I didn’t know anyone there, of course. I’d only been in the system for a day or so. But Riker, that is, Will would. I hoped he hadn’t done the calculations. Thirty seconds was an eternity to us. Thirty seconds of thinking about people you know, now alive but soon dead…
Neil was looking down at his board, his eyes squeezed shut.
“I’ll tell him, buddy. Afterward.”
Neil looked up at me and nodded. He swallowed several times and got back to work. The silence hung heavy in the room for the rest of the minute.
*
We sent a couple of drones to Cuba, more to cover all the possibilities than out of any real hope. It took about two seconds before we had to turn off the monitors. The inhabitants had gathered into several open areas for easier loading. So many bodies…
The remainder of the loading went without incident. The Others zapped at us several more times, but never came close. They had no way of knowing, of course, that they would have better results zapping the Earth directly. Or maybe they were offended at our use of their cargo vessel.
Didn’t really matter.
Finally, we lifted away from the planet for the final time. I aimed the bow into a vector that would keep us in the Earth’s shadow relative to the Others, and poured it on.
It took several more hours of running before I was far enough away from the engagement to feel safe. From here, a zap wouldn’t do more than create a pretty aurora around the mover plates. The battle continued to rage. It had turned into a war of attrition. The ultimate winner would probably be last man standing.
“What are our chances?” Neil said.
I had no better idea than he did, of course. He just wanted to talk. I gave him a shrug. “If they win here, we’ll have to head for one of the other colony worlds. Which means setting up some kind of living arrangements in the cargo bays for six million people, while we build stasis pods en route. We could conceivably lose a million to starvation and disease. If we win, we can go back, unload, and build the rest of the stasis pods we need, then take everyone to 82 Eridani. But—” I glared at Neil. “—we still have to deal with the Others at their source. Otherwise, they can just regroup, rebuild, repopulate, and come back at us again, somewhere down the road.”
We sat, staring into space, for some indefinite amount of time. I checked the status of the humans, occasionally. Moans, whimpers, and hopeless sobbing sounded from the monitors. As hard as this was for us, it was infinitely worse for them. They’d been living under a potential death sentence all their lives, but it had been a diffuse, indeterminate and impersonal kind of threat. Now, the threat loomed over them, personal and immediate, potentially to be carried out at any moment.
I picked up a video feed from a random roamer. People had generally managed to wedge themselves into the netting that we’d provided. It probably gave some feeling of up and down in the weightless environment. The refugees nearest to the camera all had their eyes closed. Huddled, some with their arms wrapped around each other, they seemed to be trying to merely endure.
In some unknown time, they’d either be offloaded, or they’d be suddenly dead. Not much to look forward to.
I shook myself, disturbed by the morose thoughts. I had a job to do, and it mostly consisted of making sure the latter alternative didn’t come to pass.
At least the number of sanitation incidents had dropped off. Although I was sure the air in the cargo bays must be ripe as hell.
Then, a text from Will. It’s over.
The Battle
Riker
April 2257
Sol
I popped back into the command center, to find a scene not unlike an ant’s nest that had been stirred with a stick. Bobs yelled back and forth in a tone just barely short of panic. Several groups stood in front of display walls, arguing and gesturing aggressively.
I found Bill quickly. “What happened?”
Bill closed his eyes for a moment, a gesture of weariness and despair. “They pulled a fast one. The second super-pulse must have hidden a quick sortie by a couple of squads of drones and missiles. We got blindsided. We’re having to drop back and regroup.”
A sudden thought made me check my reminders. “Bill, we’re coming up on the Jokers squad arrival. Will they be able to adjust course, or are we going to miss cleanly?”
“Shit.” Bill looked down and rubbed his forehead. “Give me a moment.” Bill’s avatar froze. I took a moment to be mildly scandalized. Bill very rarely let himself go off-character like that. Then I smiled to myself in a bemused way. If ever there was an excuse, this was certainly it.
Bill came back to life, and his expression was slightly more hopeful. “It’s kind of a good-news bad-news thing. The good news is the Jokers can still make interception. The bad news is the Others have launched their own countermeasures. More than enough to stop anything the Jokers can throw at them.”
“Have they overcommitted? Does that leave them open at our end?”
“No.” Bill shook his head. “They have too much ordnance. Both we and the Jokers are outmatched.”
“So there’s no reasonable hope for a strategic win?”
“No, Will.” Bill sat down, tired and defeated.
“Then it’s time for an act of desperation, isn’t it?”
Bill chuckled. “Thanks, Mr. Spock. Well, why not? Maybe we can force them to recall some of what they’ve thrown at the Jokers.”
I nodded. We had a large complement of AMI-controlled dreadnaughts that wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice themselves—gotta love AMIs—but we’d been holding them back in case an opportunity opened up. We’d be essentially throwing almost all of our fuel on the fire at once.
Like there was a choice.
I gave the orders, and almost a hundred dreadnaughts and assorted Heaven vessels threw themselves forward at full acceleration. All other vessels were ordered to get out of line-of-fire. We could be pretty sure that the Others would be using the zappers.
The Others reacted immediately, spewing another cloud of defenders from a cargo vessel, and rotating their death asteroids to bear on the oncoming vessels.
“They’ve made a mistake,” Thor said, bemused. We all looked at him. He turned and grinned at us. “Right idea, wrong vessel. They launched defenders from a cargo vessel that’s just a little too far from the action. Even with their acceleration, they won’t get there on time.”
Sure enough, the Others seemed to realize their mistake, as another cargo vessel opened its doors and disgorged all its fighter units. Too late, though. They’d get there even later, thanks to the delay.
I smiled to myself as I visualized some Others General, somewhere in the armada, screaming at his subordinates and waving his whatevers in fury. It helped, a bit.