The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy)

by Sweeney, Stephen

  “A short time later, the Senate launched an attack on one of the smaller colonies that had aligned themselves to the emperor. The colony was completely wiped out in just a matter of days. From there, they branched out into the adjoining star systems, adding to their numbers as they went. They left no survivors whatsoever and took no prisoners, either. By the time the emperor met them with a sizeable force, there were too many of them – the Pandoran army had become virtually unstoppable. They had managed to do so by infecting everyone that they could with a nanovirus.

  “From what we understand, the Senate wanted something they could use to not only secure victory over the emperor, but also needed to ensure that their supporters and military would be loyal and wouldn’t defect. With their numbers so heavily reduced after the emperor’s retaliation, they needed soldiers that would be fast learners, strong, loyal, and experts in all aspects of warfare. They experimented on some volunteers, before they applied it to the rest of their supporters. They passed on the infection to every Imperial they could find – man, woman, or child, it made little difference. In some cases, they are thought to have seeded entire city water supplies, transforming the normal civilians into loyal soldiers in the space of only a couple of days. Millions of people in a single stroke.

  “Each one of those soldiers is swimming with tens of billions of nanomachines. The machines can self-replicate, repair each other and disguise themselves from the host’s immune system. They’re what gives the soldiers such superhuman abilities. When they first ‘infect’ a host, they will go about enhancing that person’s muscles and skeletal structures, making them stronger, lighter and far more energy efficient. They can correct a person’s eyesight and even clear up imperfections in the skin. And it doesn’t stop there – the nanomachines also alter the host’s brain, modifying neural pathways and adding new nodes. By altering and creating the right set of node patterns, they can effectively teach someone how to do many things that would take an ordinary person years – how to fire a gun, fly a starfighter, speak another language, walk a tightrope … the list is endless. The machines can heal them too, as you’ve no doubt seen countless times.

  “They’ve also been programmed to be loyal to the Imperial Senate, as well as to speak in code. Their speech and other communication skills are so well encrypted that, over the course of five years, we’ve never been able to decipher it. They are, for all intents and purposes, the ultimate soldiers. They fight and follow orders without question.”

  Natalia sat back, seeming to have a lot more to say, but tired of speaking for the moment. She looked to be inviting questions from her audience instead. “The Senate were prepared to do all that to an entire nation, just to get their own way. Just goes to show that the most evil creatures humans will ever meet in the galaxy are likely to be themselves, doesn’t it?”

  Dodds glanced around the APC. Estelle, Kelly and the three security guards looked utterly dumbstruck. Enrique still looked to be dozing. Chaz’s expression was neutral – this probably wasn’t new information to him.

  “So, wait,” Dodds said. “Let me get this straight. These are not aliens, robots or some other artificial genetic construct?”

  “No,” Natalia shook her head. “They’re ninety-nine percent human. The rest of them is composed of nanomachines.”

  “When you say nanomachines, you’re talking about those very small robots, right?” Dodds gestured with his thumb and index finger, as if he was holding a very small pebble.

  “Yes, they’re tiny; about the same size as an ordinary red blood cell.”

  “No. Look,” Estelle suddenly interjected, “I’m sorry, but some of what you just said is impossible. People need to actually have hands-on experience of things like guns and starfighters to become proficient with them. You need to use them over and over again.”

  “But how do you think that ultimately happens?” Natalia asked. “At the end of the day, your brain is just tissue and neurons that fire out electrical signals that drive motors and other functions, depending on the pathways. For example, as you learn how to ride a bike your brain grows, disconnects, reconnects and removes neurons to correct mistakes, allowing you to learn how to balance. If you know how and where to make alterations, you can give a person the appropriate know-how, without them actually needing to experience it.”

  “I swear that nanotech is banned under a number of galactic treaties for this very reason,” Kelly said.

  “It is. But this is the Imperial Senate we’re talking about,” Natalia said. “They were a group that could be seen leaning towards becoming a totalitarian regime.”

  “But what do they want? The Pandorans, I mean?” Dodds said. “What do we have to do with the Imperial civil war?”

  “From our perspective, nothing. But from theirs, everything. They want nothing less than the total destruction of all those who oppose the rule of the Imperial Senate,” Natalia said.

  “But we’ve got nothing to do with their war or their politics.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Those are their orders.”

  “Those are very broad orders.”

  “That’s exactly the problem,” Natalia said with a sigh. “The way they see it, if you’re not a supporter of the Senate, then you’re an adversary that needs to be wiped out.”

  “But surely we can reason with them? You said that they are fighting on the side of the Senate? Can’t the Senate just simply order them to ceasefire or tell them to stop fighting?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because all the members of the original Senate are dead,” Natalia said bluntly.

  “All of them?”

  Natalia nodded.

  “But … how?”

  “Just after the Pandoran fleet began to make its way across Imperial space, Emperor Adam Lorenzo attempted to throw the Senate’s supporters into disarray by targeting the Senate’s members themselves. They attacked the Senate’s homeworld, Krasst, with enhanced radiation weaponry and the poisoning killed them all within a matter of weeks. We know that a few of them managed to get off-world, but not before significant and irrecoverable exposure. It was hoped that with the removal of their source of command, the Pandorans would halt their advance, unable to do anything without being told so. It actually only made matters worse, because the Pandorans simply carried on following the last order they were given – eliminate all opposition to the rule of the Senate. That is their Mission; their ultimate goal.”

  “Oh, great,” Dodds sighed.

  “But wait,” Estelle started. “Couldn’t you just elect a new Senate and then order them to cease.”

  “No,” Natalia said. “They will only obey the original spokesperson for the Senate.”

  “Bloody hell, just fake it!” Estelle said. “Create a computer simulation of them and give the order. Or a holographic projection and walk it in front of them. Or just have someone dress up and pose as the spokesperson, if they need something in the flesh.” Estelle sounded a little desperate in her listing of solutions.

  “We tried all of that and more,” Natalia said, her face growing even sadder. “They ignored every tactic we tried. Something about it wasn’t right to them. No matter what we did, they just carried on coming, swelling their numbers, acquiring more and more assets to assist themselves. There are now so many of them that a conventional war would be impossible to win.”

  “How many soldiers are we talking about?” Chaz said.

  Natalia didn’t answer. She seemed not to want to.

  “Natalia, how many soldiers?” Chaz repeated, more forcefully.

  Natalia was silent for a moment longer, then said, “At the last count we believed it was twelve billion—”

  “TWELVE BILLION?” Dodds said, flabbergasted. No, that had to be a mistake.

  “—but our estimates now put the actual figure closer to around twenty.”

  Dodds couldn’t speak. Twenty billion. The number was staggering. He tried to picture that many soldiers in his head
, but simply couldn’t imagine how it might look. Hell, right now he couldn’t even remember how many zeros twenty billion had in it.

  “Most of them are planet-bound, though,” Natalia said, as if attempting to offer some sort of assurance that the picture was not as bleak as it first appeared.

  “Right, so let’s get to the point – what does this ultimately have to do with the ATAFs?” Chaz said. “And what does it have to do with us? What happened back at that facility where they were keeping Enrique and Kelly was more like an invasion than a rescue attempt. You don’t send that kind of force to rescue two people, unless they are very important.” He sounded as though he had waited patiently with Natalia to bring everyone else up to speed and now wanted to get to the bottom line.

  Natalia took a breath and Dodds could tell that she was about to launch into another story.

  “It became very clear that once they had finished with the empire, the Pandoran forces would set their sights on the rest of the galaxy. So in the end, we – that is to say, the Confederation and a number of Independent worlds – realised that there was only one way to deal with this problem. And so, work on the ATAF program began.

  “It was also very clear that attempting to fight such a large army was simply not feasible; you’ve all seen the problems we face against just a few thousand. It was therefore decided that we would need to take them all out in one single stroke. Over the course of a few years, we worked hard to produce what we call a Tachyon Star Bomb. It’s a device that, when combined with an energy source, encapsulates roughly eighty percent of the available power into a number of tachyon-bound containers and scatters it across an area based on the total force provided. The greater the source of the power, the further and more destructive the spread. The containers will breakdown after a time and the energy will be released. If the source is an explosion, then the effect would not be unlike that of a cluster bomb going off. Combine it with a large enough source of power and you’ve got a bomb that could envelop a great number of star systems in one go, killing everything there. For us, the ideal source of power would come from a supernova.”

  Natalia paused for a moment, as if waiting to see if anyone had already worked out where all of this was leading. When no one spoke, she pressed on.

  “With the bombs built, all that needed to be done was get them to their destinations. We needed a delivery system that could be rendered completely undetectable by the Pandoran army, was fast and needed the minimum amount of maintenance that could be afforded. That immediately ruled out capital ships and other traditional deployment systems – they were far too bulky.

  “The CSN then offered up a solution that they could file as a new high-powered starfighter. That way, if the worst happened and the project became known to the Pandoran army, they wouldn’t be totally aware of its true intentions. It would also mean that the navy could push it into military R&D and therefore allude to it being something the public need not hear about. They named the system the Advanced Tactical Assault Fighter.”

  “So, the ATAFs really aren’t starfighters—” Dodds began.

  “Dodds, let her finish,” Estelle said.

  Dodds detected something in Estelle’s voice – it was great concern.

  Natalia said, “When the time came, the ATAFs would each be deployed within five predetermined Imperial star systems. They would cloak themselves from all detection systems and head towards the system’s star. Even if they were detected, their shielding and weapons capabilities would ensure that they were able to handle themselves alone in a fight. Upon reaching their destination, the ATAFs would deploy the bomb into the star’s core, via a very short-distance jump, or a skip as it was called. The bomb would detonate, starting a chain reaction and causing the star to go nova. The TSBs would then capture the energy and expel it in every conceivable direction, light years apart.

  “We calculated that the resulting supernovae bomblets from all five of the stars would be enough to engulf all Imperial space and a few of the frontier Independent star systems. We estimate that it would take only fourteen standard days to wipe out the entire Pandoran threat within the Imperial systems.

  “Of course, something like that is hardly unlikely to go unnoticed, but if anyone were ever to ask, we need only say that it was a natural cosmic disaster. No one would deny it, either; they’ve all been paid off. All the news agencies throughout the galaxy are now government controlled, so that none of the truth of the fate of the Mitikas Empire would ever come out. The supernovae would be clear to the naked eye for days, even from Confederation space.

  “That was our solution – how we decided to meet the threat of the Pandoran army. We codenamed it Operation Sudarberg.”

  Dodds was at a loss for words, it was too much information to take in. He looked about the rest of the APC, seeing the shocked looks on the faces of its other occupants. They remained that way for a while, mouths hanging open. He soon collected himself and broke the silence. “Operation Sudarberg?” he said. “Sudarberg? I’ve heard that before somewhere—”

  “Wait, hang on. That doesn’t make sense,” a voice interrupted. It was Enrique. He looked like he had finally woken up. He had obviously realised that he wasn’t dreaming. “So we’d fly the ATAFs to those stars and we’d activate the bombs, right? And that would trigger a supernova, where eighty percent of the blast would be distributed around Imperial space.”

  Natalia nodded and Dodds suddenly noticed regret starting to build on her face. There was pleading in her eyes. He realised that Enrique was about to say something that she didn’t want him to, something she was too scared to admit.

  “Well, that doesn’t make sense,” Enrique said. “That still leaves twenty percent right there in front of the ship. And since the ATAFs don’t possess any jump capabilities, how are we supposed to …” He trailed off.

  The answered dawned on Dodds a moment later.

  “It’s a suicide mission …?” Chaz said, his voice a little quieter than normal.

  Natalia nodded sadly, her eyes closed, looking almost on the verge of tears.

  “We’ve been trained for a suicide mission?” Chaz asked louder.

  Natalia nodded again, not opening her eyes or raising her bowed head.

  Chaz stared at the woman for just a moment more, before rounding on Parks. “YOU SON OF A BITCH!” he roared, and lunged for him. The four other Knights moved as one, the men and women reaching for Chaz, to try and hold him back. Parks’ eyes sprang open as arms and hands gripped the angered Chaz as best they could, only just managing to hold him at bay.

  “YOU BASTARD! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU!” the big man shouted.

  “Lieutenant! Stop … Sit down now! That’s an order!” Estelle said.

  Chaz ignored her completely, his focus entirely on Parks. Dodds held on to the big man as best he could, though it felt as though he was trying to tackle an angry bull, the man was so stocky. He had always shied away from sparing against Chaz in the boxing ring because of it. Chaz’s nostrils were flaring, his eyes blazing with total hatred. The officer sat next to Parks made no attempt this time to conceal the act of drawing out his firearm, training the gun directly at Chaz’s forehead. Chaz didn’t seem to notice or even care.

  Behind him, Dodds saw the security guard who had previously marked Natalia now raise his weapon against Chaz. He had to wonder what good it would do. It seemed that even the threat of three guns being pointed at him wasn’t enough to dissuade the big man from his desire to get to Parks.

  “Let go of me! LET GO!” Chaz shouted, trying to shrug off the four people holding him, not taking his eyes off Parks for one moment.

  “Chaz, come on!” Kelly pleaded, her words falling on deaf ears as she struggled to keep him in place, her arms looped around the man’s thick biceps.

  “Parks, you said that the ATAF project was the last thing that I would ever have to do for you,” Chaz snarled at the commodore, “and that after that, I would finally be free!”

  �
�You gotta admit, it was sort of true,” Enrique said.

  “Not helping, Enrique!” Dodds shot his friend a scowl. He looked back to Parks, who appeared to be keeping his cool. If he was even the slightest bit intimidated by Chaz, he was hiding it well.

  Chaz struggled against his four team-mates. “How could you, Parks? I have a wife and two children! Does that mean nothing to you?”

  Dodds felt his grip slacken for a brief moment, before he reaffirmed it.

  “You … you, what?” Kelly said.

  “Kelly!” Dodds urged, as he saw the small woman completely loosen her grip on Chaz.

  Kelly tightened her hold once more, but the shock was still registered on her face. “You’re married?”

  “This is great,” Dodds said. “Anybody else got any surprises they want to reveal today? I really don’t think I’m up to my full quota, yet!”

  “You didn’t know?” Natalia said.

  “Know he was married?”, Dodds said incredulously. “Of course not! This guy never says anything!”

  “Commodore, why didn’t you tell us?” Estelle asked.

  “Tell you what, specifically?” Parks scowled through tired and bloodshot eyes.

  “Everything!” Dodds said. “About Sudarberg, about the ATAFs, about the Pandorans … you know, everything!”

  “Why the hell do you think, Dodds?” Parks said. “What do you think would happen if we let the galaxy know this sort of thing? What would we tell them? That a hoard of unstoppable nanomachine-infected freaks have wiped out an entire nation and are now on their way to do the same to the rest of the galaxy? That they are ultimately poised to destroy the entire human race; that all efforts to negotiate a truce have been ignored; that we have very little idea of what we are going to do about it?”