by Adams, David
Long black marks were good. It meant the damage was contained to the armour and not the significantly weaker structure below. Still, despite that comforting knowledge, the sight of his beautiful, sleek ship damaged wounded him.
His ship was fighting, and that was the important thing. Battleships were safe in harbours, but that was not what battleships were for.
"The Broadswords are landing, Captain."
"Let me see them. Pronto."
The displays on his console changed, showing the tiny dots of the two surviving Broadswords limping home, red flares drifting from both of them, signals to the landing crew.
Red flares. Crew wounded.
"Commander Wolfe, dispatch additional trauma teams to the hangar bay and prepare to receive casualties."
A third dot joined the two. His display identified it as the Broadsword Silk Jaguar, their SAR bird.
"Washington actual to Broadsword Silk Jaguar. Report status."
A Boston-accented voice filled his headset, one of their few non-Israeli pilots. "Washington, this is Silk Jaguar. We have sustained moderate damage, but we're going to keep looking for any survivors."
"Found any yet?"
"None, sir." A fierce determination coloured his voice in a way that Anderson respected. "Not yet."
A thought occurred. "Silk Jaguar, stand by." He turned to Wolfe. "Commander, what's the status of the Seth'arak's stern?"
He checked his instruments. "Still spinning, sir. And still ballistic towards Velsharn."
Thoughts of salvage floated through his head. The ship represented a significant potential for technological gain but simultaneously a risk for the planet below. "Will it strike the colony?"
"No sir, not based on this trajectory. It looks like there will be some debris-fall, but the stern itself will come down somewhere in the northern oceans."
"Good. Who has the best firing solution on the wreckage?"
"We do, sir."
Anderson consulted his readouts then straightened his back. "Excellent. Have a missile volley either knock it out of orbit, or break it up into smaller chunks so they burn up in the atmosphere."
"Very good, sir," said Cole, his face lit up by the green glow of a radar screen. "Be advised, however, that the stern hull of the Seth'arak is launching escape pods. I count twelve pods in total, with significant thermal signatures. Thirteen now, sir."
"Lucky thirteen. Order the strike. Have the Silk Jaguar take care of any escape pods that are outside the blast radius. They shouldn't be too heavily armoured. The ship's guns should be able to deal with them. Mr. Cole, I want positive confirmation of those escape pods' destruction—I don't want the possibility of any Toralii Alliance making their way to the surface of Velsharn and integrating with the Telvan there."
"Yes sir." Cole began relaying orders to their SAR ship.
It was the right order. He'd kill them, every single last one of them, or they'd come back later with more ships and less arrogance and finish the job. No third option existed. No way could the encounter not end with the total annihilation of one party or the other.
"Belay the missile strike, Mr. Cole." Wolfe stepped closer to Anderson, lowering his voice so only he could hear. "Sir, don't you want to consider—"
"No." Anderson narrowed his eyes. "I am not considering having the Silk Jaguar move to the Seth'arak and picking up those survivors. In fact, I'm basically thinking the opposite of that."
"Understood. But why not? They might be a valuable source of intelligence—"
"There's nothing the Alliance can tell us that the Telvan can't." Anderson held up his hand to answer Wolfe's unspoken concern. "I understand what you're saying. The potential intelligence gains outweigh the need for revenge. You misunderstand my motives. I value intelligence, Commander, but I value other things, too. Things like communication. I am sending the Toralii a message."
"A message, sir?"
"Just like Robert E. Lee said. It is good that war is so terrible, lest we all become too fond of it. The Toralii Alliance needed to learn that lesson; they needed to lose and hard. To not just remember the horrors of war but have them thrust in their face, reminded that while enforcing their will with endless victories is pleasant, a single mistake could turn the tables. They need to remember that a man can fight a thousand battles and live, but he need only lose one to die. They need to lose their fondness for blood."
"The correct thing to do, sir, is to capture those Toralii and give them a fair trial."
"How could we do that?" Anderson shook his head. "Find twelve jurors amongst our own? I doubt you could find twelve people who wouldn't want to shoot them themselves. I doubt a Telvan-run trial will be anything other than a foregone conclusion, and the Kel-Voran, well… I'm not sure they have a word in their language that translates to jury trial."
"They're assets," Wolfe argued. "If they prove to be useless, line them up against a wall and shoot them. But if we take the opinion that savagery will be met with savagery, then we risk alienating our Telvan allies. We harden the hearts of the Alliance even further against us. The Telvan were once part of the Alliance, but they split over cultural differences, such as how alien races are treated. Who knows how many other factions within the Alliance think the same way but aren't bold enough to make that leap yet? We just have to show them that we're not the monsters we're made out to be."
Anderson closed his eyes, inhaled, and then opened them again. "I've always valued your council, John. You're talking sense. What would you recommend?"
"Send the Silk Jaguar to pick them up. See what we can learn from them. If they're belligerent, gas them and dump the corpses into space. On the off chance they're helpful, they could be useful further down the line." Wolfe leaned in a little closer. "Sir, every option we can give ourselves for the future is worth any amount of petty slaughter. So far, we've been plumb out of options as a rule. I'd like to change that." He moved his head back, adopting a more formal tone and posture. "What are your orders, sir?"
Anderson tumbled an idea in his head, over and over, then touched his headset. "Silk Jaguar, this is Washington actual. Change of plan."
Operations
TFR Tehran
Space above Velsharn
Commander Farah Sabeen stared at her instruments as another wave of fire washed over them.
"Hull temperature on the forward section is now at 600 Kelvin, ma'am." Junior Lieutenant Veisi read from a scrolling damage report screen. "The Toralii are shifting fire away from the Telvan, the Madrid, and the Washington and toward us."
"Toward us?" A cursory examination of her command console illustrated what she already knew to be true. The hull temperature was rising rapidly. If it reached 1,200 Kelvin, the alloy that made up the hull of the Triumph class cruisers such as the Tehran would break down and liquefy. "Why us?"
"No idea, ma'am. Perhaps they are simply focusing their fire. Two of their cruisers are in flames, and a third is no longer firing. Counting the Telvan, we now outnumber them."
She liked that, even as the rumble of impacting weapons fire all around them intensified. It was a sign of their growing desperation.
"Our hull can't dissipate that kind of energy. So we move. Make heading zero-six-two mark one-one-niner, ahead full, total defensive. Present our bow to them, minimise our profile, move into low orbit, and get behind Velsharn. Use the planet's mass as our shield."
"Commander," said Commander Bagheri, "That will leave the Beijing exposed."
So it would. That could not be. The colony had to survive. "Belay that. Remain stationary. Place us between the Alliance fleet and the colony. Lower us into the upper atmosphere. I want to cast our shadow as wide over the colony as possible."
"It won't be possible to protect them from everything," said Bagheri. "The Alliance is too spread out. Some shots will get through."
"It will be enough. Enough to give the people on the surface a fighting chance."
"We will need to present our topside to the Alliance fleet. We will be vulnerabl
e."
"We will," said Sabeen.
"Our hull will not be able to sustain prolonged firepower of that intensity for long."
"It won't."
"Insha'Allah. This is our fate, then." Bagheri gestured to their helmsmen. "Take us into the upper atmosphere. It'll boost our thermal dissipation profile."
The ship sank into the upper atmosphere as superheated plasma fell all around them. It fell like rain, splattering off their upper superstructure and pounding on the metal hull.
"950 Kelvin, Commander!" Red warning lights flashed on Veisi's console.
"Status report on the Alliance fleet?"
Bagheri touched his console. "The fires on vessels two and four appear to have been extinguished. They're drifting out of formation, and I'm reading a significant amount of debris and escape pods. Hard to tell which is which. Two more vessels are aflame, and over half their fleet have suffered damage of some kind. Sensors are imprecise at this distance, but it appears as though the full Telvan fleet has arrived."
"It's not enough." Sabeen clenched her fist, digging her nails into her palm. "Insha'Allah, we need to give the Telvan more time."
"One or two worldshatter blasts and we're done for," said Bagheri. "Why haven't they fired yet?"
Silence reigned in Operations for a brief moment. None could answer that question, until Veisi spoke up. "I think I know why."
"You have answers for me, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, ma'am. I've been tracking the uses of the worldshatter devices. They're primarily spent against the Telvan ships, but they're using a different configuration that we're used to. The Alliance, when they glassed Earth, was using beams with a wide angle—but these ones are narrow, focused. They're designed to puncture through armour. Through ships' hulls."
"Okay," Sabeen said, instinctively glancing up above her as more fire rained down on them. "Get to the point."
"The Alliance was using wide-beams on our ships, but narrow on the Telvan. But they fired a narrow beam at the Beijing. Apart from that, though, they've been firing them only at the Telvan. They've fired their weapons, and they did it early. They're down to plasma now." Veisi smiled a wide, triumphant smile. "They didn't save anything. They're afraid of us."
"Good." Sabeen meant it, too. "They should be more afraid before day's out."
"1,075 Kelvin," warned Bagheri. "The upper fore structure cannot take much more of this!"
Then it was time. "Rotate the ship on the lateral axis. Spin us over and present our underside. Time the manoeuvre between volleys if we can."
Veisi's confused look reflected her thoughts. It was a forlorn hope to try to do such a thing. The aliens were firing on weapons free, each ship producing as much directed plasma as they could, and they did not fire in distinct volleys. Their decision would expose the ground teams to fire.
"It will buy them more time," Sabeen said, gritting her teeth as the words escaped. "We cannot protect them further if we are dead."
Veisi touched his console, and the ship began to move as artificial gravity fought with the lingering tendrils of Velsharn's actual pull. The Tehran slowly twisted around, upside down.
Tiny streaks of fire raced past them, and Sabeen's heart was in her throat as tiny pinpricks of light flickered below them, ringing the Beijing in fire.
"Allah subhānahu wa ta'āla preserve them," she said, as much to herself as anyone.
He did not.
CHAPTER XII
To The Last
*****
Mountains near the TFR Beijing
Eden
THE PLASMA CHARGES HOWLED AS they drew close, evaporating the atmosphere around them, separating the oxygen and hydrogen in the air into their primordial elements. When they hit the ground, the sheer heat and speed tunnelled into the soil, blasting up chunks of red-hot dirt that slowly turned black as it fell all around them.
Liao, laying on her back and looking up to the sky, watched it all with a stunned, mute fascination as Saeed, Saara, and dozens of strangers cowered all around, screams of alarm and pain drowned out by the sounds of more fire.
They had come far and accomplished more than she had anticipated. The cave system contained almost half the survivors they had found. More streamed in, a panicked stampede of people who pushed, shoved, and stomped their way into the tiny caves, cramming more and more into the soft water-worn stone. Liao had asked to be amongst the last to enter.
She didn't regret that decision, but as the sky turned to daylight from the bright glow of plasma sailing through the atmosphere and the growing heat all around them intensified, she did envy those who had found shelter.
["Captain, the Tehran is no longer shielding us!"]
Such was obvious to all around them. The ship was visible with her naked eyes, the tiny white dot that was the TFR Tehran hovering in the upper atmosphere. It gallantly deflected the lion's share of the death that flew down towards them from across the unimaginably vast distances between planets, protecting them with its massive shadow.
The foghorn of the worldshatter devices had not returned.
"We should move into the cave," said Liao, her voice weirdly calm even to her. Saara, her fur stuck to her body with sweat, looked at her.
["Can you walk?"]
"Yes." Liao climbed awkwardly to her feet, using only her left arm. Her right hung limply by her side. She could move it, wiggle her fingers, but the damage was severe.
["Then run."]
Saeed had re-bandaged the break. Liao had lost a lot of blood, but she was more level-headed than she had in a long time. Her injury and the visage of death had given her clarity of purpose that had not existed before. The pain of her immediate situation blew away the concerns of the past. Now was survival, clear and simple, and armed with this simple directive, Liao ran, stumbling and half dazed from shock, towards the mouth of the cave.
A light flashed above them, white and pure, and despite the dangers of running at night, she risked a glance up. A huge chunk of debris was falling into the atmosphere, a colossal fireball streaking across the sky, vanishing past the horizon in moments. It shed debris as it fell, little twinkling lights moving perpendicular to the falling stars of plasma, basking the entire world in a bright, lurid, almost blinding light.
She ran on, forcing one foot in front of the other. Saara, Saeed, and the others managed to get ahead of her. She wasn't fast enough. Running uphill with insufficient blood, with her wounds and her mind in a fog, was difficult. Slow.
Too slow.
A blast wave from behind bowled her over; the air was so hot, so burning hot, that her clothes and hair stubble ignited. She tumbled on the hard ground of the mountainside, her uniform ablaze, the polyester melting and sticking to her skin. She thrashed, kicked, screamed, and most of her uniform came off.
Along with a good portion of the skin from her back, the left side of her face, and her scalp.
The pain was indescribable. Every nerve ending screamed at her, and Liao screamed back. Her seared flesh begged the agony to end, for it all to just stop.
But it didn't.
The scrub around her caught fire, the wet vines and plants hissing as heat scorched them. A plasma charge had burrowed into the earth near her, and the heat of the weapon was so intense that it splattered tiny hunks of itself out in all directions. Fire was everywhere, and it radiated out from the plasma charge, cooking the leather soles of her boots.
A Human's fear of fire was a powerful thing, capable of overriding almost any barrier. Unable to walk, unable to stand, she crawled. Liao crawled on her elbows and knees, making slow progress away from the burning ball of fire. A figure, lit by the glow, braved the flames all around them.
["Captain!"]
Saara had come back for her. Liao instinctively reached out with her broken arm, that wound's pain overwhelmed by her burns.
A glob of plasma fell between them, slicing her arm off at the elbow and sinking inches into the ground, the heat of the white-hot ball instantly sealing the st
ump shut. Her severed right arm twitched on the ground, the fingers curling into a fist as the limb touched the white ball, then shrivelling into a blackened, wizened husk.
More pain. It did not come from the charred stump, though; it came from her fingertips, ghostly appendages no longer attached that she swore, against all logic and reason, she could feel.
Saara lunged for her, her claws exposed, the digits digging into her flesh. Saara dragged her forward across the ground, then into the air.
["Melissa, Sky Gods preserve you! Saeed! Saeed!"]
Every contact with her Toralii friend was excruciating, a deep, searing pain that overrode all thought, all instinct. Her burns were deep. Tattered ashes from her uniform fell off as Saara ran, taking with them strips of seared skin. Occasionally a clump of hair, tiny patches of skin still attached, fell, too.
She smelt pork, roasting pig meat, except it was her. Her flesh and muscles, seared deep.
Saara was exhausted. Her breath ragged, running uphill. Someone met them halfway. Doctor Saeed.
"Allahu Akbar! My God! My God! Saara, wait, do not remove the clothing. Hold her tightly. Do not let her touch the ground. She has been very badly burnt."
["I am aware, doctor!"]
They were shouting over the sound of her screaming. The sky above slowly disappeared, replaced by the roof of a cavern.
"Lay her down on this sheet. It is as sterile as we can manage. It will have to do. I will drug her and try to stabilise her, but she cannot remain here. The burns cover 40% of her body, maybe more, and her arm is gone. We must find a way to signal one of the ships in orbit. She requires emergency surgery, or she will not survive."
She wanted unconsciousness to take her. She wanted to no longer be awake for any of this, but no matter how much she screamed, not even Saeed's morphine could do anything more than take the barest edge off her pain. She screamed until her voice was hoarse and empty, a ragged gasp trying to will away the pain, but nothing worked.
There was only the murmur of voices, the distant thunder of incoming fire outside, and the agony.