir,” said Captain Susan Lee. “and it’s only morning in Honish.”

  “And that’s where all the incidents have occurred?” asked Nguyen, looking up from a report he was reading on the natives’ abilities.

  “No, sir. Four have occurred in Honish, over in their airspace. Two have occurred in allied territories, and one Tsarzor, though we suspect the operatives were working for the Honish.”

  The Admiral pulled up the globe of the planet on the holo over his desk, looking at the seven glowing icons. He pointed to one, and the holo zoomed in on a display of that incident, a groundcar slamming into hovercarrier. The hover vehicle, a large armored personnel carrier, was barely damaged, while the groundcar was almost totally destroyed, going up in a ball of burning hydrogen fuel. The Admiral pointed to another one, and that holo showed something falling out of a window to strike a Spacer in medium armor. Whatever the object was, some kind of cabinet, it bounced from the armor with little more than some mental shock to the wearer. But it bounced out and struck a line of children on the walkway, killing two of them. And so it went on, some action caused by a local, caught on the scanners, that resulted in death or injury to native sophonts.

  “It’s all over their local news channels, sir,” said Lee, reaching into the air and pulling open another holo screen, which showed some talking heads in a studio discussing the callous nature of the alien invader to their world.

  “What in the hell are they trying to accomplish?” growled the Admiral, staring at the holo, the translated voices of the newsies coming through loud and clear. The Admiral looked over at another spot on his desk and sent a signal through his implant. A moment later the face of Lt. Colonel Isaiah, the commander of the force’s Marines, appeared on the holo.

  “You’ve heard about the rash of incidents occurring on the planet, Mary?” asked the Admiral, looking into the stern face of the Marine, who was currently down on that planet.

  “Yes, sir. And another has just occurred. A truck fell over outside the gate of one of our compounds and exploded.”

  “Were any of your people hurt?” asked the Admiral, his eyes narrowing.

  “No, sir,” said the Colonel, shaking her head. “But the same cannot be said for a score of the citizens of the nation of Tsarzor who were burned up by the flames of the explosion. We sent out a rescue team as fast as we could, and the death toll would have probably been much higher without our intervention. But we weren’t fast enough to save those poor suckers closest to the blast.”

  “What do you think is going on?”

  “I think we’re being set up, sir,” said the Marine, who had worked her way up the ranks in the Command, and had been involved in several first contacts, as well as numerous follow up missions. “They’re trying to make us look like the bad guys. To fit into their narrative that we’re here to force them into our service as slave labor. And once they have convinced enough of their population that their narrative is fact, they will declare war on us.”

  “That’s what I think as well, Colonel” said Lee, looking up from the other screen she had opened. “We may be getting some cooperation from the government of Tsarzor, but the majority of their population doesn’t trust us. If they can erode that trust some more, the citizens may resist us, despite the directives of their government.”

  The Admiral looked over at Lee. “Can our people use psychology and propaganda to get them on our side?”

  “We might be able to mitigate the response some,” said Lee, shaking her head. “But the problem is they don’t trust us in the first place. They see us as intruders here to make them do what we want, for our own purposes. I’m afraid, if this was a normal first contact situation, I would advise that we just pack up, leave some surveillance assets in place, and leave.”

  “And if we do that, this entire species dies,” growled Nguyen, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “We might be able to get some of them to go with us, volunteers. Even some real kidnaps. But not enough.”

  “I hate to say it, sir,” said Lee. “But that may be all we have.”

  “Unacceptable,” said Nguyen, shaking his head even harder. “We have a mission to accomplish, and we will accomplish that mission. These people are going to be saved whether they want to be or not. And I mean a significant sample of all their ethnic groups. There is no way we’re going to take one particular group, and leave everyone else behind.”

  “We may be able to produce enough species specific nonlethals to let us take who we need,” said Isaiah. “Gas, or sonic frequencies.”

  “I really don’t want to resort to that,” said the Admiral, gritting his teeth. “But if we have to, that is what we will do.” He turned to look back at Lee. “Susan. I want you to get a team together to look into the possibility of developing something we can use to knock a large number of these people out in one attempt.”

  “And test subjects? I don’t think we’re going to get many volunteers.”

  “Are there any diseases rampant on this planet?” asked Nguyen. “Something their medical science can’t deal with that we can.”

  Imperial medicine was very advanced, and humanity had not only conquered all of its own diseases, but those of every client species in the Empire. Gene sequencing and the application of nanotech to attack the disease vector made it easy work to cure anything that nature could come up with.

  “I’ll get some of our medical people to look into that, sir,” said the Chief of Staff. “I’m sure there must be something that the Tsarzorians at least would appreciate our stamping out. And once we find something that safely knocks out any of the Klassekians, it should work on all of them.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Nguyen, looking back at the Colonel. “When we’re ready to send some doctors in, I want a strong Marine presence with them. But in the background.”

  “I think that can be arranged, sir,” said the Colonel. “I don’t think they can see through our stealth systems.”

  If they can, thought the Admiral, we’re already in trouble.

  * * *

  The shuttle set down on its grabber units, touching gently to the ground. We got down in one piece, thought Lt. Moyahan, standing by the hatch and waiting for it to open, the other personnel lined up at her back.

  “Tower says the field is cold,” stated the Pilot over the com.

  The officer sent back her acknowledgement, then turned to make sure the people behind her all had their faceplates down. The field might be cold, which meant there was no sign of hostile action, but there was no use taking any chances out in the open. Not when they had the means to defeat just about any weapon the natives could deploy against them in a ground role.

  The hatch slid aside, and Helen jumped the short distance to the ground and moved aside, making way for the next person. She looked around as the other people disembarked, taking in the sights of the base. The shuttle was sitting on a flat field, four hundred meters on a side, surrounded by a prefab wall of plasticrete. There were towers every hundred meters along that wall, each manned by a pair of Marines with a heavy particle beam weapon. Two other shuttles sat on the honeycombed alloy landing platform, while a pair of atmospheric transports sheltered in bermed revetments on one side of the field.

  On the way in she had seen the way the base was laid out, sitting a couple of kilometers outside a medium sized city. There were four of the landing squares arranged into a larger square, with a central armored building that contained quarters, support facilities, and the defensive domes that would defend the base from air and artillery attack.

  The entrance to the dome was guarded by a thick door of metal alloys and ceramics that could stand up to anything the planet’s tech level could come up with. Moyahan followed the first of the people who had come down with her into the quarters, a set of stairs that led down into the ground beneath the dome and its control room and labs. Exploration Command had learned through hard experience how to secure a base in difficult, hazardous territory.


  “Lt. Moyahan,” yelled out a young Petty Officer as she entered the common hall below.

  “Guilty,” she said, looking at the woman who ran up to her.

  “I was sent to show you to your quarters, then take you to meet with Commander Duran, your team leader.”

  Helen nodded and followed the woman through a series of corridors until she stopped in front of a door that only opened when the Lt. placed her hand on the locking panel. Pretty damned efficient, thought the officer as the door slid on its track into the wall, revealing a small chamber containing a bed, chair, desk and small wardrobe.

  “The bathroom is down the hall, ma’am,” said the PO, pointing the correct way. “Now, if you will follow me, the Commander is waiting.”

  Helen wanted to ask what the rush was, why there wasn’t time to get out of her armor and into a more comfortable uniform. But if Commander Duran, whoever that was, wanted her to come as soon as possible, she had guessed she should start moving according to his wishes.

  The Commander was waiting in one of the meeting rooms under the dome. Helen looked over the high ceiling as she entered. It looked solid, like it had been there forever, and not the prefab construct it was. Again, the Command was equipped for these situations, and both of the battle cruisers carried the components to put together several planetary bases like this one.

  Duran was a swarthy skinned man of moderate height and muscular build, with coal black hair and eyes so dark brown they looked just as black. A score of people were already gathered in the room, sitting around the large table, some right up to it, others further back. There was one open chair, and a cursor blinked in Moyahan’s vision as she looked at the seat. She hurried over to it, gave the Commander a head nod, and took the seat.