Lady Phillipa sat at the side of the desk next to the Duke of Salion; while the guests were in green leather chairs facing Alaistair.
“Thank you all for coming,” the King said.
“Your ambassador said it was important,” Jim Sanderson said. “And our diplomatic relationship is old and valuable enough to get you my ass over here. Though I have to say I should be back home where I’m visible to the voters. This crisis is about appearing confident more than anything.”
“I understand,” Alaistair said. “If I might make an observation, the crisis is now developing outside the arena of public confidence.”
“Yeah, we heard Mortonridge is in trouble.”
“The rate of advance has slowed down after Ketton,” the Duke of Salion admitted. “But we are still gaining ground and de-possessing the inhabitants.”
“Good for you. What’s that got to do with us? You’ve already had as much help as we can reasonably provide.”
“We believe the time has come to make some positive decisions on the policies we adopt to defeat the possessed.”
Korzhenev grunted in amusement. “So you called us here in secret to discuss this action rather than take it to the Assembly? I feel as if I am a member of some old cabal plotting revolution.”
“You are,” the King said. Korzhenev’s smile faded.
“The Confederation is failing,” the Duke of Salion told the surprised guests. “The economies of the developed worlds like ours are suffering badly from the civil starflight quarantine. Stage two planets are paralysed. Capone has acted with singular brilliance with his infiltration flights and the strike against Trafalgar. Our populations are in a state of physical and emotional siege. Quarantine-busting flights continue to spread possession slowly but surely. And now Earth, the industrial and military core of the entire Confederation, has been infected. Without Earth on our side, the whole equation is changed. We must take its loss into account if we are to survive.”
“Just hold on there a minute,” Jim Sanderson said. “The possessed have got a toehold in a couple of arcologies, is all. You can’t sign Earth off that easily. GISD is one tough mother of an agency, they’ll crack whatever heads they have to in order to clear the possessed out.”
Alaistair looked at the Duke, and nodded permission.
“According to our GISD contact, there are now at least five arcologies host to the possessed.”
Prince Tokama raised an eyebrow. “You are well informed, sir. I had not been told of this development before I left Oshanko.”
“Half of the Royal Navy auxiliary vessels are doing nothing but running round on courier duty for us,” the Duke said. “We’re keeping as current as we can, but even that information is a couple of days old now. According to the report, the worst situation is in New York, but the other four arcologies will fall within weeks at the most. Govcentral has been commendably quick in closing down the vac-train routes, but we believe that ultimately the possessed will spread to the remaining arcologies as well. If anyone is capable of surviving Earth’s climate without technological protection, it is a possessed.”
“And that isn’t even the big problem,” Alaistair said. “Lalonde’s population was roughly twenty million, of which we can assume a minimum of eighty-five per cent were possessed. Between them, they had enough energistic power to snatch the planet from this universe. New York’s official population is three hundred million. By themselves they have more than enough power to remove Earth. They won’t even have to wait until the other arcologies are taken over.”
“A valid observation, however, the Halo will surely remain,” Ku Rongi said. “That is the main source of commerce with the Confederation. Trade with the Sol system will be diminished, not erased.”
“Hopefully, yes,” the Duke said. “Our GISD contact says they don’t yet understand how the possessed penetrated Earth’s defences. So the possibility exists that they may be able to spread among the Halo asteroids as well. The other problem facing the Halo is that when the Earth is removed to some other realm, its gravity field will go with it. The Halo asteroids will physically disperse.”
“Very well,” Prince Tokama said. “I am sure your analysists have produced a definitive report on the outcome of these events. So assuming we are deprived of Earth, and at least some of the Halo’s resources, what do you see as the most effective policy to proceed with?”
“Olton Haaker and the Polity Council have just ordered a full scale Confederation Navy attack against Capone’s fleet,” the Duke said. “It should close down the Organization’s rule, and allow the possessed on New California to do what comes naturally. They’ll shunt it away, thus eliminating the threat of any further infiltration flights and antimatter terrorism. What we propose is taking that policy to its conclusion.”
“The industrialized star systems should align themselves into a core-Confederation,” Lady Phillipa said. “At the moment we’re dangerously overstretched trying to enforce the quarantine and supporting actions like Mortonridge. The cost simply cannot be sustained, not with the economic slowdown we’re all suffering from. If we contract our spheres of influence, the cost is considerably reduced, and the effectiveness of our military forces in maintaining security over a smaller volume of space is correspondingly improved. Given that increased security, we could begin trading among ourselves again.”
“You mean no one else would be allowed to fly in?”
“Essentially, yes. We would extend the government authorization process we have in place today to cover commercial starships. Any vessel registered in one of the secured star systems would be allowed to resume flying between systems, subject to a reasonable security inspection. Ships which came from unsecured systems would not be permitted to dock. In other words, we stake out our perimeter and guard it very well indeed.”
“And the other planets?” Korzhenev enquired. “The ones we leave out in the cold. What do you foresee for them?”
“They’re the principal source of our trouble in the first place,” the Duke said. “They do not police their asteroid settlements effectively, which encourages quarantine-busting flights and with them the prospect of possessed getting loose inside another star system.”
“So we just abandon them?”
“By withdrawing our present unconditional military support, they will be forced into taking the responsibility they’ve so far avoided. With the present quarantine in force, their marginal industrial asteroid settlements are inviolable anyway. In effect, we have been subsidising their suspended status for the owners. Once that situation is ended, the asteroids will be mothballed and their populations returned to the home star system’s terracompatible planet. In itself that will considerably reduce the number of routes by which the possessed can continue to spread. We may even rid ourselves of their incursion into this universe entirely. If they see they cannot reach fresh planets, then those who remain will take themselves away to this new realm of theirs.”
“Then what?” Jim Sanderson asked. “Okay, we regain most of what we’ve lost in financial terms. I’m in favour of that. But it doesn’t solve anything long term. Even if the possessed clear out and leave us alone, we still have to consider the bodies, the people, they’ve stolen and enslaved. There’s hundreds of millions of them depending on us to rescue them, billions probably by now. That’s a healthy percentage of our whole species. We can’t ignore that. The whole issue of souls and what happens to us after death has got to be thoroughly addressed. That’s what I was hoping for when I came here today, something new.”
“If there was an easy solution we would have found it by now,” the King said. “The amount of research and effort focused on this is like no other endeavour in our history. Every university, every company and military laboratory, every febrile mind in eight hundred inhabited star systems has been working on it. The best anybody has come up with is the possibility of a doomsday anti-memory for the souls in the beyond. One can hardly consider such mass slaughter as a valid answer,
even if it can be made to work. We have to start looking at this from a different angle altogether. In order to do that, we must have stability and a reasonable degree of prosperity as an umbrella to work under. Society will have to change in many ways; most of which will be profoundly unsettling. One doesn’t even know if it will ultimately reinforce or obliterate our faith in God.”
“I can see the logic in what you’re saying,” Korzhenev said. “But what about the Assembly and the Confederation Navy itself? They exist to protect all planets equally.”
“Bottom line,” Lady Phillipa said, “is that he who pays the piper . . . and those of us in this room do pay a considerable amount. We’re not abandoning anybody, we’re restructuring policy to a more realistic response towards this crisis. If it could be solved quickly, then all we’d need is the quarantine and a few interdiction flights. As that quite obviously hasn’t happened, we are going to have to take the tough decision and settle in for the long haul. This is the only way we can offer those already possessed with any prospect of regaining their own identities one day.”
“How many other star systems do you envisage joining this core-Confederation?” Prince Tokama asked.
“We believe ninety-three systems have the kind of fully developed technoindustrial infrastructure to qualify for admission. We don’t envisage this as being a small elite. Our fiscal analysis shows that many stars would be able to sustain a modest but steady economic growth pattern between themselves.”
“Do you envisage asking the Edenists to join?” Ku Rongi asked.
“Of course,” the King replied. “In fact we took inspiration from them. After Pernik they have demonstrated an admirable resolution in safeguarding their habitats from infiltration. That’s precisely the kind of determination we wish to institute among ourselves. If the stage two planets and developing asteroids had done the same right from the start, we wouldn’t even be in this appalling position.”
Jim Sanderson looked round the three other guests, then turned back to the King. “Okay, I’ll brief the President and tell him it gets my vote. It ain’t what I wanted, but at least it’s something practical.”
“My honourable father will be informed,” Prince Tokama said. “He will need to bring your proposal to the attention of the Imperial Court, but I can see no problem if enough planets can be convinced.”
Korzhenev and Ku Rongi gave their assent, promising to take the proposal to their governments. The King shook hands and had a few personal words of thanks with each as they were ushered out. He didn’t hurry them, but time was important; the next four senior representatives were due in an hour. Five Eighty-five Squadron had a busy three days scheduled.
* * *
A hundred and eighty-seven wormhole termini opened with impressive synchronization a quarter of a million kilometres away from Arnstat, directly between the planet and its sun. Voidhawks emerged from the gaps and immediately established a defence sphere formation five thousand kilometres in diameter, scanning space with their distortion fields and electronic sensors for any sign of nearby technological activity. They detected the planet’s SD platforms, of course; a much-depleted network in the aftermath of the Organization’s successful invasion. Nonetheless, local sensor satellites had already discovered them, and the remaining high-orbit platforms were locking on. The SD network was reinforced by Organization fleet warships, of which there were a hundred and eighteen currently in orbit, along with twenty-three hellhawks and a token half-dozen new low-orbit platforms ferried in from New California which were principally used to enforce Organization rule on the ground. Their presence, especially in conjunction with the antimatter combat wasps which some of them carried, had effectively upgraded the planetary defence shield to the same level as it had been with a full SD network.
Capone and Emmet Mordden were satisfied the Organization could defeat any task force of warships the Confederation sent in an attempt to reclaim space above the Arnstat. In any case, it was only the Organization’s dominance of that space which prevented the planet from being taken out of the universe by the possessed on the surface, effectively stymieing the First Admiral.
True, there had been an considerable increase in lightning raids recently: voidhawks swallowing in to shoot off combat wasps and stealth munitions. But few of the missiles had ever hit a target; interception rate was over ninety-five per cent. The state of constant alert had given the crews operating the sensor satellites a high proficiency rating. Complemented by the hellhawks’ distortion fields, they were confident nothing could get close enough to the orbiting asteroid settlements or industrial stations to inflict any kind of serious damage.
Nothing happened for the first two minutes after the voidhawks emerged. Both sides were searching for clues to see what the other was going to do. The Organization chief didn’t know what to make of it. A voidhawk force in this formation was normally a securement operation, enabling a larger fleet of Adamist warships to jump in with impunity. But a hundred and eighty-seven was a colossal number for a beachhead detachment, more likely to be the task force in its entirety. The distance was also puzzling: at the moment they were outside effective combat wasp engagement range. But antimatter combat wasps would give the Organization an advantage, allowing them to engage the attackers first as they flew in towards the planet.
The voidhawks confirmed the Organization was unable to reach them—unless the hellhawks chose to swallow up for a confrontation. None of them did. More wormhole termini started to open. Then the first Adamist ship emerged in the middle of the defence sphere formation.
Admiral Kolhammer was using the battleship Illustrious as his flagship. Its size permitted him to carry a full complement of tactical staff, and provided them with a fully fledged C&C compartment independent of the bridge. No ship in the Confederation Navy was better suited to coordinating an attacking force of this magnitude. Though even with the number of antenna which Illustrious boasted, the tactical staff were hard pressed to establish and maintain communication with all the thousand-plus ships under his command.
Emphasising the monumental strength they represented, it took the task force over thirty-five minutes to complete their emergence manoeuvre. To the officers and crew of the Organization fleet it seemed as though the torrent of ships would never end.
Kolhammer’s staff began datavising ships with new vectors as soon as they established contact. Fusion drives blinked on, powering the task force into a giant disk formation. So many plasma exhausts concentrated in one place produced a blazing purple-white haze brighter than the sun. People on the surface of the planet could see the attackers as a coin-sized patch flowering open against the centre of the dazzling photosphere, an unnerving portent of what was to come.
Eight hundred Adamist warships formed the nucleus of the new attack formation, while five hundred voidhawks flocked around their periphery. Once their relative positions were locked, the main drives burst into life, accelerating the ships in towards the planet at eight gees. Voidhawks expanded their distortion fields and matched the acceleration of their technological comrades.
The gigantic neuroiconic display wheeled slowly inside Motela Kolhammer’s mind, each ship a pinprick of golden light trailing a purple vector tag in a headlong rush to the solid bulk of the planet ahead, represented by a blank, ebony sphere. The strength of the planetary defence layers were illustrated by translucent coloured shells wrapped around the blackness. The ships still had some way to go before the outermost, yellow shell. And still neither side had fired a shot.
The simulation put him in mind of a hammer descending on an egg, rendered with impossibly delicate artistry for what it actually portrayed. Even he was dismayed at the level of violence to be unleashed when those two forces collided in the physical world. Something he never expected. But the tradition of the Confederation Navy was to prevent exactly this kind of monstrosity from happening, not to instigate it. He couldn’t help the guilt which came from knowing this was happening because politicians considere
d the Navy had failed in their principal duty.
Stranger than that, the knowledge and its burden was bearable because of those politicians. The very people who had declared the attack had made it possible to do so with minimal casualties—on the Navy’s side. By insisting on total success, the Polity Council had given Kolhammer the one thing all military commanders crave before battle is joined: overwhelming firepower.
Kolhammer’s task force accelerated towards Arnstat at a constant eight gees for thirty minutes. When he gave the order for the starships to switch off their drives, they were still 110,000 kilometres out, just on the fringes of the outer SD network, and travelling at over 150 kilometres per second. Frigates, battleships, and voidhawks fired a salvo of 25 combat wasps each. Every drone was pre-programmed to operate in an autonomous seek-and-destroy mode. A perfect engagement scenario: any chunk of matter above Arnstat, from pebble-sized interplanetary meteorites to kilometre-long industrial stations, MSVs to asteroids, was classified as hostile. The Confederation Navy ships didn’t have to stay to supervise the attack over encrypted communications links, there would be no salvos of Organization antimatter combat wasps fired at their ships to counter, no 12-gee evasive manoeuvres. No risk.
Adamist warships began to jump away. Wormhole interstices were prised open, carrying some of the voidhawks to their rendezvous coordinates. Only the Illustrious, 10 escort frigates, and 300 accompanying voidhawks remained to observe the outcome. All of them now decelerating at 10 gees as the armada of 32,000 combat wasps swept on ahead, accelerating at a full 25 gees.
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