by Dietmar Wehr
Romanov relaxed as they chatted about the kinds of things that male friends chat about. How much longer their friendship would remain was a question that he didn’t want to think about just now.
Day 246/2552
Hadley
Senior Lieutenant Evanka Nolan’s aircar gently settled to the ground at the prescribed landing site near the entrance to the Majestic Complex. As she got out, she looked around. This was her first time at the MC and she found the surrounding landscape eerily desolate. There was a steady wind blowing sand and Hadley’s equivalent of tumbleweed across her field of vision. Looking over at the entrance to the impressive pyramid structure where Majestic was housed, she saw two armed guards watching her carefully. She hoped her brother had gotten her message about visiting him and had notified the guards that she was not a security threat.
By the time she reached the entrance, her brother was standing there reassuring the guards that she had permission to enter. After a quick hug and a few words of greeting, he led her through the round opening. They chatted about family and the war as they made their way down the very long escalator and through another round opening. Seconds later, they entered a room where the far wall was a large view screen. It was showing a continuously changing pattern of colors against a pleasing blue-green background.
“Evanka, meet Majestic!” said her brother enthusiastically. She looked at his face and saw what could only be described as joy bordering on ecstasy. She had heard rumors that the support staff at the MC had begun to idolize Majestic, but she had always considered those rumors to be gross exaggerations. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Welcome to the Complex, Senior Lieutenant Nolan.” The deep voice coming from all around her had a strangely soothing quality to it.
“Is that the machine talking?” she asked her brother who nodded.
“Yes, you are hearing the voice of Majestic,” said the voice. “Communicating in this way is slow and inefficient. There is a much better way. Your brother will show you.”
As her brother turned so that his back was to her, she heard him say, “Pull my collar down a bit and you’ll see an implant device just below my hairline.”
She did as he instructed and saw a silvery, round metal device that had very tiny lights blinking on and off. She found it more than a little disturbing.
“Wouldn’t a transceiver in the ear do the trick?” she asked her brother.
“God no!” he said quickly. “A transceiver would still require listening to words. This implant connects directly to my brain. Majestic and I have a link that doesn’t rely on the spoken word. It’s much faster, and I get a pleasant buzz from it too. I’ve never been so happy! You can experience this happiness too, Evanka. The procedure is quick, with minimal pain.”
“I, ah, don’t think I want to do that,” she said slowly. Her brother spun around so quickly it startled her. He grabbed her left arm, and before she could ask him what he was doing, she felt someone else grab her right arm. Both grips were surprisingly strong.
“Don’t resist. It’ll hurt less that way,” said her brother in an apologetic tone. As both men dragged her away she heard Majestic’s voice again.
“Majestic has instructions for you to obey when your ship is in orbit around Earth, and you will obey Majestic. Eventually all humans will obey Majestic.”
Evanka’s anger turned to horror as she noticed her brother’s expression. His eyes were wide open, and he was smiling. He was looking directly at her and clearly must have seen her distress, but instead of helping her, he was smiling! She tried to free her arms, but both grips were too strong, more like metal clamps than human hands. She felt herself being lifted off her feet as easily as if she were a rag doll. She called to her brother for help, but his expression didn’t change. He was looking at her, but something inside her said he wasn’t seeing her and maybe wasn’t hearing her either. As they carried her down a long corridor, her calls to her brother eventually become one long scream.
Chapter Three
Day 298/2552
Earth orbitals:
Chenko walked quickly into the Defense Center Operations room. The holographic display in the center of the room was showing the tactical situation around Earth for a radius of twenty light seconds. From his vantage point on the upper level, he was able to tell that the large deep space radars orbiting Earth had picked up ten ships emerging from hyper-space. They were roughly a quarter of a million kilometers beyond Earth’s hyper-zone, travelling at a modest 89 kilometers per second.
“How long have they been there?” he asked the Duty Officer who was now standing beside him.
“They arrived just over eight minutes ago, Admiral. No transmissions of any kind, and they’re not answering our challenges.”
“Those have to be Trojan’s ships. The SSU was crushed months ago. We know that Trojan has radar-invisible ships. Have the opsats spotted anything?” asked Chenko.
“No, sir, nothing so far.”
Chenko wanted to curse, but held his peace. It would be bad for morale for the staff to see the Navy Chief of Staff lose his cool. Clearly those ten ships were not radar-invisible, and he doubted if Trojan would send them here where they’d be vulnerable to Earth’s network of x-ray laser satellites similar to the ones defending Makassar and Hadley. Those stealthy ships had to be somewhere within the volume of space shown on the display, he was sure of that, but so far the optical sensor satellites hadn’t noticed any unusual optical anomalies.
“Have all our orbiting stations been put on alert?” he asked the D.O..
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Good. Now order them to evacuate those stations immediately. If Emperor Trojan is sending ten ships, then it’s not a social call, and I don’t think he’s going to waste time trying to capture those stations intact. If I were in his shoes, I’d have ordered my fleet commander to destroy those stations, so we’re not going to take any chances. Get those people down on the ground now, Commander.” The D.O. hurried off to execute his orders.
Chenko activated the in-house com device he’d been given when he entered the facility. “This is Admiral Chenko. I want the tactical display to show our optical sats and our defense sats.” The display immediately showed dozens of moving dots. Chenko knew that the green dots were the optical satellites and the yellow dots were the x-ray laser satellites. The opsats were in a relatively low orbit where they could circle the Earth quickly while they looked up to try to detect objects passing in front of background sources of light like the sun, moon, planets or distant stars. The x-ray sats were further out to minimize the impact on the ground when they exploded. If Trojan’s stealthy ships really were within 20 light seconds of Earth, the opsats weren’t seeing them. Looking for a dark object against a mostly dark background was pretty difficult. If, on the other hand, the opsats were moved into higher orbits and looked down instead of up, they would have a better chance of spotting a dark object against Earth’s lighter background. The question was how high was high enough and how high was too high. If he moved them to the edge of the hyper-zone, the gaps in coverage between one opsat and the next would be huge, and Trojan’s ships might slip in between them. If the opsats were moved halfway, the gaps would be much smaller, but there was no guarantee that Trojan’s ships would be at a lower altitude. It was the kind of decision that military strategists dreaded. If he guessed wrong, every living human being on the planet might pay the price, and if he did nothing, they might still pay that same price. Chenko made his decision.
“This is Chenko. Move our opsats to three hundred thousand klicks altitude asap, and re-orient their sensors to look down while they’re ascending.” Almost immediately the green dots started flashing to show that they were maneuvering. Chenko hoped his roll of the dice would pay off. Most of Earth’s orbiting space stations were at lower altitudes, and if Trojan’s warships were maneuvering to attack them, they might drop that far down before firing. If the opsats still didn’t see anything at 300K kilometers, he co
uld always move them even higher.
1st Empire Fleet Flagship Conqueror:
Romanov paced from one side of the spacious Bridge to the other and back again. His squadron of five stealth cruisers were carefully maneuvering closer to Earth in order to maximize the accuracy of his point defense lasers as they attempted to pick off the 55 x-ray laser satellites that were Earth’s primary defensive assets. Once those lasersats were destroyed, he could order his ten troop transports to move down while his cruisers fired missiles with tactical nukes at selected military targets such as troop concentrations, ground-based missile batteries, etc. All that would take time, and getting his cruisers into the right orbital position to take out the lasersats had to be done very carefully. As seen from a position over the North Pole, the lasersats orbited counter-clockwise. His cruisers would orbit in a clockwise direction and use optical sensors to pick up the lasersats’ silhouette against Earth’s lighter background. Once each of the defense satellites’ positions were known with precision, his ships’ laser turrets could disable them all within a few seconds.
He checked Conqueror’s status on the main display sidebar. Altitude was just over 350,000 kilometers and dropping. That meant that it would be another 44 minutes before they reached their target altitude. He was just about to call the Officers Mess and order coffee brought to the Bridge when the main display switched to tactical mode and pinged for attention. All five of his cruisers were launching missiles!
“Who ordered a missile launch?” he yelled out as he turned to look at Senior Lieutenant Nolan, his Weapons Officer. Her anguished expression caught him off guard. Instead of replying, she pulled out a pistol from inside her uniform jacket. Romanov had just enough time to wonder why she was carrying a weapon while on duty on the Bridge contrary to regulations when he saw her point the pistol at her weapons console and fire several times. The swarm of tiny, tungsten darts fired at high velocity penetrated the console and turned it into useless scrap. As he opened his mouth to ask her what the hell she was doing, she shifted her aim until her pistol was pointed at the Communications Station. The Com Officer, who had turned just in time to see her destroy her Weapons Station console, leapt up from his chair as she fired again. Some of the darts hit his right shoulder and spun him around. The rest hit his Com Station console with predictable results.
By now Romanov was no longer trying to ask questions. He had made up his mind to physically stop her from doing anything else, but just as he started to move toward her, she swung her pistol around to aim at him. Instead of focusing on the pistol, he stared at her face. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said that she was in extreme pain based on her facial contortions, and if she was feeling pain, it seemed to be getting worse. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then closed her eyes. Romanov, who was less than a meter away by now, was certain that she was going to fire. He must have had tunnel vision, because the body of one of the other Bridge personnel seemed to come out of nowhere, knocking her arm aside just as she pulled the trigger. Romanov felt a sting in his right arm from one of the darts as it hit a glancing blow. The other darts missed him. Before she had a chance to re-aim, he was close enough to block her aim and use his momentum to knock her down. By this time, two other Bridge personnel had also reached her and were trying to subdue her. He marvelled at the fact that even with three men attempting to hold down her arms, she was still making it difficult. Where did she get that kind of strength, he wondered. When it was clear that she no longer held the pistol and was finally subdued, Romanov got to his feet and looked back at the tactical display. While he and his people had been focused on Nolan, his ships, including Conqueror, had continued to fire multiple missile barrages. The missiles of the first barrage were almost a quarter of the way to Earth by now.
“WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE?” he yelled. “Order—” he stopped in mid-sentence. He’d been in the process of telling his staff to order the other cruisers to stop firing missiles and to auto-destruct those already fired when he realized that he now had no way of contacting the other four ships. A glance at the smoking Weapons Station console told him that there was no chance of stopping Conqueror’s missiles. Even his ship’s anti-missile laser turrets were no longer controllable from the Bridge.
He heard sobbing and looked back at Nolan. She was no longer struggling and was now crying with her face turned away from him as much as she could. He squatted down, grabbed the front of her uniform and shook her to get her attention.
When she turned to look at him, he asked, “WHY DID YOU DO THAT?”
“Had to…follow orders…too much pain to resist!” she said in between gasps for air. Romanov shook his head. Pain? Orders? Her answer made no sense.
“What pain? Whose orders? Answer me, dammit!”
“Majestic’s orders. Implant back of neck.” She turned away from him again, and Romanov noticed something metallic at the back of her neck. Pulling her shoulder so that she was almost face down, he jerked aside the collar of her uniform. Her hair wasn’t long enough to hide the round metal device with the tiny flashing lights. There was also blood seeping out from under the device. It had to be the direct communication device that Majestic’s support staff had begun wearing. Clearly it was capable of being programmed to compel specific actions by an individual even if that individual didn’t want to co-operate. His rage at Nolan turned to sympathy. She had clearly tried to resist Majestic’s instructions, but couldn’t.
Turning her back around so that she could see him again, he said in a calmer voice, “What exactly were Majestic’s orders, Lieutenant?”
“Program multiple missile launch by all ships. First wave armed with tactical nukes as per your order, but the follow-on waves were loaded with high yield warheads. All missiles were targeted on major cities. Oh God, I tried to resist!”
The full horror of what was about to happen now descended on Romanov’s awareness. His stomach threatened to heave, and he fought to keep it down. Hundreds of missiles carrying high-yield fusion warheads were about to devastate Earth. Billions would die instantly from the blasts themselves, and billions more would die within the following days, weeks and months as the millions of tons of dust blasted up into the upper atmosphere blocked out most of the sunlight and heat, triggering a massive plunge in temperature. The resulting nuclear winter would wipe out all plant and animal life. If people weren’t killed by the radiation from the fallout, they would eventually starve to death. He looked up at the two men who were holding onto her wrists.
“Keep her where she is until we can get some security people up here with restraints.” He didn’t think she would cause any more trouble now, but in light of her unusual strength, he didn’t want to take any chances. He looked over at the Com Officer who was sitting up while trying to stop the bleeding from his wound.
“Lieutenant Ryan!” The Astrogator jumped forward.
“Sir?”
“Help Sanchez get to the Medical Bay, and as soon as you pass a working intercom unit, order Security Personnel to the Bridge.” With his order acknowledged and the wounded officer on his way, Romanov got up and walked back over to the main display. The first wave of missiles was only seconds from entering Earth’s atmosphere.
Romanov shook his head in despair as he examined the perfection of Majestic’s plan. Those missiles were all designed to evade radar detection, just like his cruisers. Earth’s orbiting radars couldn’t see them, and therefore the x-ray lasersats couldn’t fire at them. Planetary Defense didn’t even know those missiles were on their way, and he had no way to warn them! His other cruisers had followed digital instructions from the flagship as they normally would, under the assumption that he had ordered the attack and that his Weapons Officer was carrying out his orders. Majestic had thought of everything.
Planetary Defense Ops:
Chenko jerked in surprise at the double ping emitted by the tactical display. A double ping meant that missiles had been detected! He looked down at the display just in time to s
ee it zoom in to a much smaller scale. Instead of 20 light seconds, it was now showing everything within one light second. A red triangle was indicating the position of a newly detected ship, with multiple flashing red dots representing missiles. Chenko felt a shiver go up his spin as he figured out where the missiles were going. The optical sensor satellites had seen them and could track them enough to figure that out, but with the distances involved, optical data wasn’t nearly accurate enough for the lasersats to have much chance of hitting them. That didn’t matter though. They had to try.
“Activate anti-missile defenses!” he shouted. The order was acknowledged immediately. After a few seconds he heard the voice of the Duty Officer.
“We don’t have good firing solutions, Admiral. Hit probability is less than 11%. Even if we fire multiple shots at a given target, we’ll use up all our available lasersats, and we still won’t get them all!”
Chenko took a deep breath. “Understood. We still have to try to get as many of them as we can. Allocate your targeting for optimum results and fire, Commander.” The Duty Officer didn’t even bother to acknowledge the order, and Chenko let it pass. Under the circumstances, protocol was not that important. After a few seconds, the display flashed as those lasersats that had line-of-sight to any detected missile exploded with thermonuclear energies that were focused for a fraction of a second into highly concentrated beams of x-rays. Most of the red dots disappeared, but not all of them. Chenko counted the ones left. There were thirteen, and he was knowledgeable enough to understand that there were bound to be more missiles that they hadn’t detected yet.