by David Nabhan
The population of Borealis had prepared for several war scenarios with the Terran Ring. Unfortunately, none of those were unfolding. Instead, the terrified population was being treated to an unending series of strong rumbles from tremendous explosions, and most disturbingly, from within the shielded perimeter. Clinton-Rittener was in his quarters in the Basement when it all started and could feel them quite strongly. Thousands of holographic replicas of Diana appeared instantly everywhere within the Core, at the juncture of every corridor, at every public place, in the private quarters of every citizen.
“Borealis is under attack. This is not a drill. Borealis is under attack.” She said the words so calmly, so incongruously as to what was being declared. “Martial law is in effect, so do your part to maintain a safe and secure Borealis. Clear all corridors immediately, and above all, remain calm. The authorities are taking measures to ensure the security of the city. Remain calm.”
Rittener didn’t believe Diana was being totally honest though, and he was right. Borelian Security Forces weren’t taking any measures at all but were simply riding out the disquieting jolts like everyone else, and wondering, like everyone else, what was going on.
The Terran fleet, taking an outwardly spiraling orbit centered above the Lunar North Pole, was leisurely pounding every square meter of the Shadow Zone between the ridge line at the edge of the crater supporting the Goldilocks Array, and the periphery of the Garden where the lush fields terminated against the air locks and sally points. There was nothing to destroy here, thank goodness, but the massive, pulsed particle beams, meant obviously to terrorize the citizenry, packed such a horrific punch that they brought down part of the city indirectly. In the places where the Shadow Zone lessened to a thin corridor, the blasts had undermined the crater walls and brought down some of the titanic mirrors anchored above. A few had crashed straight through the dextrite ceiling between the agricultural fields and the black, airless vacuum above. Efficient emergency airlocks did their job, cauterizing the wound, but a number of sections were gone. There’d be very little cucumber, peas, and okra on Borealis this season.
“What has happened to the shield?” Frightened voices were asking as they rushed past, making their way to the shelters. “And, where was the Borelian fleet?”
Diana wasn’t addressing any of those important queries. “The authorities are doing everything in their power to take control of the situation. Please, above all, remain calm.”
The Borelian Council, quite to the contrary, at that very moment, was having the last remnant of its control snatched from its grasp, and by someone who had striven for this moment with unceasing passion, the Chief Archon of the Terran Ring.
“HAVE OUR SHOTS ACROSS your bow got your attention, Admiral?” It was Dante Michelson himself, not the commander of the Terran fleet. He was being patched through from the Ring. That was the assumption anyway, since not even the pretense of the slightest diplomatic niceties was observed. That was Michelson’s opening remark and it didn’t bode well at all.
Dante Michelson was not blessed with a handsome appearance, and further, he’d not done the best with what Nature had allotted him. His skull was thick, asymmetrical, and knotty, and those unsightly characteristics were highlighted by the fact that he kept his hair trimmed so short that it possessed no style at all, just a stubble which covered the scalp, save for a wide bald patch that dominated the crown. Two thick, incongruous sideburns accentuated the fleshy jowls that made a naturally rectangular face seem far too square to please any eye.
Simply put, he had the face and bearing of an unattractive, airy, upper-crust bully, and that would have said it all, except for the stunning aspect of his eyes. They were nothing less than intimidating; two giant, ebony pools that demanded the attention of anyone upon which he cast his gaze, a look part praying mantis, part raptor, and which exuded a dangerous intelligence. For better or worse, one way or the other, by the sheer force of unlimited will, this grocer’s son had become the most powerful man alive. In his company it was the rare individual who didn’t keep that fact in the very front of the mind.
Admiral Albrecht couldn’t answer him, his lips trembling with frustration but sealed tight by the force of sheer shock. Breonia, who also was seething, responded for him.
“Even Genghis Khan declared war, Mr. Michelson.” She said it in as ugly a way as the words implied. “Is the Terran Ring, sir, at war with Borealis?”
Michelson forced a fake laugh, the kind made by people not very practiced in the real ones. “War is declared by one state to another,” he lectured. “You’ve obviously not been listening to us for the last few decades, have you? We’re not here to declare war, but to put an end to a rebellion, one that’s gone on for long enough.”
Before she could answer Michelson had his hand up. It was his way of signaling that this was the beginning of the end.
“There is to be no discussion about matters already endlessly debated. No negotiations are requested, nor will they be entertained or tolerated. I’m here to deliver the terms of your surrender.” He paused, and in an odd tone of almost friendly conviviality, as if allowing the councilors into his confidence when he certainly need not, the Archon let them in on something.
“The fact that there are terms, that we are talking, says volumes about the amazing restraint Terra shows, and the reluctance to bring more force to bear on Borealis than is necessary.” In case the councilors didn’t understand, he said it right out for them. “There are some on Terra that wouldn’t have the Archonate offering any terms at all. So I strongly suggest that you consider wisely the articles of the accord we’re sending along.”
Breonia ignored the diktat and asked what Admiral Albrecht was too angry and distraught to put into words.
“This Terran reluctance to bring force to bear, does that explain the disappearance of half the Borelian home fleet?”
The Borelian fleet hadn’t disappeared actually. Those ships which happened to be in lunar orbit on the Earthward side when the attack began were being scanned as millions of pieces of flotsam circling the Moon. Their shields also, for reasons completely unexplained, had failed too. Michelson was disposed to explain that and put the brightest spin he could on the annihilation.
“Those Borelian warships that made clear that their intentions were to exit the battle were allowed to withdraw from the Field.” That was the diplomatic way to detail that Terra had destroyed half of the Borelian home fleet with all hands lost, and scattered the rest into space, in all directions outward.
The truth is that neither he nor anyone else was sure about the effective distance of the new technology which was operating so superbly, reverse-engineered by the mind of Sadhana Ramanujan from an alien artifact, creating “wormholes” in Borelian shields, and keeping them open long enough for pulses of death-dealing particle beams to vaporize warships, or to pound the lunar surface along Borealis’ Shadow Zone. The eleven-dimensional magic which tipped the balance so completely in Terra’s favor was being generated on the Terran Ring itself and the infrastructure which powered it couldn’t be fit into a Valerian-sized asteroid, much less a Terran warship. But it was in Terra’s interest to let Borealis wonder if her expeditionary fleet, closing in on both the Object and approaching Terran warships near Jupiter’s orbit, might not also be heading for an equally calamitous tragedy as the home fleet had just suffered.
Not just Daiyu, but Michelson too had read Art of War, from China, from Earth’s ancient past, realizing the unrivaled craft of any general was subduing the enemy without a fight. Michelson was paying homage to that dictum, and was leaving the Council in power just long enough to order her fleet to internment at Terra, their last act—before surrendering the city. There was a new reality to acknowledge and it was starting right now, the Archon’s tone and glower said distinctly.
“The facts are quite simple,” Michelson concluded with the silent, cowed councilors, “resistance or hostilities, here or anywhere else, will be met with severe and
immediate consequences in Borealis.” He made the threat and demand as plain as glass. The former ambassador, who’d been forced to sign a humbling agreement by these same Borelians, was back now—to tear up the accord.
There was to be a very different Borealis, indeed.
THE ARRIVING TRAM’S DOORWAYS opened to debouch a silent, somber party. They walked briskly, all business, their synchronized military boot steps clicking on the polished metal floor of the corridor. Rittener, accompanied by a detail of heavily armed, expressionless Security guardsmen, knew he must be mere yards from the exact Lunar North Pole but didn’t ask anything about it. He was more surprised and interested in the activity all around him; the bustle said that the maglev was still in operation, in a city completely locked down under martial law. Borealis’ accelerator, built precisely at the pole to give the widest possible targeting range, shunted helium-3 to all parts of the Solar System. Unlike the old-fashioned cannons that explosively fired canisters to Earth and the Terran Ring, EMMA—electro-magnetic materials accelerator—used a wave of powerful magnetic pulses, pushing from behind, pulling from ahead, to reach escape velocity.
A last security lock slid open at the voice command of the subaltern escorting Rittener, to reveal a truly unexpected scene. Rittener at first had no idea what it all meant. EMMA’s control room was a beehive. Two councilors—Stanislaus and Breonia—along with their staffs and a military contingent at their step, all crowded in with the engineers and stevedores who operated the maglev. His eye then went to Nerissa and he realized in an instant what everything meant. Even though his heart sank, he quickly found the strength to reach inside and right himself. He gave her a rakish smile, more for himself than for her, strode right up to Stanislaus and in the age-old tradition of fighter pilots, rodeo riders, gunslingers, gladiators, and all the others who never lost their nerve—joked.
“Am I under arrest, Councilor?”
Stanislaus’ defeated, rest-deprived look told Rittener that the councilor was almost sleepwalking through a nightmare from which he wasn’t going to wake. It was too late for debriefings and new rounds of talks, too late to discuss the solid intelligence Rittener had brought to the Council, that spooks and agents all the way out to Titan had been whispering about lately—a new Terran weapon which could, astonishingly, pierce shields. It was too late to extend a hand to the faction on Terra that wanted peace, who were themselves kept in the dark about most of what Terra did and didn’t do. All that was left was for Rittener to end this the right way, courageously if he could.
Stanislaus responded with some gallows humor of his own. “I’m afraid it’s worse than that. We’ve found a job for you, after all—a commission in the Service.” Rittener thought for a second about which fate was more dangerous and silently cursed his luck.
With his right hand up and repeating the words, he couldn’t help but be distracted by the mega-magnets operating so near, switching on and off in their billionths of a second, behind and in front of cartridges that hurtled down the electromagnetic sled. EMMA made an uncomfortable, scary sound, a “swoosh” that came from the walls around them, rather than the airless, soundless barrel, firing projectiles at escape velocity and higher.
Not that it probably mattered that much, but Rittener had to ask anyway. “What’s my rank?”
“Commander,” Stanislaus said.
Rittener frowned a little; that really wasn’t that high. He made use of the frown, as long as it was there, nodding his head in the direction of the breech of the giant accelerator.
“Is one of those cargo canisters going to be my first command?”
Nerissa now had tears in her eyes. He could see them welling up the minute he entered EMMA’s control chamber, and now they were streaming down her face. She was wearing a dress—so old-fashioned, so feminine, so girlish, and crying just like that. But her hair, well, it was unbraided, cascading freely off her cheeks and flowing past her shoulders, with the strands pushed away from her face, damp with salty tears. It was more than he, or any other man, could honestly be expected to resist, even with the sound of EMMA punching the heavens with kilometer-per-second blows dominating the background.
“You have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said, stupidly, humanly, honestly—mostly realizing that he’d probably never be able to say that if not now. He had more to tell her, but it caught in his throat. And she’d stepped to him anyway, taken his hands—both of them, the way Borelians do with close friends—and was doing all the speaking.
“They specifically asked for you. Turning you over to them is on the list of demands they’ve made.” She stumbled through the words, reluctant to repeat Rittener’s death warrant to him. Then she wiped her cheek and put on a braver face. “You’re to join our fleet in the Field. You’re going to be part of Borealis’ last chance, Clinton.” It was the first time, he realized, that she’d ever called him by just his Christian name.
Breonia had been taking everything in wordlessly. She now shared some advice with Rittener, her grand-maternal bearing quite alive and well, only now showing the kind of teeth an experienced, old lioness bares.
“You should know Borealis has nothing to gain or lose with Terra in handing you over, or in sending you off to the center of the galaxy, either one. They’ve made it clear; they’re taking everything.” She paused and then repeated for emphasis. “Everything.”
It wasn’t just for pure spite either that Borealis was giving Rittener this dangerously unlikely glimmer of the hope of escape. “But there is that too,” Breonia admitted to Rittener, almost cursing Terra under her breath.
“Mostly, and you should thank your stars for this, you’re only getting in this poppy show because this young lady begged her uncle, and her godmother too, for your life.”
Stanislaus thought Rittener understood her, so he added his piece, too.
“You’re going to have to beat big odds, Commander, for even the possibility of following these orders. The Borelian fleet’s last directive is to scatter, to save itself, to survive, to live long enough to fight another day.” He pointed to EMMA. “You have to realize your chances are terrible, yes?”
“Cha! Cho!” Breonia scolded Stanislaus. “Valgame, Dios! What are you scaring him for? The young man will be alright, or else how will he come back for her?”
She looked at Rittener and stunned no one by winking at him. That worked for her, a lot. Her aquiline, mestizo nose, perfectly shaped and noble-looking in an antique way, sat between two aged yet clear eyes that said they had seen everything.
“I don’t suspect patriotism will cause you to scour the Solar System, finding a way to oppose Terra and rescue Borealis’ fortunes.” She gave a tender, familial look in Nerissa’s direction. “But I don’t doubt that something will bring you back here, and that such a day dawns soon, I pray.”
Nerissa had been squeezing Rittener’s hands, not letting go. Just as Breonia finished, another cargo canister was flung off the Moon at a terrifying speed, announcing a new, now pressing foreshadow of the impending trial at hand. The noise scared Nerissa, enough to cause her to pull Rittener close and whisper against his cheek.
“Don’t die,” she said with her eyes wet and half-closed. And then in a voice louder, for everyone to hear, still embracing him tightly, she told him what he had first told her.
“Good flying, Clinton,” she said bravely, but really, half-heartedly.
Rittener brushed her hair to the side, barely daring to touch, and promised.
“When I come back it won’t be anything like the way I’m leaving.”
Then he moved closer to perhaps kiss just her cheek, to seal those words, but she clasped him with both hands and kissed him on the lips. It was a first kiss, in front of her uncle and godmother, with a dozen soldiers and workmen looking on silently and sheepishly. But it was a real kiss and one that he’d waited his whole life for, in case it was the last one.
No one knew but him that this was what he’d wished for under
Kepler’s Arch.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RECKONING
TERRA SAW TO IT that Borealis would never be a problem again and without even disrupting for a beat the never-ending shipments of helium-3 that headed to all parts. Terra never meant to destroy her prideful rival; that would have been to devalue their very prize. Instead, Borealis was just decapitated and rendered at a stroke the most precious jewel in the Terran Ring’s crown.
The Terran attack fleet had scanned oddly from the start. It was comprised of relatively few warships and an unreasoned number of freighters—empty cargo ships. The anomaly was explained by the 12,657 names listed on the warrants served. Every public official, engineer, doctor, scientist, and business executive on Borealis was under arrest and sooner or later shuttled to waiting transports in lunar orbit. Terran colonists, selected in advance from an index of the most able applicants, awaited their opportunity to flood in to take their places. With stunning rapidity, Borealis was changed overnight almost, with an unrelenting and quick-stepped military precision. Even the age-old proverbs from ancient Earth knew that in times of war the law is helpless and mute, and nothing had changed. There was only silence now about lunar partition, helium-3 rights, and war or peace in the Asteroid Belt, and anywhere else.
THERE HAD NEVER BEEN a set piece battle between large fleets in space—until the recent unexplained encounter, which was no battle at all, only a massacre. Strategists who had prepared to see their tactics validated now realized the game had changed so quickly. Their visions for how victory was to be wrested between fleets of indestructible warships would never be tested. It was as if they had drawn up plans for warfare between dirigibles when suddenly a biplane appeared on the horizon.