by Andrew Beery
“The Venusian moon is already in a retrograde orbit that will decay over time. The impact will accelerate that decay. It is not a survivable event and will eradicate all life on the planet.”
“How long?” Governor Stevens asked softly.
“Approximately three years however tidal forces along with the first deep impact event will make the surface unlivable in less than twelve months.”
***
Randy McFarl had had better days. For starters most days didn’t rain hot molten rock. Most days the ground didn’t shake like it was going to a dance you weren’t invited to. Most days didn’t include the news that everything you ever worked for was going to be taken away. Still, the news could have been worse. His wife and child were safe on the Yorktown. The world was going to come to an end but they had time to do something about it.
The clunking sound of rubble hitting the roof of the now permanently grounded Edmund Fitzgerald had finally stopped. It had been hours since the initial sonic boom of the impact had rocked their world. The Fitz’s external camera feeds showed a world that was barely recognizable. The sky was a deep burgundy from all the ash hanging in the air. Fires had started wherever hot magma had fallen. These fortunately where soon smothered by torrential rain fall.
The moon which was still visible through the haze seemed the same but Randy knew this was not the case. Strangely beautiful, it was the harbinger of unwanted change. It was perhaps fitting that its color though all the particulate matter in the air was blood red.
***
Jimmy Stevens laid back in his bunk. The only advantage to being locked up was no one expected him to do anything. There had been quite a bit of scrambling shorty after they had arrested him. Apparently his Syndicate allies had decided to attack Venus. Personally he thought that was funny. He said as much when the first of the Modos prisoners where brought in to share the adjoining cells. It seemed the Modos were unsure which world was Earth so they went after the one that had the most viable biosphere and had humans on it.
He guessed blowing up the wrong world by mistake was the kind of thing anybody with a starship could do.
The four Modos in the cell next to him huddled together and whispered for several minutes in what ultimately became a hushed but heated discussion. This activity had begun shortly after he had asked them why they were bent on attacking Venus rather than Earth.
In the end, three of the creatures stood up while the fourth lay still on the floor. After a moment Jimmy saw what looked like blood creeping across the floor in a slowly growing puddle. He looked up at the other three in horror. The one nearest him used his trunk to wipe blood from his lips.
“You killed him?” Jimmy looked around his cell. He was safe but still he wanted a weapon if one was to be had. No such luck. Instead he began to scream for all that he was worth. In a few short seconds the security door to the cell block opened and two guards came in.
“They killed him. They bloody well killed him!” Jimmy yelled.
The guards for their part looked suspiciously at the three standing Modos as well as the fourth who had not moved since he had been attacked. The senior guard, a man named Cory Michele if Jimmy remembered correctly, tapped his comm link and called for backup.
The younger guard foolishly opened to door to the Modos cell and signaled the three standing to move back. He held a stunner on the three to insure they complied. As he reached down to jostle the fallen Modos his attention was briefly diverted. The three made to rush him but Cory stunned all three before they could reach him.
At the same time however the fourth Modos who had been faking a serious injury on the floor rolled over and kicked stunner out of the first guard’s hand. He reached for it with this trunk.
“No you don’t,” the first guard yelled and he fought for the stunner. Cory couldn’t get a clean shot with his partner in the room. A few seconds later Chief Brodhead appeared at the door. She took one look at the situation and drew her weapon.
Jimmy watched in awe as she shot both of the guards that reported to her. She turned to look at him and he immediately raised his hands.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped. “I’m here to you free. Unfortunately these three are going to be a problem.” She unlocked Jimmy’s cell and held open the door to the cell with the single standing Modos. “You’re going to have to leave them,” she said indicating the three unconscious bearephants.
She handed Jimmy a data chip. “This is everything the Syndicate needs for this war to end quickly. It is absolutely essential that you get it to Captain Nicked-Tail as soon as possible.”
“And how am I going to do that?” Jimmy ask belligerently.
“You and your best buddy here are going to steal a fighter,” Brodhead said while slapping him on the shoulder. “First though you got one more job.”
She handed him her stunner. “Shoot me.”
***
Nicked-Tail swore with a passion that curled the paint inside the bridge of the MS Tsunami. His fleet had been battling three of the GCP Capital ships for the last two hours. It was eight to three and they had the numbers but the Coalition ships had better shielding, better weapons and an ability to coordinate instantaneously over impossible distances.
Slowly his fleet inched closer to the gravitational nexus in the center of the mass of asteroids. The platform had been in operation for less than a day but it was already obvious that it was a gravity well designed to pull the various pieces of the shattered planet back into a stable orbit.
“Deploy fighters to the platform. Destroy it, disable it. Do whatever you need to but shut it down,” Nicked-Tail barked hoarsely.
Commander Herringbone issued the appropriate orders.
“Sir we have a GCP Fighter approaching from an unusual vector,” the communications officer announced.
“Shoot it down. Why do you need me to tell you the obvious?”
“Sir, they have verified friend codes and they say they have a message for you.”
Chapter Fifteen – Bait and Switch
Slowly Agnes Brodhead opened her eyes. Her longtime friend and Captain stared down at her.
“Well sir, did he buy it?”
“Hook, line and sinker. I’m telling you Chief… you missed your calling. You could have been a Holo-star,” Captain Kirkland said with a grin.
“So what was on the data chip?”
“Nothing much… inventory reports from the galley. We encrypted them heavily so they will spend days discovering they have a record of how many bananas we have on hand.”
Chief Brodhead sat up. Her face was anything but cheerful. “I allowed that inbred low-life to stun me so you could pass them information about how much fruit we have in our mess halls!”
“No of course not Chief.”
“So there was a virus planted in the data?”
Ken shook his head. “That would have been nice but we’d need to know more about their operating system to do that.”
“Ah,” the Security Chief said. “Then there is a secret secondary message that leads them into a trap.”
“Nope,” Ken said with a twinkle in his eye.
“Sir, with all due respect, you are pulling my chain and at a certain point a girl cannot be held responsible for what she does under duress.”
“It’s the fighter they stole. It’s been outfitted with an FTL homing beacon. It grabs available astrometrics such as gravity waves, neutrino sources and the like and sends us a pretty solid idea of where the Modos flag ship is at any given time.”
“Ah,” she said at last.
“Worth getting stunned?”
She massaged the back of her neck. “It’s getting closer.”
***
Silver-Fin guided his cloaked fighter toward the strange looking space platform. It looked like a ball that Suhtii children would play with. Its entire exterior was composed of an ever expanding layer of dust and rubble. He played his targeting LIDAR across its surface looking for a soft spot.
The primary beam lashed out and enveloped two of the Modos capital ships. Like their compatriots before, their shielding lasted bare milliseconds before being overloaded. Shortly thereafter their hulls were reduced to expanding clouds of plasma. Four other ships were close enough to be heavily damaged. They were forced to drop out of the fight in order to effect repairs.
As the SJ round fired Silver-fin, who was not in the direct line of fire, had a brief thought that it was indeed beautiful before he was overcome by a lethal exposure to backscattering x-rays.
***
Captain Hakaro Takei breathed a sigh of relief. For the last several hours he and Captains Vigit and Ruck had been playing a highly coordinated game of cat and mouse. Only their tightly integrated systems had allowed them to get away with it. Slowly, with almost imperceptible progress, they had maneuvered the battle so as to lead the bulk of the Modos ships into range of the Ceres platform.
Admiral Kimbridge had envisioned the perfect trap. The Modos knew the platform was there. They even thought they knew what its primary purpose was. In reality, that information, while true, had been fed to them by agents who were not aware they had been duped. The real mission of the Ceres platform was to eliminate as many of the Modos ships as possible.
***
The bridge of the MS Tsunami was a smoldering mess. Bodies lay strewn like clam shells after dinner. Even the human who had so willingly betrayed his own blood, lay broken across the room. His red blood mixing with the green of his own people. He was dead but not before sharing a valuable secret.
“Status,” he croaked to anyone who could answer.
An ensign who was busy trying to extinguish an electrical fire attempted to comply. “Main power is down Captain. Most of the bridge crew is dead or unconscious. Damage control is trying to prioritize the most critical systems. You were unresponsive for about five minutes. The enemy probably thinks we are dead.”
“Do we still have ship to ship communications?”
“Sir, I believe so.”
Nicked-Tail grunted as he got up. It seemed his Suhtii host had broken a few ribs. He would have the beast put down and replaced as soon as he could. He missed the augmentations that the Uruk had provided that allowed him to turn off pain centers.
“Send to all ships. Launch every fighter, every missile, every rail gun and every plasma beam they can. I want there to be so much ordinance in the air the GCP has trouble tracking it all. Then send the initiation command to our cloaked asteroid surprises. Full burn towards the third planet in system.”
He turned to face the Ensign. “Congratulations, I’m promoting you to First Officer. Now get me a shuttle and the best hyperfield engineer we have left.”
***
Head Archivist Sna’st watched his display with growing impatience. The battle was reaching one of the possible climaxes. The choices made now would impact the future of billions of worlds. He wished, not for the first time, that he could interfere. Regrettably, that was not the role the Creator had envisioned for him.
***
Admiral Kimbridge didn’t like puzzles she could not figure out. The Modos fleet had been decimated many times over. They were down to six ships of which only two were combat ready. The GCP on the other hand still had all four of their ships and over seventy-five percent of their fighter support.
Why then had the every Modos ship fired continuously in every direction possible until they ran out of ammunition? What was their target? It was taking every sensor and computing resource to try and track everything that was in the air… Unless… Cat thought, that was the objective.
She toggled her comm link. “Ken, come down to the CIC would you.”
Cat walked around the holographic display. It was currently centered on the conflict near the asteroid belt. She expanded the view as both Ken and Ben walked into the CIC.
“Gentlemen, answer me this. Why would a beaten enemy fire every weapon they had in seemly random directions?”
“Four of the ships were likely blind,” Ben said as he examined the expanded display which now included the inner planets.
“True,” Cat said, “And I could buy that except that their two remaining effectives did exactly the same thing.”
“Also that doesn’t explain why they would fire until they depleted their arsenals,” Ken added.
“Unless whatever they were doing was a last ditch effort. The type of effort that would not require any type of reserve should they win or lose,” Ben acknowledged.
“Exactly,” Cat agreed. “So tell me gentlemen. What was our response when they fired everything they had into the air?”
“We looked to see what they were firing at,” the two men said in unison.
Ken slammed his hand onto the comm button. “Bridge, redirect all sensors towards the inner planets. Full spectrum scan. Throw everything you have at it… every sensor drone… everything! AND DO IT YESTERDAY!”
“Aye Captain, scanning now.”
Seconds ticked by and Cat began to hope she was wrong. Unfortunately she rarely was.
“CIC, this is the bridge. I’m sending you a new feed now. I don’t think its good news.”
Cat looked at the data coming in. “Commander Kipling, you have a singular talent for understatement.”
“Yes ma’am. Sorry ma’am.”
“Me too…” Cat whispered.
On the holographic display three massive asteroids were on a projected course towards Earth. The smallest was several times the size of Manhattan. They were all accelerating under thrust.
Cat worked the controls and spun the hologram. “Ken we need to jump to this point. Match velocities with a shuttle and deactivate the thrusters and their guidance systems. Once we do that we can use the Yorktown’s shields to nudge them into a safe orbit or even better into the sun.”
“Understood Admiral.” Ken turned to Ben. “You saw where the Admiral indicated. Ask Yorky to plot a jump for us and to jump when ready.”
“Yes Captain,” Ben answered. His eyes held a far-away look as he spoke with the ship’s AI. When his eyes refocused on the room there was a worried expression on his face.
“Captain, Admiral. We have a problem. The Yorktown can’t initiate a hyperfield.”
“Shut down the dampening field…,” Ken began before he saw Cat shake her head.
“It’s not ours. The Modos have deployed some of their own hyperfield inhibitors,” she said in answer to his unasked question. “Yorky, plot a direct line intercept course for all three asteroids.”
“Course plotted. However I would point out that at our best speed we will not be able to catch up to and deflect the slowest of the three asteroid.”
“If I’m right we don’t have to. Fire the rail guns. Target the rear most section of each asteroid. Continuous fire. If we can hit them with enough force and enough times we can knock out their drives and change their flight paths.”
“Admiral,” Ken said. “It’s a great idea unfortunately we don’t have many kinetic rounds left. We used most of our inventory on the defense of Venus.”
Cat toggled the comm again. “Give me fleet-wide comms.”
“Comms open Admiral”
“Jason, Vigit, Hakaro… gentlemen. We have a situation.”
Chapter Sixteen – Endgame
Sandy-Claw was not a soldier. He had told his hatch mother this while he was still in first lessons. She had seen his sharp mind and arranged for him to be trained as an engineer. He was a good engineer. The math that so many struggled with came as second nature to him. He was by any definition brilliant. What he wasn’t was a soldier. Why then was he stuck in the middle of a war? Whatever
force created the universe, it must surely have a sense of humor.
Nicked-Tail saw the abject terror in the other man’s eyes. “Fear not my studious friend. We have one small job to do and our days of fighting are done.”
“And what might that be Sir?”
By way of answer, Nicked-Tail pointed at the large spherical platform there were rapidly approaching.
***
“The Exeter is out of ammo,” Ben reported from the bridge of the Yorktown. “Bogy one is no longer accelerating and will fall into the sun. Bogy two has been hit but it corrected course and is still a threat.”
“Are the Mador and Relentless still firing?” Cat asked.
“Affirmative Admiral but they are down to about twenty rounds each.”
“How long before the last of the rounds is fired and potentially strikes a target?” Ken asked next.
Ben checked his readouts. “Sir, I read sixty of our rocks in the air with an interception time of no longer than twenty minutes for the last of them. Assuming another ten minutes of firing and we are looking at thirty to thirty-five minutes before we know whether we won or lost the war.”
“Hurry up and wait,” Cat said.
***
Admiral Sherry Melbourne looked down at her lifelong friend Admiral Bud Faragon. He looked the same in the stasis chamber as he had the day he entered some eighty seven years ago. At one hundred and forty three, she did not. Oh the Heshe nanites did wonders for keeping one feeling young but age had a way of catching up, even if the body continued to look young.
The Galactic Coalition was not the same organization they had founded together over a hundred years ago. The universe was not the same place. Distances that had once been crossed in moments now took hours, days, weeks and even years. That was if they could be crossed at all. Entire economies had been established on the basis of jump routes… those magical places in the universe where hyperfield jumps still made instantaneous travel possible.
The very fabric of society had been torn when jumps stopped working. If quantum entangled FTL communication had also failed the GCP would have ceased to exist. In truth, some sections of the GCP communications network had fallen silent. A critical component failure could destroy the entanglement that was critical to the FTL comms. In the past such a failure was an inconvenience… now it spelled permanent exile from the community of worlds known as the GCP… that is unless a jump route could be found to the isolated community.