-24-
It was just as we made our final approach to the Sol ring that the Imperials finally spoke up.
“There’s a single ship at the ring, sir,” Sarin told me.
I dropped what I was doing and rushed to the new command center. All around me, others did the same.
“Put up the dome, Commodore!” I shouted.
The newly completed pressure-dome inflated itself from all around us. The nanites had been trained to grow from a foot-high mess on the floor, picking up dozens of large hexagonal windows along the way, and rising up to contact one another at the distant top. There was a hole in the roof for a few seconds, like the smoke hole in a wigwam, until it closed itself and vanished.
Instantly, the sound changed in the chamber. I could tell I was inside an enclosed space. There was something about that I liked, even if the enclosure was relatively flimsy.
“The Imperials are requesting that we open a channel with them.”
“Open channel!”
On our holotank, a recording began to play. It started with the Imperial anthem which consisted of pompous, martial-sounding music.
What followed was a series of images. First, there was the stylized metal eagle, the familiar emblem of the Empire. That rolled away and Crow appeared dressed in a white uniform covered in ribbons, medals and insignia. He was holding the hands of two children, and appeared to be talking to them calmingly.
While we watched this, I began to frown and my arms crossed. I could only take so much bullshit, and I was getting past my limit already. I was concerned as they hadn’t even said anything yet.
“Approaching transients,” came the message at last, but it wasn’t Crow saying it. He was on the screen, his voice muted. We got to watch as he handed out small gifts to the children, who appeared to be delighted. “You are about to enter Imperial space. Do not attempt to fly through the ring! If you do, your ships will be destroyed. Long live the Emperor.”
The image faded. I shook my head.
“That’s it?” I demanded. “They aren’t even going to attempt to talk to us personally? How bureaucratic can you get? That looks like a canned message they put out years ago.”
“It is heartening,” Jasmine said. “Maybe they aren’t ready for us. Maybe the crews on the border have not even dared to tell Crow what’s coming.”
Miklos nodded, looking at her. “That’s an interesting possibility,” he said. “Dictators are often out of touch when they run a campaign of terror. They are often taken by surprise when the day of their undoing comes.”
“Well, we can hope for that,” I said, “but we can’t count on it. ‘Approaching transients.’ Huh, they make it sound like we’re a pack of space-bums wandering the cosmos out here. Jasmine, send a channel request to the ship at the ring.”
She tapped at the screens and I watched the vessel. It was a sleek battleship of the sort General Kerr had flown into our space with some months ago. Events chaining from his visit had led us to the brink of war, and seeing that ship made me think of Kerr and his assassins.
“Channel request refused, sir,” she said after a moment.
“Keep trying.”
“I’ve tried several times. They just disconnect.”
“Fine,” I said, “maybe we should stop talking and fire a barrage of missiles.”
A hand touched my elbow. I looked down at it, frowning.
“Uh, sir,” Miklos said, “we could just broadcast on the open air. I’m sure they’re listening.”
I frowned at him. I could tell he still entertained fantasies of avoiding fleet losses today. I wasn’t seeing things in the same rosy light.
“All right,” I said, relenting. “We can try that. Open transmission, Captain Sarin.”
“Broadcasting.”
“Imperial slave troops,” I said loudly. All around me, people winced—and I didn’t care. “This is Colonel Kyle Riggs of Star Force. You’re about to be liberated…forcibly. If you value your lives and those of your families, surrender your ship now. We do not wish to cause any biotic creature harm. If you do not fire on us, you will not be fired upon. If you wish to join us, indicate your intent with a transmission and join our armada. Any other action will result in death for all hands. Do not doubt our technology or our resolve. You have three minutes to reply. End transmission.”
Everyone was staring at me. I didn’t look back. I stared instead at the holotank, watching carefully to see what they would do.
“That sounded like an ultimatum, Colonel,” Jasmine said.
I looked at her. “Exactly.”
We waited for three tense minutes. They passed and the Imperial ship just sat there.
“Maybe they’re arguing about it,” Captain Sarin said hopefully.
“For all we know there’s a coup going on aboard the ship right now. They must be able to scan us—to see the size of this monster headed their way. If they have orders to stand and fight…well, that would be a hard command for any captain to follow.”
“Are we in weapons range yet?”
“Hardly sir, look at the boards.”
I did, but then I looked at Marvin. He had his own board which controlled the alien weaponry remotely. “Marvin, have you got enough of a handle on over that thing to reach out and smash their engines the way Tolerance did?”
“No sir. Not yet.”
“Could you try?”
“We’re at more than twice the effective range achieved in my prior tests.”
“There’s always a lucky hit.”
“Sir?” Sarin asked. “Maybe we should give them more time.”
“We’re in sudden-death overtime right now,” I said. “Besides, I’m not going to fire if they just stand there. I told them we wouldn’t.”
“Dangerous, Colonel,” Miklos said. “Maybe they’ve decided to call your bluff, and they’ll wait until we are very close before firing.”
I shrugged. “There are plenty of ways to commit suicide. If they want to invent a new one, more power to them.”
The others exchanged nervous glances. I knew they had been worried about this moment. They’d all privately speculated as to whether or not I could be objective when facing armed Imperials. They should have known me better. These weren’t the men who had ordered an assassin to kill Sandra. The only blood I wanted on my hands was still in Crow’s veins.
They stood there for a full nine minutes before showing any signs of life. Then, at that point, they turned tail and headed back toward the ring.
My officers all speculated as to their intentions. Maybe they’d been told to run if they had to. Maybe they’d been told to fight to the last. Or maybe, just maybe, a drama had played out aboard their ship and the loyalists had won.
I raised my hands when the Imperial ship was about one minute from the ring.
“Range? Marvin?”
“They are at the very edge of my effective range.”
“Are you tracking them?”
“Yes sir.”
The rest looked at me. They’d assumed we were going to let them go.
“Are you ready to start the biggest civil war in history, Colonel?” Miklos asked me.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “That’s what we came for, isn’t it? They took the time I offered them and more. They think they’re out of reach, but they’re in for a surprise. Marvin, target their engines.”
“That isn’t—”
“Just do it, Marvin. I will forgive you if you miss.”
“Target already locked in and tracking. Ready, Colonel.”
“We should fire now, if we are going to do it,” Miklos said. “That way we will have plenty of time to recharge the primary weapon before we reach the ring.”
“They don’t know they’re in our range,” Jasmine said. “We can’t be sure of their intentions. They didn’t fire on us yet.”
I glanced at her. Her face was worried. I could tell she didn’t want to destroy an Earth ship. I understood that. It had taken a long while for me to get to this point. But now, I was committed. Sometimes, in the name of freedom, bad things happened.
“Fire, Marvin.”
The floor quivered under us. It was an odd sensation. I’ve felt the recoil of countless weapons, and even lasers gave you a kick when they were big enough.
But the gravity weapon was different. Instead of reacting to displaced mass or to a release of energy, it caused a ripple effect. This made everyone aboard feel as if their weight had shifted minutely. As if you weighed a few pounds more on your left side, then on your right. Then you weighed a pounds few less in a similar rippling sensation a fraction of a second later. It was not painful, but it was disturbing.
Our smart clothes writhed on our bodies and the dome overhead ruffled a fraction. I glanced up at it, but it didn’t come falling down on our heads.
“Optics?”
“Still waiting, sir. She’s about twenty light-seconds away—”
Just as those words were spoken, the display flickered on the screen. The big ship bucked, as if punched in the belly. The middle of the ship was…gone. A plume of gas, flame and debris billowed out.
Everyone gasped. The ship went into a slow spin. The engines flared for another few seconds, then went out. But it was enough to change their vector.
“Looks like you missed the engines, Marvin,” I said.
“Yes sir. But only by a few hundred meters.”
I nodded. He was right. It was a good shot.
We watched as the big ship died. It tumbled and spun—right into the ring itself.
I’d never seen a ship hit the ring before. The resulting explosion was tremendous. That much mass, moving that fast, released a fantastic amount of energy.
“It’s on now, Colonel,” said Gaines, walking into the tent and surveying the images Marvin was helpfully replaying in slow motion.
I nodded to Gaines. “Yes, Major. It is.”
“It looks to me like they’re going to fight, sir,” Miklos said.
I glanced at him and nodded. “If you call that fighting. We sank their battleship in one shot. They never even got within range. Let’s hope the entire war goes so well.”
Jasmine seemed distraught. I think the reality of what we were doing was finally sinking in for her. It was one thing to fight aliens out on the frontier, or to occasionally be faced with an Earth ship that appeared to have gone rogue, but now the truth was undeniable. We were about to go to war with our own homeworld. It was easy to see how some would misunderstand the situation and see us as the bad guys.
“So many will die,” she said, watching the last bits of the Imperial ship disintegrate. As far as we could tell, there had not been a single survivor. “So many ships will be destroyed…”
I tossed her a glance that said “shut up”. She seemed to get it, because she stopped talking.
“I’m going to do a live broadcast now,” I told them. “I want to talk to the entire task force.”
They all looked at me, some of them nervously. A lot of them didn’t like it when I went public. They found my announcements too rough around the edges. I didn’t give a crap about their opinions.
I straightened my spine and signaled the one minute warning. Every Star Force helmet for a thousand miles or more around buzzed, letting them know an important announcement was incoming.
When the system engaged, I took a deep breath and started talking. The key to doing these things right, in my opinion, was to have absolute self-confidence. Lacking that—you faked it.
“This is Colonel Kyle Riggs,” I began. “The rightful commander of all Star Force. Today, as many of you are aware, we came in contact with an Imperial warship. They ordered us to turn back, and we refused. We then offered them the opportunity to stand down. They did not take that opportunity, and thus became enemy combatants. In order to keep them from rejoining their forces and having to do battle with them later, we were forced to destroy their vessel.”
I paused to check the screens. The timers were running, showing me we had five minutes and ten seconds to go before Phobos went through the ring. Everything was automated at this point. Unless there was a surprise in store, the brainboxes were running the show until we entered the Solar System.
“There’s going to be a lot of sacrifice on both sides in the coming days,” I continued. “But I don’t want any of you to doubt our cause. There are millions—no billions of our fellow human beings on Earth who will be freed if we succeed. I hope, as I know all of you do, that the Imperial forces will see the futility of their cause and abandon their dictator, Jack Crow. But regardless of what they do, we will achieve victory. We didn’t start this war, but we’re by-God going to finish it!”
There was some cheering now; I could hear it in the distance even through the nanite tent Miklos had put up over our heads. The Fleet officers around me were mostly looking pale and worried, but at least I knew my marines were fired up and ready to fight.
The clock hit four minutes then, and our lead missile barrage began firing by itself. A hundred and fifty nuclear warheads sped toward the ring. I hoped the Imperials on the far side were bright enough to get out of the way—but it was a faint hope.
“To everyone: fight well and good luck. Colonel Riggs out.”
“Do I have your permission to stand with my men, sir?” Major Gaines asked.
I nodded to him. “Get going.”
He raced out and vanished.
We watched the screens. A full squadron of fighters followed the missiles. The real job of the missiles was to clear out mines and any other physical impediments to our flight. The fighters were guinea pigs—or as we liked to call it, a “reconnaissance in force”. They would go through and have the first look around, then report back.
Phobos itself was slowing. After all, we didn’t really know what was on the far side. I didn’t want to go through blind. But I didn’t want to look scared, either. It would sap a lot of this big ship’s mojo if at their first sight of her she was timid and crawling along.
“Have we got crash harnesses?”
“Yes sir.”
“Deploy them. Helmets on for the transition.”
Everyone fooled with their equipment for a moment. The fighters went through as we watched, vanishing into nothingness. There was no fancy flare of light as they did so. One second they were there, the next they were just gone. It was as if they’d stepped into a mirror and disappeared into it.
“Anything yet?” I asked, meaning the fighters.
“Nothing sir, they haven’t had time to turn around.”
They couldn’t report back via ring transmissions because both the Imperials and we were jamming the ring. Both sides were better at that now, sending a wave of varied static at a dozen different modulations and frequencies that prevented anyone from using the rings in a stealthy manner.
Part of me wished I was with the boys in those fighters. It would be fun to be the first Star Force pilot to return to our home system. I envied them. They knew they were home again, and that the other side was terrified of them.
I smiled as I dreamed briefly of glory. But this smile faded slowly. The timer showed there were just ninety-six seconds to go.
“They should be back by now. Where are they?”
“Unknown sir.”
“None of them returned?”
“Negative.”
My finger stabbed down onto the big screen. I engaged the fleet-wide com system again.
“I want everyone on the surface of Phobos to get below. I repeat: everyone. All following ships, divert your courses to the sides. No one is to follow Phobos until we report back what we’ve encountered. Riggs out.”
The effects were gratifying. The ships trailing us began braking, veering. They were going to make it. I could tell.
“Sir?” Jasmine asked me. “What are you thinking? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There are a dozen things that could be wrong—very wrong.”
I hadn’t actually wanted to voice my worries, but Miklos jumped right in at this point and began listing them.
“They might have so many mines or guns that they obliterated our fighters instantly. Or something else could be there that our missiles could not clear out of the way. Our plans have been numerous in ring defense, but we never employed most of them. There are an infinite variety of traps. For example, we considered spreading a mass of sand particles in front of the ring. Such a barrier is difficult to destroy or disperse, and is immune to EMP blasts.”
I looked at him sidelong, but he didn’t seem to catch my meaning. We were down to less than a minute now.
Miklos threw up his hands and folded his lips into a speculative, euro-looking expression.
“It could even be worse than that,” he continued, really getting into the subject. “What if the Imperials have figured out how to control the rings as we have begun experimenting with ourselves? Those fighters might have all flown into the sun, or perhaps the ring only works in one direction now, like—”
“Okay Professor,” I said loudly, clapping him on the shoulder so hard he grunted. “Let’s man our stations and look sharp. This is it. After all, General Kerr had the balls to come through our ring into our system a few months ago. We’re just returning the favor.”
Miklos shut up at last. The final seconds crawled by.
When the moment came I felt a shiver run through the ship and my own body, telling me we’d made the transition to the other side.
But what was there waiting for us?