by Adams, David
"By the time we close the distance to Earth at best speed, we'll be over the Atlantic Ocean."
The Atlantic. Could they make Europe, or would they have to go west?
"Best place to make landfall that's got people?"
"We could land in the southern United States with only minor course corrections. It'd be a hell of a landing though, especially with the battle damage."
"We're already in Hell, Mr. Dao." The U.S. would have to do. It would have plenty of people. "Commence atmospheric re-entry protocol, and prepare to land the ship in Houston."
Dao twisted in his seat and gave her a confused look. "Captain, there is no atmospheric re-entry protocol for a ship of this size."
"Then make it up as you go along. Just control re-entry with the reactionless drives; the main source of heat will be friction from the air, so control our speed and we can minimise that. Try not to get us all killed."
"Aye aye, Captain. Making it up as we go along… mark."
The Beijing tilted and pointed down towards the surface of the planet. The Atlantic Ocean and the east coast of the United States filled the monitors of her forward facing cameras.
"Miss Rowe, report status on the jump drive."
No answer. Summer's eyes were fixed on monitors relaying information from their external cameras. Liao knew what she was looking at.
"Rowe, jump drive status."
Still no response.
"Rowe!"
She looked at Liao with absent eyes. "Sorry. What?"
"The jump drive?"
Rowe tapped at the keyboard on her console. "Well, it's fucked."
"I need something a little more specific than that. Can we jump out of here, or should we get out and push?"
"The emergency jump to the Earth-Moon L1 Lagrange point has caused fractures along the surface of the drive enclosure. The emergency cooling system does that. I warned you that it does."
"You did, but that's in the past. I want to know what the ship can do for me in the future."
"Well, I can probably squeeze one more jump out of her, two at most. Then we're going to need six weeks in Lunar drydock."
"There is no Lunar drydock anymore." That settled it. With only one jump left, they couldn't go to Belthas. The Alliance knew they were going there. "We need to go somewhere safe; somewhere the Toralii Alliance won't look." Earth loomed larger in her monitors. She needed to decide, but where?
The beautiful blue ocean filling her monitor reminded her of one place she had visited, where the Alliance would not look for them or anyone else. A place where they would be safe.
"Can you jump us to Velsharn?"
The planet stuck in her mind for its lush vegetation and pristine beaches. She had walked on them, seen the Telvan colony, met the Toralii who lived there and shook their hands.
A beautiful place destroyed by the Beijing's missiles. Liao had been court-martialled over the incident and lost, a decision she largely agreed with. The deaths there had been her fault.
Dwelling on the past could not help them now. The planet was large and, despite being mostly water, was well within the Telvan borders. The Alliance would not dare to attack them there.
"Sure," said Summer, "Velsharn. I can make that happen, but it'll take time."
"Time. We don't have much of that." The Beijing began to shudder and shake as it caught the upper edges of Earth's roiling and darkened atmosphere. "We're going to be the last ship off Earth, so if the Toralii decide to attack someone, it'll be us. Make sure we're ready to go as soon as we can be. Inform the Madrid, Washington and the Tehran."
Rowe had always been overconfident, arrogant even, but the doubt on her face made her true feelings clear.
She was afraid.
"Make it happen," Liao said, then let her get to work. "Tactical, dispatch every Broadsword and Falcon we have, spread them out. Get them to major population centres. They'll be able to save fifty souls each, maybe sixty if they cram them in tight. Order the crew to fill them to standing room only. They won't be in there long."
"Aye aye," said Lieutenant Jiang at tactical, "dispatching Broadswords. We'll pick them up when we break atmo'."
The radar screen lit up as the ship disgorged its heavy bombers, each heading to different parts of the United States. Too few to make a difference, except to the lucky handful of souls that would be saved.
"Captain," said Dao, "we have to enter the atmosphere topside-down. There's too much battle damage on the underside. Too many hull breaches."
"Do it."
The ship rolled onto its back as it plummeted through the atmosphere. Liao's stomach turned as real gravity fought with the artificial. She had never been comfortable with that feeling of one's stomach leaping up into their chest, but she kept herself under control. To throw up on the deck of the Operations room at this particular moment would be ill advised.
"How will people know to come to us?" Liao asked the room. "How will they know we're here?"
Her XO, Commander Kamal Iraj, spoke from another console. "They'll know. The Beijing has been in the media constantly since it was first designed. Everyone knows it. When they see the ship landing, they'll come."
The atmosphere frothed below them as the fires closed in on the central United States, and the ship drew closer and closer. The continent teemed with life, and Iraj was right; the people would pour out to meet them, and they could take as many as they had room for.
The Beijing was vast. It could hold enough people to begin again. No matter what happened, as long as the Pillars of the Earth were mostly full, there would be enough of humanity to recover. They would save a fraction of their species.
But none of them would be Allison.
Houston, Texas
Christian Grant drove like a maniac through the dust covering Houston's Southern Freeway, watching through his windscreen as the huge spaceship, its topside glowing red, descended through the dust-shrouded atmosphere. He could barely see it through the smoke and ash that rained down all around the car, despite the best efforts of the windscreen wipers.
"Dad?" said Olivia, his ten-year-old daughter, "The dust is getting worse. How far to go?"
"I know, honey, I know. We're close. The ship can't be landing far away."
The roads were remarkably absent of other vehicles, but the sudden dust storm and wave of heat had probably driven people into their homes instead. But he'd seen the ship. He knew it was landing. The only place big enough for something so massive was the old Reliant Stadium, where he'd played football until a shoulder injury forced him into coaching.
Christian swerved to avoid a person running across the road, a towel over their face to keep the dust out. He didn't swerve for the dog.
Olivia shrieked. "Jesus, Dad!"
"It was just a cat," he lied. Olivia hated cats and always wanted a puppy, but they couldn't afford pets in this economy.
"It didn't look like a cat! Is it okay?"
He changed lanes, driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid a broken-down vehicle. "Don't think about it. We're nearly there."
"Why don't we just go home?" Olivia's voice was pleading now. "Dad, we can just go home."
Christian knew better. The ship's arrival meant that this was no ordinary dust storm.
"Wait," said Olivia, "look over there!"
He couldn't see which way she was pointing. "Where?"
"Left! Left!"
Christian twisted in his seat to see, risking taking his eyes off the road for an instant. A bright beam of light, white hot and so bright it revealed the horizon, shone through the smoke and dust. It held steady for a moment and then winked out.
"What's that, Dad?"
He stared, unable to answer, his eyes locked on the spot where the bright light had appeared. Then the car slammed into the back of another vehicle.
Christian's instincts told him to get out, exchange contact information with the occupants of the car he'd just rear-ended, then call his insurance company. But the bright
flash of light was something else, something almost every Human knew. The Toralii worldshatter devices. They were here. The demons.
That was why the Beijing was in the atmosphere. Why this massive dust storm had sprung up out of nowhere. He put the car into reverse, spun the wheel and then went around. The car's bumper bar dragged on the road and the electric engine made a pained groan as he accelerated. For a moment, he thought it would give out, but soon the car was back at speed.
"Collision detected," came the unnaturally calm female voice from the car's stereo system. "Please remain calm, emergency services have been alerted."
He ignored it, as he did the other lights on the dashboard. Overheat warning. Autodrive inoperable. Seatbelt undone.
"Are those people okay?" asked Olivia, her voice filled with panic.
"They're fine, honey. They're fine. Keep an eye out for more cars."
Christian drove off an exit ramp towards Reliant Stadium. He could hear sirens, and other cars, all converging on this one point. He was not alone in his thinking. The traffic picked up as he drew close; he parked the car near the entranceway, abandoning it without a second thought.
The dust picked up, as did the temperature. It was as though someone had opened an oven; a hot air rolling in from the west, dry and full of sand, blowing at the back of his head. He kept his sleeve over his mouth as he half carried, half-dragged Olivia towards the entrance to the huge stadium.
Right as he did the colossal ship, one he knew as the TFR Beijing, slammed down into the ground barely three hundred feet in front of him, still glowing hot from its passage through the atmosphere.
The wind and the heat were momentarily in his face. The blast blew him onto his back. Olivia shrieked, a sound almost drowned out by the falling debris and groan of settling metal.
"Olivia! Olivia!"
"I'm here, Dad!" She was still standing, offering him her tiny arms.
He took her hand but barely used it, instead pushing off with his other arm. He stared, wide eyed, at the wall of metal higher than the stadium walls.
The Beijing had come down parallel to the oval, the bow of the ship completely crushing the concourse lounge. The middle of the ship must have been in the central playing field; that must be why they had landed there, to have such an opening.
"Come on," he said to Olivia. He knew this stadium well; the Coca-Cola entrance would lead them to the central area, if it wasn't destroyed. He made for the fire stairs, but already all around him, cars pulled up and disgorged people. It was going to get crowded fast.
The fire stairs door was locked from the other side. He cursed loudly; this had cost him time. He tried forcing it open with his shoulder, then a few well-placed kicks to the handle, but it held fast. Nearby a crowd of people were swarming through the gates, the automated ticket system complaining endlessly, but nobody paid it any heed.
"Hold my hand; hold it really tight. We have to go through there."
Olivia looked distinctly unhappy at that prospect, but she gripped his hand tightly. "I got you, Dad."
Christian merged with the crowd, pulling Olivia along behind him, moving with the throng. Everyone was talking at once, calling the names of friends and family or trying to call them on cell phones that no longer worked. People cried out names, warnings, shouts of encouragement.
The lights of the Beijing lit up the stadium brighter than any game lights. The airlocks opened, and armed soldiers in spacesuits funnelled the crowd aboard, barely able to control the panic.
"Children first!" shouted one of the space-suited people, a female voice with an Asian accent, amplified by some unseen source. Nobody paid any attention to her, so she raised her rifle in the air and discharged several shots. The rounds, explosive and powerful, smashed into the shattered remains of the ceiling and exploded. "Children first!"
"Child over here!" shouted Christian, but he realised that Olivia was gone.
"Olivia!"
The screaming and shouting all around him drowned out all hope of response. He began pushing his way through the crowd away from the ship, fighting against the tide, shoving people out of the way. "Olivia! Olivia! Olivia!"
Suddenly the crowd was against him. He became more than someone trying to reach the ship as they were; he was an obstacle, something blocking their way. He shoved, and they shoved back; someone slammed their open hand into his face and his nose exploded into a flower of blood. He fell onto his back, and the crowd washed over him, trampling him under dozens of shoes and booted feet. A heavy boot crushed the fingers on his right hand, a wave of pain that ran up the length of the limb, each finger crushed and mangled.
Hands grabbed him and pulled him up. A couple of strong men, one with long hair and the other wearing gang colours, hoisted him off the ground.
"Come on, buddy!" shouted the longhaired man, "We gotta get to the ship! It's heating up out here!"
"I can't!" Christian shouted, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "I have to find my daughter!"
"There's no time for that!"
More gunfire from the front drew his attention. The soldiers all had their weapons down and levelled, pointed at the advancing tide. "We're approaching capacity!" shouted the female soldier again, and this time Christian was close enough to pick out the Chinese flag on her breast and the pips on her shoulders that signified she was an officer. "We can take fifty more, children only!"
More people poured through the doors to the airlock. She fired again, this time lower, the round striking the western stands. "Back!"
The two men half carried Christian forward. He was too battered, bruised to do anything but fight to keep on his feet, frantically looking in all directions for his daughter.
"Dad!"
A voice, faint and far away that only a father would have heard. One of the space-suited soldiers carried Olivia toward the airlock. She had her arms out to her father, pleading as loud as her small voice could carry.
"No, wait!" She struggled in the soldier's arms. "Save my dad, too!"
"We need to seal this airlock! We're over capacity!"
Christian was near the front now, carried aloft by two helpful strangers, when the soldiers turned their guns on the crowd.
Explosive rounds tore through the flesh all around him, bursting with deafening force as they made contact, blowing people into hunks of meat. Gore splattered his face, so thick he could barely see, and then the bang-whizz of a round passed close by, followed by the wet thud of an impact.
Dozens of little bees stung all over the left side of his body. The grey-haired man dropped him, shrieking in pain.
His father had been a veteran in the second Iraq war. He was discharged when, during one of their patrols, an A-10 Warthog had strafed their position in error. Years later on Thanksgiving, when his father had too much to drink and the turkey was for some reason not to his satisfaction, he had told him what shrapnel felt like. Like little bees attacking all at once, and then all your blood went everywhere. Your whole body felt like it was on fire, as though the venom of those bees was lava making its way through your veins and burning you from the inside, and you would lie screaming in the dirt until someone filled you so full of morphine you didn't remember anything until you woke up in Rammstein military hospital.
Although his father's story painted a vivid mental image, Christian always viewed the description with detached curiosity. Now it was his turn to scream in the dirt. Christian fell forward on his face, rounds flying over his head. The deafening roar of semi-automatic fire stole his hearing, leaving only a pronounced ringing in both ears. The guy with long hair lay beside him, half his torso missing.
The tide turned. People started running away from the ship, silently screaming to the sound of white noise in his ears.
He sat up. It was a strange thing to do while everyone was cowering, dead or dying, beside him, but he did.
The soldier pointed her gun at him but then raised it. She and the soldier beside her, carrying a silently screaming, kicking Oliv
ia, stepped through the blood-splattered airlock and sealed it.
Christian tried to stand, but his balance was gone. He fell back into the bodies, hands and knees slick with rapidly pooling blood. The ground began to tremble as the ship gained energy, slowly lifting off before him, a mute whale floating towards rapidly darkening skies.
The air was so hot it was unbearable. The ringing in his ears began to fade, replaced by the howl of the wind, the screams of the dying, the shouts of the remaining people as they milled around, trying to formulate some plan. The Beijing climbed and climbed until the red dust cloud enveloped it. Christian watched that spot, eyes fixed upon it, as Olivia was lifted up and away.
Then a lance of alien fire speared down on Reliant Stadium, turning it and all the people within to ash.
Operations
TFR Beijing
"We are away, Captain. Minimal damage to the substructure from the landing."
"How many did we save?" asked Liao, her voice tight. The ship groaned as it fought through the raging dust storm that was the air above the southern United States. She felt like a robot; the people they'd saved were nothing, just people. Numbers. Lumps of flesh plucked off a dying world.
"Impossible to know, Captain," said Jiang. "Marine Lieutenant Cheung reports that they stopped counting at around 8,000, but there's many more."
Liao nodded tersely. "So evacuation capacity, or near enough. That'll have to do."
Jiang wouldn't look at her. Liao could barely look at anyone. "Report on casualties from the surface?"
"It doesn't matter," said Lieutenant Ling from the radar station, saying what they were all thinking. "If they're not dead now, they soon will be."
Liao closed her eyes. It was true; it didn't matter. Anyone left on the surface now was as good as dead, so it didn't matter that they had shot civilians. They needed to close the airlock doors, they needed to recover their marines safely, and they needed not to exceed the maximum jump tonnage of the ship. If the ship's mass exceeded 200,000 tonnes the jump drive, already stressed to its limits and damaged, would not be able to function.