Thunder & Lightning

by Christopher Nuttall

  Lunar City, Lunar Surface

  “We have something of a decision to make,” Karl Bova said as he glanced around the room. His eyes met Tony Jones’ for a moment; the astronomer-turned-ambassador tried to smile back. Jones’ time with the small alien encampment on the lunar surface had turned him into a supporter of the aliens, one who liked what they might do for human society; they certainly respected pure science in a way that no human government had ever done. “We received a note from Kyle Short, barely an hour ago.”

  Jones nodded with the others, well aware of who the current Administrator of the Rockrat Association, the man who was effectively President of the Belt, now that the Great Powers had been knocked back to the surface of the Earth, and perhaps the most powerful man in the solar system right now. Nobody had imagined the individualistic Rockrats becoming a Great Power…until they had somehow produced a fleet from nowhere that had annihilated an alien force.

  “The Chairman has…informed us that an interplanetary fleet composed of ships from all the Great Powers, and the Rockrats themselves, will be coming toward Earth with the intention of destroying the blockade and ending the alien threat to humanity,” Bova continued. “The Chairman… has asked us…which side we plan on joining when the fight starts.”

  There was a long pause. “Despite the best efforts of several of the Great Powers, we do not actually have much of an offensive capability outside lunar orbit,” Adam Faulkner said. He was now ranked General, the Secretary of Defence. One of the first thing Bova had done was appoint as many of his people to newly-created posts, just to keep things organized while the second stage was fought of the moon’s struggle for independence. “We can destroy the three Oghaldzon starships in orbit around the moon without much in the way of problems; they are well within range of the mass drivers and they would have very little time to react – less, of course, if we used lasers to hurt them while we launched the mass drivers at them. Once we did that…”

  He paused. “The Oghaldzon could strike back,” he said. “If they defeat the Rockrat fleet, or if the timing is bad, they could counterattack and target our military and civilian installations. You may remember that it was generally concluded back during the bad old days of Great Power rivalry that a war fought on the moon would be hideously devastating; our precautions are designed to handle air leaks and worse, not nuclear weapons melting lunar rock and collapsing chambers buried deep under the rock. I would prefer to avoid conflict at that level…”

  Bova looked at him. “What do you suggest?”

  Faulkner shrugged. “I was brought up to believe that the military should have no input into a political decision,” he said. Bova snorted rudely. “I merely point out that trying to double-cross the aliens will place us in a dangerous military position… but of course if we take the side of the Oghaldzon and this Rockrat fleet wins, our situation will be just as untenable.

  “The Rockrats are not the only people involved,” Harriet Wenham said. The newly-minted Secretary of State glanced around the room. “The force includes Russians, Chinese, and Americans…all nations that have some reason to be…unhappy with us. Could we stand off the Combined Fleet if they turned on us?”

  “We could make them pay a hideous price for the moon; we could wreck all the mass drivers, mining equipment, and industrial support systems they depend on to make us worth their while,” Faulkner said, looking evenly back at Wenham. “The real problem would be in holding them far enough from the surface to prevent them from striking at us…and our capability to do that is limited. We have the weapons mounted on the various stations orbiting the moon, but none of them were really designed for military operations…and it won’t take long for any halfway competent force to break through them. At that point, they will be able to hit us at will.”

  Bova steepled his fingers. “That does, of course, give us some room to negotiate,” he said. “Where do our loyalties lie, my friends?”

  Jones spoke quickly. “We owe the aliens,” he said shortly. “The Oghaldzon played a role in giving us a chance to assert ourselves and assume control of the Moon, finally ending the exploitation of the Lunar population by the Great Powers. We owe them, at least, our neutrality.”

  “Do we?” Bova asked. “The same aliens decided that that would be an interesting idea to allow several asteroids to de-orbit and impact on the surface of the planet. They may claim that it was accidental, and some of us might even believe them, but in the end…it shows in just what regard they hold human life. We know what they want; they want total domination on their terms, forever.”

  Jones eyed him with a flicker of disgust. “So, you are prepared to use them and then discard them,” he said. “What about gratitude?”

  “What about it?” Bova asked. “The point does remain; do we commit ourselves to one side or the other? Certainly…we have no treaty obligation to the aliens to actually come to their aid, and they have only limited obligations to come to our aid. Why should we just declare our neutrality and remain out of the fighting?”

  Faulkner smiled. “Because one of the two fleets is going to win, and that fleet is going to demand an accounting from us,” he said. “If we choose the wrong one, it could be…unfortunate.”

  Bova scowled. “It’s a pity they can’t both lose,” he said. Jones scowled at the tone in his voice; a kind of droll amusement, mixed with bitterness and regret. “It would be so much more convenient.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four: Armageddon, Take One

  Earth-Moon Lagrange Point One

  “The enemy fleet is approaching effective radar range,” the coordinator reported. “Our fleet is forming into a defensive formation; officers are requesting orders.”

  Dataka-War Commander-Fleet nodded as the icons started to resolve from uncertainty clouds to confirmed shape. He had been astonished by the presence of the enemy force, the more so because there were clearly fewer ships than he would have expected…no more than seventy of them. Tracking suggested that there were more present, but through carefully timing their fusion burns the humans had successfully obscured how many ships were actually heading to L1. Tracking put their numbers between one and three hundred, but there was no way to be certain; anything could hide in the icy darkness of outer space.

  One thing was certain; this would be humanity’s last significant effort. If Dataka won the battle, he would be able to destroy or capture the shipyards in the Belt, rendering the remaining Rockrats irrelevant. They could skulk around the Belt as much as they liked; they couldn’t hope to make any further impact on his forces.

  If he lost the battle…

  “Researcher,” he said, “what is their purpose in coming here, now?”

  “They know they need to win here,” Takalak-Researcher-Seeker said. “That force represents their last possible effort to win the war outright. If they had more ships, they would have sent them; if they thought they had time to build more, they would have waited until they had overwhelming force. This is their last chance to escape our…redefinition of their society. This is their overwhelming force.”

  Dataka nodded. He had expected no less. “And what can we expect from them?”

  “Desperation,” Takalak said. “They will do whatever it takes to force us to surrender…or exterminate our presence in orbit.”

  The flat words made Dataka click in anxiety. Humans were…irrational; they would fight to the death to defend worthless patches of land, or they would abandon their own to the most horrifying fates, or sometimes they would assault their mates and children for no obvious reason. An Oghaldzon force in a hopeless situation would surrender; the humans would sometimes fight to the death, sometimes surrender, and sometimes launch an attack under cover of a surrender. It made his ground forces nervous; they had orders to accept surrenders when they were forthcoming, but if a surrender was used to cover an attack, it drove them mad. It was just…alien.

  He clicked again, in irritation and recognition of a mistake. He had gambled and sent a dozen ships t
o patrol the outer edge of Earth’s sphere of control, just in case the humans were trying to sneak a second assault force through into the Earth orbitals under cover of their first assault force. Those ships couldn’t be recalled to take part in the coming battle around L1; they would have to be recalled to defend the motherships, adding their weight of fire to the motherships’ formidable point defences and their consorts. He had feared that the humans had developed some new kind of stealth system, but if that had been the case, the fight would have already been lost. No human ships intruded into the area he controlled and monitored through hundreds of active sensors.

  “Coordinator, order the fleet to launch probes towards the enemy fleet,” he ordered. “Researcher, I would like you to summon the Human Researcher and her pet human female to the bridge. Their information might be of value.”

  Takalak knew better than to argue under such conditions. “It shall be done, War Commander,” he said, lowering his body slightly in submission. The civilian always gave way to the military in times of conflict. “I shall call them up at once.”

  Dataka clicked in approval and turned back to the main display, accessing the feed through his implants as the spy probes accelerated away from the craft that had launched them and toward the human fleet. They wouldn’t escape detection; unlike locked-on missiles, they would have to use their active sensors to track down their targets, but they would provide a great deal of information before the humans killed them. If nothing else, they should give him a much more accurate figure on just how many human ships had been launched from the Belt.

  “We are receiving some information,” the Coordinator informed him. Dataka remembered her name; Fanaya-Sensor-Seeker. She had played a vital role in detecting and destroying the sneak human attack on the motherships during the ground war. “There are at least two hundred, perhaps more, human craft involved in the attack.”

  Dataka remembered one of the last data transmissions from the fleet that had attacked Freeport One; Makra-Commander-Righteous Rage had warned of human craft using some kind of stealth coating, a particularly nasty trick that the Oghaldzon themselves had never thought possible. In traditional meme-sharing manner, the idea had been copied and planned for incorporating into the next generation of Oghaldzon warships, but that was meaningless right now. He would fight and win – or lose – with what he had on hand.

  “One drone was just killed,” Fanaya said. Dataka remembered that sensor crews tended to think of their drones as part of them, if not intelligences in their own right, and said nothing. “The others have continued to transmit…just killed.”

  Dataka clicked in understanding. It wouldn’t be long before the human ships came within active sensor range of his fleet. Let them try to hide then!

  * * *

  Samra was curled up half-dozing next to Reynolds, enjoying the pressure of his body against hers, when the lights blinked once to indicate that the door was about to be opened. The Oghaldzon seemed to have little sense of privacy, something their sonar was almost certainly responsible for; Samra had met countless boys and men who would have loved to have an undetectable trick for looking through clothes. The Oghaldzon just didn’t take it seriously.

  The door hissed open, revealing Oolane-Researcher-Seeker standing there with her face twisted in the expression that Samra had come to identify as worry. She wasn't sure how she could tell that; there were no traces of thoughts or impressions that would have matched any human face. As always, she could hear a faint noise surrounding the alien, but this time it seemed to be slighter, less prominent. She would have given her back teeth – or whatever remained of her virginity – for a proper analysis kit; the Oghaldzon had said almost nothing about themselves.

  “Samra,” Oolane said, speaking the word rather than using her translator. The pronunciation was dreadful. “Your presence is requested on the bridge.”

  Samra guessed it was the kind of ‘request’ that was really an order. “I’m coming,” she said, pulling herself free of the sleeping mat. “What’s happening?”

  Reynolds awoke in his cat-like manner. “Samra?”

  “This fleet is under attack,” Oolane informed them. She did not appear to notice the momentary look of delight on Reynolds’ face. “Your presence is required on the bridge. Please accompany me.”

  “I’ll be back soon,” Samra said. Reynolds pulled her back and kissed her, his eyes grim and distant. “Don’t do anything stupid…”

  He managed a mischievous grin. “Hey, you know me,” he protested.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Samra said. She kissed him again and allowed Oolane to lead her out of the room. As the door closed behind them, they came face-to-face with three other Oghaldzon, none familiar to her and all three of them armed. She hadn’t seen many of their weapons; they looked like toys, but strange alien toys. There was no way she could use them.

  Oolane was clicking at them, rapid-fire clicks coming from her mouth and echoing across the corridor, while they were clicking back, their responses seemingly louder and certainly more aggressive. The Oghaldzon liked to argue, Samra knew, but there seemed to be friendship in the argument; she tried to understand what was happening, but it was impossible. Without the translator, she didn’t understand a word of the Oghaldzon tongue; she knew a lot of it was simply at frequencies outside of her hearing range.

  “I’m sorry,” Oolane said finally to her, “but the Researcher insisted that you be secured to prevent you doing anything irrational while on the bridge.”

  Samra blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

  The lead Oghaldzon reached out with one pair of hands, caught her and spun her around in zero-gravity. Before she could protest – she had the feeling that they had done it before – they had caught her hands and secured them firmly behind her back, their sonar clicking away and probing her body with an intimacy that not even Reynolds could match. It didn’t feel uncomfortable; looking at an Oghaldzon, she guessed that it was harder to secure one than it was to secure a human, but it left her feeling vulnerable.

  “You will come with us,” the leader said, and started off down the corridor. The other two aliens pushed Samra alone without any regard for her dignity, although they wouldn’t understand it anyway; Oolane walked behind, her vibe downcast. Again, Samra wasn’t sure how she had realised that; the alien emotions seemed to be growing on her through only limited contact with her fellow humans. “The War Commander is waiting.”

  She had known, on one level, just how large the Seeker for Truth actually was, but it still surprised her when they carried her though kilometres after kilometres of corridors, some of it riding a sled that seemed to float in the air, with running boards for her escorts. Aliens were everywhere, rushing to take control of the battle; she wondered, with a certain amount of resignation, if Allah would still accept her soul if this attacking force blew the Seeker for Truth apart. She had given herself to a man who was not her husband…

  A series of doors opened in front of them, each one over a metre thick and built like they were intended to stop direct hits from nuclear weapons. At each entrance, the Oghaldzon sentries exchanged lengthy series of clicks with her escorts; she felt sonar probing her carefully every time. The aliens were not taking chances with the security of their mother ship’s command centre.

  It turned out to be much larger than the bridge of the Neil Armstrong, but even more crowded; a dozen Oghaldzon were seated, horse-like, on couches surrounding consoles, others were linked directly into the computers, their minds bringing the fleet to combat stations. It looked like something out of a nightmare; the room was lit only by the light of the consoles, and the hologram floating in the centre of the room.

  “That is the War Commander,” Oolane said, her translated voice revealing nothing of her emotions. She indicated a large Oghaldzon wearing nothing but a strange interface around its domed head; the War Commander gave her no attention at all. “I’m sorry about the restraints, but humans are irrational…”


  Samra almost laughed, which would have proved the alien right. What do you think I’m going to do? she thought, wondering if she dared say it aloud. Do you think I might pull a knife out of my vagina and slice you all down before you can react? I don’t have a knife; I have no weapons at all, just my mind.

  She didn’t say it aloud.

  “That is the primary display,” Oolane informed her, waving one forearm towards the hologram. “It is used to keep track of the overall battle and how it develops.”

  It was grey and almost featureless; they had realised, a long time ago, that the Oghaldzon didn’t see colour in the same way that humans did. The display showed a line of icons advancing towards another line of icons, as fanciful, in its own way, as the old Space Invader games and the icons not much different – more functional than decorative. Samra had to remind herself that this was no game; if the icons came much closer, they would start killing each other. It was even possible that missiles would seek out the Seeker for Truth and destroy it – and her.

  “So,” she said, as carefully as she could, “what do we do now?”

  “We wait until the War Commander speaks to us,” Oolane said. “The battle is about to be joined.”

  * * *

  Earth.

  It hung in the display, a beautiful blue-green world, causing different emotions to sweep across the Combined Fleet. For those who had been born on the planet, or had visited it, it was sacred, the birthplace of the human race and countless animals, some of whom had gone on to be humanity’s friends and protectors around the fireplace and others who had been exterminated by a careless humanity. For those who had been born in the Belt, Earth’s importance was more ambiguous; it was worshipped as the birthplace, perhaps, but also the source of rules and regulations that irritated and annoyed the Belt mostly because few of them had been made with much consideration for, or knowledge of, the Rockrats who were nevertheless expected to obey them.