He watched though the armour as the final children boarded and the AI cleared them for departure. Basil leapt to power up the engines and lift the starship out of the hanger and down towards the exit. Friedman had never been so glad to see stars in his life, even through the suit kept him calm and focused. It was more than could be said for the children. The younger ones seemed to think that it was all a game, but the older ones knew what was happening…and that they might have left their families behind forever.
“Course laid in for safe harbour,” Basil said, as the starship emerged into open space. It was filled with hundreds of starships seeking escape, or in rare circumstances trying to land to pick up more evacuees. It seemed impossible that they wouldn’t succeed in evacuating the entire system, but Friedman knew the maths. They wouldn’t have a prayer of saving more than a handful of evacuees. “Jumping out…now!”
Behind them, the Killers opened fire.
Chapter Sixteen
Captain Jeff Zeitlin braced himself as the Firelight raced towards the Killer starship at speeds that would have been unimaginable before humanity encountered the Killers for the first time. Twelve destroyers could normally handle any merely human threat, but the Killers were simply too powerful for the entire Defence Force. Destroying even one of their ships would require a miracle; indeed, Zeitlin had seriously considered recommending that the Footsoldiers attempt a second boarding, this time with antimatter mines. The sheer ruthlessness the Killers had displayed as they advanced, blasting everything that might even remotely have proven a threat, suggested that it would have been futile. The destroyers were on their own.
The Zeitlin Family had given lives to the Defence Force before – the family history stretched all the way back to Old Earth and the national armed forces that had existed there – but none of them had perished in such hopeless battle. Zeitlin wondered about retreating, knowing that no one would blame him for deciding to leave the battlezone and preserving his ships for another day, but dismissed the idea before it had fully formed. If they could buy System Command a few more minutes to evacuate women and children from the main cluster, it was worthwhile. He refused to consider any other alternative.
“Load torpedo bays,” he ordered, calmly. Now that he had made his decision, a new sense of perfect calm descended over him. He was proud of his ship and crew. “Prepare to engage the enemy at extreme range.”
The squadron spread out, abandoning mutual support for the additional security provided by distance. Even a glancing blow from Killer weapons would destroy a human destroyer; their only safety lay in speed and randomness. The AIs were already computing completely random courses that would defeat the Killers ability to predict them – in theory. In practice, the Killers knew that the human ships would either have to come closer to them or do nothing beyond minor pinpricks. Once they opened fire, it would all be over very quickly.
“Weapons ready, sir,” his tactical officer said. “Entering firing range in one minute, seventeen seconds.”
The Killers were already firing, picking off tiny stations and remote sensor platforms. As Zeitlin watched, a freighter jumped into the area…and was picked off before its commander even knew that it was under attack. The senseless slaughter had an air of inevitability around it, as if the only thing delaying the Killers from finishing the job was the sheer number of possible targets. They didn’t seem to be discriminating between asteroid habitats and unmanned asteroids either; if it came into their sights, they blasted it. It would be a colossal waste of firepower for any human ship, yet the Killers seemed to have power to spare. They didn’t even seem to be enjoying themselves; calmly, methodically, they were taking the entire system apart.
“Open a link with Sparta,” he ordered, as they closed in for final approach. “I want them to see everything that happens to us.”
“Aye, sir,” the communications officer said. “They’re getting full telemetry from all of our departments.”
Wonderful, the sardonic side of Zeitlin’s mind thought. They’ll see our deaths in great detail.
“Entering firing range now,” the tactical officer said. “I have weapons lock; I repeat, weapons lock.”
Zeitlin would have been more surprised if he hadn’t had a lock. The Killers didn’t seem to bother with any kind of ECM or stealth systems. Their starships emitted so much power that they were detectable at colossal ranges, even light years distant with gravimetric sensors. It suggested just how far the human race could rise if the Killers were defeated – after the Killers were defeated, his mind insisted – and just what they could become if there was no longer any need to hide. He’d seen plans for truly awesome Dyson Spheres or Orbital Rings that could be built – if only they didn’t attract the Killers. They could even colonise the thousands of empty worlds…
“Fire at will,” he ordered, calmly. “Helm; engage random evasive manoeuvres.”
The destroyer shuddered as it unleashed a full spread of warp missiles, closing the gap between the two ships at FTL speeds. The Killers would barely have had any time to react, yet it hardly mattered; the warp missiles slammed home and detonated against the impregnable hull. The Killers didn’t mount or use any form of point defence. Their armour was more than enough to deal with the Firelight’s entire armament. The battle was little more than a desperate gamble.
“The enemy is returning fire,” the tactical officer said, as white flashes of light began to flicker through space. The Killer weapons, whatever they were, only moved at near-light speeds, so they could be evaded, but a single direct hit would end his career. Zeitlin smiled inwardly; the battle would end his career anyway, no matter how it turned out. “They are also focusing on the civilian settlements as well.”
Murdering bastards, Zeitlin thought, angrily. He would shed no tears for pirates or rogue settlements, if they were caught and killed by the Defence Force, but the Killers were just slaughtering an entire civilian population. It seemed so senseless! He had hoped that the Killers would devote all their firepower to killing the destroyers, rather than the civilian craft, but it seemed otherwise. They had firepower to spare. Killing both at once seemed an easy task for them.
“Take us closer,” he ordered, angrily. They were already far too close for comfort, but he wanted to take his starship so close he could almost reach out and touch the alien hull. “Take us right between their fire!”
The Killers redoubled their efforts as the human starships slipped between their wall of battle, reminding him irresistibly of old-style naval combats, where two sides would slip between each other and fire in both directions. It hadn’t been a good idea on the water and it wasn't a good idea in space; he hoped, desperately, that Killer weapons were effective against Killer hulls. If they hit each other in the crossfire…
“Negative,” the sensor officer reported. “I’ve observed seven red-on-red hits and there was no discernable damage.”
Zeitlin swore under his breath. A Defence Force CO who accidentally fired on another Defence Force ship would be certain to inflict damage, even with the best shields and armour humanity could produce. The Killers…could shoot at each other all day without inflicting any damage at all. It was an attribute the Defence Force would want to copy, but he just found it annoying. The universe wasn't giving them a break.
The starship shuddered as a nearby explosion marked the death of one of her fellows. Zeitlin checked the feed from the remainder of the squadron and saw the five of the squadron had been picked off, four to enemy fire. The fifth had accidentally – or maybe it had been on purpose – rammed a Killer ship and vanished in a colossal explosion. If the Killer had been damaged, even slightly, there was no trace of it, apart from massive fluctuations in its power grid. It was still firing and proceeding right towards the main cluster…and millions more still waited to be evacuated.
He looked down at the feed from System Command and felt resolution crystallise in his heart. There were hundreds of starships flying away from the system, either jumping o
ut with Anderson Drive or retreating with more mundane warp drive, but it wasn't enough. Their best efforts hadn’t delayed the enemy at all. They needed something more…
“Engineering,” he said, keying his console, “can you remove the safety interlocks from the warp drive.”
“Aye, Captain,” the engineer said, “but the engines won’t take the strain for long.”
“It won’t have to carry the strain for more than a few seconds,” Zeitlin said, grimly. Another flash of light marked the loss of another starship; a second ran at the enemy hull, firing all the way, until a burst of white light blew it into flaming plasma. “We’re going to try something utterly insane.”
The engineer sounded horrified. “A Cochrane Twist?”
“Yes,” Zeitlin confirmed. “Remove the safety interlocks from the warp drive, now.”
There was a pause. “Done, sir,” the engineer said. “Captain…”
Zeitlin ignored him. “Helm, set course right for the heart of the Killer starship and engage warp drive on my command,” he ordered. “Tactical; hold fire.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman said. There wasn't even a quaver in his voice. “We’re locked, sir.”
Zeitlin took a breath. “Engage!”
The warp drive, in layman’s terms, wrapped the starship in a bubble that allowed it to exceed the speed of light, by discontenting part of the starship from the universe. It was quite possible for the starship to literally pass through an asteroid without noticing the experience, although anything the size of a planet influenced the local gravity field too much to allow the presence of a warp bubble. The Cochrane Twist – in theory – should have forced the Firelight and the Killer starship to interpenetrate. It wasn't considered a reliable tactic because at warp speed, the starship might return to normal space thousands of kilometres from its intended destination, or the Killer drive field might interfere with the warp bubble. There was no way to know until it was tried…
The universe flared white and vanished.
***
“Jesus fucking Christ,” someone breathed. Mandell didn’t know who. “It went up like a supernova.”
“Secure all stations,” Mandell barked. “Brace for impact.”
The mighty Killer starship had vanished in an ear-tearing burst of white light as the two starships interpenetrated, defying the natural law of the universe that decreed that two objects couldn’t share the same space at the same time. The remaining four Killer starships seemed stunned – they’d come to their impossible dead stop – and, for once, it looked as if they were hesitating…and then they opened fire again. The two remaining Defence Force starships were picked off before they had a chance to repeat their commander’s success.
He caught his command chair as the shockwave struck the asteroid, shaking it violently. He imagined that he could hear the sound of panic raging through the asteroid as neat queues of evacuees were sent sprawling by the shock, convinced that the Killers had already begun their bombardment. Bright red icons flared up on the display, warning of minor and major damage to the asteroid and its defences, but he ignored them. They were the least of his worries. There was no point in attempting to repair anything when the Killers would complete the asteroid’s destruction soon enough.
“Get a complete copy of our logs out to Sparta,” he ordered, as the asteroid returned to normal. The blast had blinded most of his sensor arrays, even the hardened ones designed to operate in any environment. The remainder were showing signs of wear and tear themselves. It was lucky that there were reserve remote platforms that could be launched into space quickly, or they would have been effectively blind, unable to track the Killer starships. The gravimetric sensors hadn’t been ruined – they were designed to track other sources of energy – but they wouldn’t be able to watch for incoming fire. “They need to know what happened here.”
If someone is insane enough to turn it into a viable combat tactic, his mind added, silently. It might just work…once, but it would be comparatively simple, with their knowledge of gravity technology, for the Killers to prevent it from happening again. All they would need to do would be to wrap a gravity field around their craft and any warp bubble would collapse before it could interpenetrate.
“Aye, sir,” the communications officer said. “They’ve got a complete download now.”
Gunn broke in with his customary disregard for human conversations. “We have riots in four hanger bays and panic on all levels,” he said, sharply. “The Footsoldiers and Police Units are requesting orders.”
Mandell scowled. The Community was generally law-abiding, a reflection of how much wealth the human race had under normal circumstances, yet if the social order broke down under the stress, he didn’t have enough units to keep the peace. It wouldn’t matter soon enough anyway, but Asimov had been too quiet and peaceful too long. They’d forgotten the old tradition of ‘women and children first.’
“Inform them that they are cleared to stun and, if necessary, use lethal force,” he ordered, finally. Privately owned weapons were rare in the Community, although there was no actual law against gun ownership; the Footsoldiers shouldn’t have any trouble handling rioters, although some of the rioters might get injured. Bare hands against powered combat armour was a recipe for bloody disaster. “Gunn, how is the evacuation proceeding?”
“We have two million and counting people in starships and heading out of the system,” the AI said. “However, the current panic and chaos is rendering it impossible to continue filling up starships efficiently. Worse, several Footsoldiers have had to be pulled off starships to help disperse riots, allowing the starship crews to escape without taking on their fair share of evacuees. Recalculating; we may be unable to evacuate more than three million at most from the main cluster.”
There was a pause. “I recommend deploying the remaining starships to the other clusters,” Gunn added. “I do not believe that we will be able to pull many more civilians out of this system before the Killers arrive.”
Mandell looked down at the display. The Killers were still making their approach, only four minutes away from entering range. They were blasting everything in their path, even uninhabited asteroids. It seemed like an exercise in wanton destruction to him, maybe even pointless spite, unless they couldn’t tell the difference between a manned asteroid and one that had barely been touched. Asimov’s asteroids were supposed to be impossible to detect, but the Killers – once again – had done the impossible.
Or maybe they just tracked our starships here, or maybe they captured a database, or maybe…he shook his head angrily. It didn’t matter any longer. The hulking starships would complete their task and billions of humans would die.
“See to it,” he ordered, quietly, knowing that he was condemning the remaining population of the asteroid to death. “Bring all the defence systems online and prepare to engage.”
The Killer starships glided into the main cluster and pounded the asteroids with their strange weapons. The weapons didn’t need more than a pair of hits to shatter an asteroid, if that. The complete matter-energy conversion of even a small fraction of a spinning asteroid was enough to blow one apart. Distress messages flared up in his virtual display as asteroid settlements died and humans perished, but he tuned them out helplessly. There was no point any longer. Even if the Killers ignored the escaping lifepods, the escapees would be caught in massive radiation storms, beyond even the ability of their internal nanites to protect them. Their deaths would be slow and lingering unless the Community got help to Asimov in time to save them.
“Opening fire,” the tactical officer said. Lasers, fission beams, fusion beams and energy torpedoes flared out, smashing furiously against the Killer starships – for nothing. The Killers didn’t even bother to return fire against the remote weapons platforms; they merely kept firing on the habitats, completing their task. Mandell imagined, as another asteroid tore itself apart, that he could hear the screams, smell the burning flesh. “Sir…”
&nb
sp; “Leave the channels open,” Mandell said. The entire Community would know what had happened to Asimov. “I don’t suppose it matters any longer.”
An energy spike ran through the closest Killer starship. A moment later, a pulse of energy leapt from the Killer ship to the asteroid, striking the hanger bay. The entire asteroid shook as massive explosions ripped the hanger bay apart, completely defeating the best efforts of the safety systems. The asteroids air started to blow out as it tumbled through space, the spin ripping it apart and completing the destruction. Mandell caught on to his command chair as the consoles exploded and the power failed, before a final rumbling series of explosions swept him away into darkness.
***
“We need to get out of here,” Captain Basil said, frantically. The Family Farm should have been unnoticeable – they were millions of kilometres from the Killer ships – but his panic was almost contagious. The children down in the cabins were already picking up on it. “You, robot, we need to get out of here!”
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