The Cruel Stars

by Christopher Nuttall

  Perhaps they use the mining station for something else, he thought. But what?

  Jameson answered a few minor questions, then ended the briefing. Alan listened, then read the formal orders as they popped up in his inbox. They were surprisingly vague, although he supposed they did come from a foreign officer who wouldn't be accompanying the flotilla on its mission. Jameson would need a great deal of latitude in interpreting his orders, depending on what they found on the far side of the tramline. Alan read the orders a second time, then forwarded them to his subordinates. They’d need to prepare themselves for the coming engagement.

  He keyed his wristcom. “I want all of our pilots and flight crews to get at least nine hours of rest,” he said. Standing down would be risky, given how regularly the aliens had been probing the system, but there was no choice. The French could cover the flotilla long enough for his pilots to jump out of their bunks and sprint to the flight deck. “We’ll be jumping through the tramline into hostile space.”

  Abigail caught his arm. “What do you think of the mission?”

  “I think it’s risky,” Alan said, as she led him towards the hatch. “It looks far too simple.”

  “And it could be a trap,” Abigail said. “If that’s a fuelling station, Alan, what is it fuelling?”

  Alan followed her along the corridor, thinking hard. He had no answer. Starfighters used power cells - there was certainly no indication that the aliens thought differently - and starships used fusion plants. HE3 was vital for fusion, of course, but ... he shook his head as they reached her cabin. The aliens were either producing far more HE3 than they could possibly need, which wasn't entirely impossible, or they were up to something. But what?

  “It could be anything,” Alan said, as the hatch hissed closed. “A superweapon of some kind, perhaps ... maybe a giant laser. Or a scaled-up plasma cannon. Or ...”

  Abigail smiled, rather tiredly. “Or a mass driver to propel HE3 capsules from the gas giant to a pick-up point,” she said. “You could be over-thinking it.”

  “... Maybe,” Alan said.

  He silently gave her credit. It was the simplest explanation. But if the aliens had known about mass drivers, why had Ark Royal’s weapons been such a terrible surprise? He found it hard to believe that they couldn't imagine just how destructive a mass driver could be. The human race had worried about accidentally striking Earth a long time before the first cloudscoops had been constructed around Saturn.

  “It still raises the question of precisely where the HE3 is going,” he mused. “It isn't as if they need to ship it from system to system.”

  “And you are being an idiot,” Abigail said. Her fingers started unfastening her shipsuit, revealing her breasts. A moment later, she was naked. It was easy to tell that she’d removed all the hair below her neckline. “I didn't bring you here to discuss the aliens, you know.”

  Alan flushed. He couldn't help staring at her, even though it was hardly the first time he’d seen her naked. Abigail was ... hard. Maybe not physically, although her muscles were clearly visible as she flexed her arms, but mentally. She knew what she wanted and reached for it, without any sense of vulnerability. It was easy to believe that she’d grown up in a very different society. None of the girls he’d known - and dated - on Earth had the same casual attitude to sex. Even the girls everyone had called sluts hadn't been quite so brazen ...

  “I ...”

  “I brought you here to forget the aliens,” Abigail said. She leaned forward, her bare breasts brushing against his chest. “And I think you want to forget them too.”

  Alan opened his mouth. “I ...”

  Abigail kissed him, hard. There was no love in the kiss, just a desperate passion ... and, perhaps, a determination to forget the universe, just for a few short hours. Alan felt his body stir as her hands pulled him closer, undoing his fastenings. It meant nothing to her, he was sure, and yet ...

  Enjoy it while it lasts, he told himself. It wasn't as if they had a future together. Or, perhaps, any future at all. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow might be our last day.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Jump completed, Captain,” Anson said.

  “No sign of enemy activity,” Poddy added. “We appear to have made it through the tramline without being detected.”

  Abigail frowned. “Keep an eye on your sensors,” she warned. “You know how stealthy those bastards can be.”

  Commodore Jameson’s face appeared in the display. “We will proceed towards our target in silent running,” he said, “and hold position at the planned waypoint.”

  “Understood,” Abigail said.

  She watched, grimly, as the tiny flotilla slowly made its way into the system. It was not, under normal circumstances, the sort of system that would attract a great deal of attention from the groundpounders, but she could see the value in it. A large gas giant and literally millions of asteroids ...? The belters would see such a system as prime real estate. A handful of settlements had already been established, all of which had either gone silent or been smashed by the aliens. She ground her teeth in silent fury. The settlers probably hadn't even known there was a war on when the alien ships had entered the system and opened fire.

  Time ticked away, slowly. There was no sign of any industrialised presence in the system at all, not even an alien starship. She forced herself to remain seated, keeping a wary eye on the display. Was it a trap? Or were the aliens merely following the dictates of whatever they had that passed for logic. Perhaps ... perhaps they’d expected the war to be over by now, allowing them to settle where they liked. She’d certainly heard plenty of stories of groundpounders - and belters too, if she were forced to be honest - who’d counted their chickens before they’d hatched.

  If it is a trap, it’s an odd one, she thought. They have no way to know when we might come knocking.

  Poddy’s console chimed. “I’ve got the mining station,” she said, as a red icon appeared on the display. “It looks roughly comparable to a Type-XI cloudscoop.”

  Abigail leaned forward as data started to trickle into her console. It was hard to be sure - they were operating at the limits of sensor range - but the alien station did look strikingly similar to its human counterpart. But then, there was little reason for it to be different. A long thin tube, reaching down into the gas giant’s atmosphere; an orbiting station, anchoring the tube high above the gas giant, surrounded by fragile inflatable bags. There would be systems designed to reel in the tube or simply lift it out of the atmosphere, if the gas giant’s storms grew too strong for the construction to handle. It was understandable ... and yet, there were some elements the sensors couldn't identify. The energy signature was surprisingly high.

  She tapped her console. “Vassilios, any ideas?”

  “I think they installed a pair of fusion generators in orbit,” Drakopoulos said. The Chief Engineer sounded bemused. “I don’t understand the need, Captain. Their power requirements can't be that high.”

  “Unless it’s a superweapon emplacement,” Anson suggested. “It could be a hyperspace cannon designed to blow entire planets out of orbit.”

  Drakopoulos made a rude sound. “There’s nothing to suggest that the aliens have anything like that sort of power,” he said. “And I assure you, young man, that they wouldn't need anything like a hyperspace mega-gun if they did. They could just fly to Earth, stomping anything that got in their way, then demand surrender. There’s no need to build a wasteful superweapon when you can use something simpler to get what you want.”

  “Ouch,” Anson said. “So, what do you think it is for?”

  “I don’t know,” Drakopoulos said. “Its only purpose, as far as I can tell, is to generate vast amounts of power. But what are they doing with it? I don’t know. They could be beaming it across space, I suppose, but they certainly have the tech not to need to beam power anywhere ... Captain, I am stumped. They don’t need that thing. We might as well install wooden oars on starships.”


  Abigail rubbed her forehead. There had been installations - solar power satellites - that had beamed power down to Earth, once upon a time, but they’d been retired when fusion power had entered the mainstream. The satellites had been ridiculously vulnerable, if she recalled correctly. Jostling between the Great Powers had put a number of them out of action before the Solar Treaty had been worked out. And then fusion power had rendered them outdated anyway. The aliens had fusion too, didn't they?

  They must have, she told herself. They wouldn't need HE3 if they didn’t have fusion power.

  “They might be trying to ignite the gas giant,” Anson speculated. “It’s supposed to be possible.”

  “A great many things are supposed to be possible,” Drakopoulos snapped. “Let’s see, shall we? Jupiter, one of the largest gas giants in explored space, simply doesn't have anything like the mass it needs to turn into a star. And dumping excess mass into the planet would be pretty much impossible, unless we’re prepared to spend thousands of years doing it. And then we’d have to somehow start a fusion process that would turn the gas giant into a star ... yeah, it’s theoretically possible. Practical? Not a hope in hell.”

  “And they wouldn't be trying to ignite a gas giant anywhere near our territory,” Abigail added. “Any top secret projects of theirs would be carried out on the other side of their space.”

  “This system was surveyed years ago,” Poddy agreed. “We couldn't have missed the alien presence.”

  “Unless it was noted, logged and classified,” Anson countered. “The groundpounders put a hell of a lot of effort into building up their navies, didn't they?”

  Abigail resisted the urge to roll her eyes like a schoolgirl. The belters had been muttering about the vast expenditure on interstellar battle fleets - and wondering if the groundpounders had known about the aliens a long time before Vera Cruz - but she doubted it. Yes, they had built powerful space navies; yes, they had prepared for war ... and yet, groundpounders had never needed excuses to go to war with each other. They simply didn't grasp that there was enough for everyone, if they made full use of space. But then, the aliens didn't seem to grasp it either.

  “Signal from the flag,” Poddy said. “We’re to hold position at the RV point and prepare to attack.”

  “Understood,” Abigail said. “I ...”

  An alarm chimed. “Report!”

  “We have a contact, bearing ... it came from Tramline Four,” Poddy snapped. “One of the weaker tramlines!”

  “And one that leads to Paradox, if the astrographers are right,” Abigail mused. “I wonder ...”

  She looked down at her console, silently calculating vectors in her head. Assuming the alien contact hadn’t changed course, it had come directly from Paradox. And that meant ...

  The mystery fleet carrier? The contact didn't look like a fleet carrier, but that didn't prove anything. Or something more akin to our escort carriers?

  “Orders from the flag,” Poddy said. “We’re to prepare to launch fighters at Point Alpha, then engage the fuelling station with mass drivers.”

  “Understood,” Abigail said. “Inform the CIC, then prepare to launch fighters.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  ***

  Alan hated himself for thinking it, but there was one advantage to Flight Lieutenant Ronald Dennison getting himself blown into atoms. It had opened up a slot in Herring Squadron, a slot he could fill. It wasn't as though he had to be in the CIC, not when there were four other escort carriers and Commodore Jameson’s warships. Having a spare starfighter in open space might make the difference between a successful engagement and inglorious defeat.

  He braced himself as the starfighter was rocketed out into space, the drives coming online a second later. Two-thirds of their entire starfighter strength was aimed directly at the alien ship, the remaining third held in reserve ... moments later, kinetic projectiles appeared on the display as they were fired towards the cloudscoop. Jameson had clearly given up on his stated intention to try to convince the aliens to surrender. Unless the cloudscoop was something truly fantastical, it was doomed. No human cloudscoop could alter position fast enough to avoid a spray of kinetic projectiles.

  And even if they did manage to alter position, we’d just throw more rocks, Alan reminded himself. Mass drivers weren't that effective against starships, once the ships knew what to watch for, but they were lethal against unmoving targets. It isn't as if we have a shortage of space junk to throw at them.

  The alien starship slowly - very slowly - started to take on shape and form. It was an odd design, something so strange that the warbook seemed unable to determine if it was a warship or a freighter. Alan eyed it warily, checking and rechecking the torpedoes slung under his starfighter’s stubby little wings. Haddock would be hard to pin down too, at least the first time the aliens encountered her. Now ... now they presumably knew how to pick out an escort carrier from the freighters.

  New icons - red icons - flashed to life on the display. “Starfighters,” Whitehead snapped. “I say again, starfighters!”

  “Squadrons One through Four, break and attack,” Jameson ordered. “Squadrons Five and Six, engage the enemy starship!”

  Tomlinson will be happy, Alan thought wryly, as he twisted his starfighter into an evasive pattern. Finally, a chance to dogfight without getting a new asshole torn for his pains.

  The enemy starfighters were already firing, blasts of plasma tearing through space. Alan yanked his starfighter through another series of evasive manoeuvres, counting on the computers to fire whenever they saw a clear shot. The aliens were good, part of his mind noted. They weren't staying exposed long enough for reflexes - even electronic reflexes - to be sure of a hit. He punched through the alien formation, then concentrated on luring the alien pilots into a series of dogfights. It would keep them busy long enough to allow the other human starfighters a chance to take out their carrier.

  “Tomlinson, I hope you’re watching this,” Alan said. “You nearly made their mistake.”

  “Told you so,” Greene carolled. “Watch your back!”

  Alan nodded, twisting his craft away from an alien starfighter and taking advantage of the brief exposure to fire on a second enemy fighter. It exploded into dust, allowing him a moment to fly free. The remaining squadrons were already launching their torpedoes against the alien starship, slamming five bomb-pumped lasers into its hull. Alan whooped - he couldn't help himself - as the alien ship exploded. Whatever else happened, the alien starfighters wouldn't be going home.

  “It was probably a modified escort carrier,” one of the analysts said. “I don't think it was designed to handle long-term deployments.”

  “Later,” Alan snapped. It was fascinating, but he needed to concentrate. The aliens had lost their ticket home, which meant ... he cursed under his breath. They didn't have anything to lose. “Watch them!”

  The alien starfighters rotated and roared towards the flotilla. They were fast, Alan noted, as he gunned his engines in response. Very fast. They screamed towards the flotilla, firing madly into the heart of the human formation. The flotilla returned fire, blasting away at the incoming craft with point defence, but it wasn't enough. Alan barely had a second to realise that the alien craft were going to ram HMS Daring before four starfighters slammed into the destroyer’s hull, blowing it into an expanding cloud of plasma. A fifth struck HMMS Butcher’s flight deck, rendering it useless. Alan groaned. They were going to have to rotate two entire squadrons through the remaining fleet carriers, unless the engineers somehow managed to repair the flight deck. But it looked as though they’d need a miracle ...

  “Objective complete,” Jameson said, as the last of the enemy starfighters was blown out of space. “I say again, objective complete.”

  Alan frowned. The mining station was gone ... he looked at the records and felt his frown deepen. There had been a big explosion when the kinetic projectiles had struck their target, vaporising most of the station. The remains of the tube ha
d fallen into the gas giant, where it would either be torn apart by the storms or crushed by the planet’s gravity. Whatever secrets the station had been hiding were gone, now. There was nothing for the boffins to examine ...

  “All ships, resume silent running as soon as the starfighters have returned to their carriers,” Jameson ordered. “We’ll depart once they’ve all been recovered.”

  And start crawling out of the system, Alan thought. The mystery nagged at his mind, refusing to leave him alone. What - what - had the aliens been doing? It was still bothering him as he landed on the flight deck and handed the starfighter over to the ground crew. What were they trying to do?

  “They think it was an escort carrier of some kind,” Maddy said, when he entered the CIC. “I forwarded their report to you.”