Exodus: Machine War:

Book 1:

Supernova

by

Doug Dandridge

Dedication

This novel is
dedicated to the brave men and women of Search and Rescue organizations around
the world.  These people give selflessly of their time and effort, putting their
lives on the line that others might live.  Whether in an urban setting, the
oceans, or the rugged wilderness of the mountains; whether members of the
military or civilian volunteers; they perform their tasks in all weather, night
and day, while there is still the hope of survival of those for whom they
search.  Included in this group is a number of dedicated animals who bring
their inborn skills to the effort.  Hats off to these courageous people.

.

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Copyright © 2015 Doug
Dandridge

All rights reserved.

Please respect
the hard work of this author.  If you found this book for free on a pirate
site, please visit Amazon and buy a copy of your own.  I feel that I charge a
reasonable price for this work.

For more
information on the Exodus Universe, visit http://dougdandridge.net
for maps, sketches and other details of this work.

Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank all of my fans, especially those who sent emails or
commented on blogs about how much they have enjoyed this series.  Your kind
words gave me the impetus to continue through the not so kind words left in
some reviews.  Exodus will continue into the future, and I have no plans for
ending the series in the foreseeable future.

Cast of Characters

New Terran Empire

Captain Mandy Albright:  Commander,
light cruiser HIMS William Clark.

Commander Nord Sekumbe:  XO,
light cruiser HIMS William Clark.

Ensign Jan da Conti:  William
Clark’s sensor officer.

Lt. Tioshi Nagakami: William
Clark’s com officer.

Lt. J’rrantar: the
Phlistaran commander of the ship’s Marine contingent

Ensign Nguyen Dat:  Pilot,
HIMS Clark.

Warrant Officer Melissa Sung:
Sting Ship pilot.

Lt. Commander Sophia Romanov:
Clark’s surgeon.

Petty Officer First Hi’tarris:
Gryphon crewman.

Captain Walther Huang:
Commander, light cruiser HIMS Merriwether Lewis.

Commander Stephanie Harrison: Exec,
Lewis.

Lt. Commander Christi
M’tumbo:  Sensor officer, Lewis.

Lt. Commander Chadrick
Balasubramanian: assistant engineering officer, Lewis.

Rear Admiral Nguyen van Hung:
Flag officer in charge of mission.

Captain Susan Lee: Nguyen’s
Chief of Staff.

Captain Joshua Jackson:
Admiral Nguyen’s flag captain

Commander Bergland: Nguyen’s
intelligence officer.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Helen
Moyahan: Officer, battle cruiser HIMS Boudeuse.

Lt. Col Mary Isaiah:
Marine commander, HIMS Boudeuse.

Captain Gertrude Hasslehoff:
Commander, battle cruiser HIMS Challenger.

Commander Cenk Ungra:  Chief
engineer, Challenger

Commander Jaques La Clerc, the
XO of the Challenger.

Colonel Thomas Margolis:  Marine
mission commander.

Captain Stacy Jangerson:
Marine Company Commander.

Major General Travis Wittmore:
Imperial Army system commander.

Commodore Natasha Khrushchev:
Exploration Commander flag officer.

Dr. Avery Phillipson:  Astrophysicists,
Imperial University, Jewel.

Captain Trevor Whitlow:
Commander, liner Lusitania.

Captain Timofeyavich:
Commander, battle cruiser Francis Drake.

Captain Stone Mason:
Commander, HC New Potsdam.

Klassek

Astronaut Nazzir Lamsat:
Nation of Tsarzor.

Astronaut Hzzart Nastra:
Nation of Tsarzor.

First Councilman Rizzit
Contena:  Leader, Tsarzor.

General Mazzat Contena:
Rizzit’s brother and leader of Tsarzor’s military.

Engineer Lazzit Contena:
Rizzit’s brother.

Artist Mizzit Contena:
Rizzit’s brother.

Financier Kazzat Contena:
Rizzit’s brother.

Zzarr:  Premier, Nation of
Honish.

Books by Doug Dandridge

Doug Dandridge’s Author Page at Amazon

Science Fiction

The Exodus Series

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4: the Long Fall.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike:

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command:

The Deep Dark Well Series

The Deep Dark Well

To Well and Back

Deeper and Darker

Others

The Shadows of the Multiverse

Diamonds in the Sand

The Scorpion

Afterlife

We Are Death, Come for You

Five By Five 3: Target Zone:

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions

Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest:

Doppelganger: A Novel of Refuge

Others

The Hunger

Daemon

Aura

“Marathon”

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projects, releases and promotions.

Prologue

For am I not my brother’s keeper,
no matter what form he may take?  For did not God care more for the minds of
his creations than the body?  Made in God’s image means we are touched by the
mind of the Almighty, that our brains are a reflection of his glory.

Archbishop Monica Phillipe,
Reformed Catholic Church, the Year 545.

JUNE 7TH, 1000.
D-393.

One instant the
space between the stars was empty, or as empty as it could be.  A couple of
thousand gas molecules per cubic meter, as good a vacuum as most technological
societies could produce.  The next, a hole opened into the higher dimensions
and eight hundred thousand tons of hyper capable vessel slid back into normal
space.  Three light seconds to the side a second ship appeared, identical to
the first.  Sensors began their passive sweep of the surrounding space,
listening for any hint of anything out of the ordinary, across all of the many
frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Another set of sensors looked at
the graviton emissions of every object for hundreds of light years, while the
powerful computers aboard the ships parsed the data, correlating both types of
radiation, comparing them, and giving the ships a detailed view of the space
around them.

“It’s still
there, ma’am,” said Ensign Jan da Conti, the sensor officer.

Captain Mandy
Albright, the senior of the two ship captains, and therefore the commander of
the pair, nodded her head as she listened to the radio signals that were coming
over the sensors.  Fifty light years further back they had first detected the
emissions, had triangulated their location, and had moved closer, which fit
into their mandate of discovering intelligent species that might inhabit the
space outside of the many empires in the Perseus arm.

“These are a lot
stronger,” said da Conti, looking back at his Captain.  “And clearer.”

The sounds
coming over the com definitely had the sound of voices, and after a short time
they could pick out the repetition of certain phrases.  There was no way they
could determine what was being said, of course.  They would need some further
references in order to parse out any kind of intelligent speech.

Albright looked
around the bridge of the hyper VI light cruiser, much like those of other
comparable ships in the Fleet.  With some differences.  The William Clark
was based on a warship design, and, in fact, was heavily armed with beam
weapons and counter missile launchers.  What she was missing was the internal
magazine space of most light cruisers.  She carried enough to make her
dangerous, but not enough to fight a protracted battle.  Instead, she used that
space to carry the extra mass of more sensitive sensors, as well as the science
labs that might come in handy on an Exploration Command vessel.

“Is Lewis reporting
anything different?” she asked Tioshi Nagakami, the com officer.

“No, ma’am,”
said the officer after she had checked the com stream for a moment.  “Same
signals.  We are triangulating, now.”

The central holo
tank zoomed in on a section of the surrounding space, a G class star blinking,
showing the most likely point of origin of the signals, based on strength and
direction.

“Since we’re
already on the proper vector,” said the Captain to the Helmsman, “let’s go
another thirty light years and see what we can see.”

Both ships
jumped back into hyper VI and went into a least time accel/decel profile to
come out into normal space at point two c, thirty light years from the target
system.  The ships once again came out of hyper and listened, but this time the
signals were both stronger and more numerous, and many of them were on a higher
band.

“We’re picking
up video bands as well as audio this time, ma’am,” said da Conti.

The main viewer
was showing what still looked like static, though there were glimpses of lines
and patterns on it, as the computer crunched the signal and tried to make sense
out of it.

“What’s that?”
said Albright, pointing at the screen as some images cleared for a moment.
Images that looked like some kind of life form, but one that no one had ever
seen before.  “Is that them?”

The viewer
cleared, showing a pair of sentients, then went under a burst of further
static, before clearing once again as the ship’s computer grabbed onto the
digital translation of the signal.

Two of the
aliens appeared again, different from anything in the databanks.  They had
long, slender torsos, from which sprung six tentacles, three from each side.
The heads were somewhat humanoid, with a high brow and what looked like hair
starting halfway up the forehead.  Both had long flowing manes, one blond, the
other reddish brown.  Four eyes, one large and one small on each side of the
bulbous nose, looked out of the vid, while a wide mouth full of sharp teeth sat
below the proboscis.  One of the aliens was smaller than the other.

Male and
female? thought the Captain, staring at the two dimensional image.  They
were sitting behind some kind of counter and reading from what looked like
paper.  A newscast?

“I wish we could
see the rest of them,” said Nagakami, her own eyes narrowing as she studied the
forms.

The view
switched as soon as the words left her mouth, showing a group of the aliens in
what looked like camouflaged uniforms, weapons that appeared to be rifles in
their tentacles.  They were advancing on some buildings, and now they could see
what the creatures used for locomotion, long, three jointed legs that carried
them swiftly over the ground.  The view switched yet again, to what looked like
very primitive aircraft, such as those used at the beginning of the jet age.
Objects fell from them and hit a structure.  The building blew out, then
collapsed on itself.

The next shot
was back at the studio, with the two, casters?, looking out at the audience
through the camera, reading from their sheets.  The viewed switched again, and
everyone on the bridge cringed back in shock at what was revealed, as an angry
looking mushroom cloud rose into the air.

“So they make
war,” said da Conti, staring at the screen.  “And they have nukes.”

“Which means
they might not be around anymore,” said Nagakami, shaking her head.

The Captain
nodded.  About half the intelligent species known that developed atomic weapons
didn’t survive to get off their planet.

“Let’s see if
they're still here,” said Albright.  “Navigator, I want us to come out one
light year from that planet.”

Again it was a
least time voyage, maximum safe acceleration to the halfway point, then the
same kind of deceleration to entry to normal space.  And the signals were still
there, stronger than before, clearer, and from the broadcasts things had
definitely changed.  The aliens were still extant, and still fighting wars
according to the cast.  And now they had some of the translation program in
place they could understand a bit of the speech.

“This appears to
be an entertainment video,” said Nagakami as they watched what look like a
female of the species sitting in a room and taking care of some babies, one after
the other, while some males talked.  There was a track of some kind of sound in
the background, laughter?  “I wonder if that many children is the norm, if this
is an extreme case, or if they just made this up for their viewers.”

“At least they
still exist,” said Albright in a quiet voice, a smile on her face.  While
intelligent life seemed to be plentiful in the Galaxy, it was still a joy to
find new forms to communicate with, to set up exchanges of knowledge and
culture.

“We’ve a big
problem, ma’am,” said da Conti in a strained voice.  The viewer switched to a
three D image of the space in front of them, the yellow star centered.  And to
the right was a blindingly bright point of blue light.

“Is that what I
think it is?” said Albright, standing up from her chair.  “How long?”

“From
preliminary spectral analysis,” said the Sensor Officer, zooming in on the blue
giant star, “a year.  Maybe more, maybe less.”

“And there’s no
way we’re going to be able to transport and entire planet full of people away
in that time,” said Nagakami, her own eyes locked on the star that was on the
verge of going supernova, less than six light months from the home of the
sentients they had come to see.

Chapter One

Of course we don’t like to make
war.  If we had a guarantee that all other sentient species in the Galaxy would
rid themselves of their weapons, we would do the same.  Until then, we will
continue to study war.  And continue to be the best at it.

Emperor Constance the Great.

JUNE 14TH, 1000.
D-386.

First Councilman
Rizzit Contena looked up at the attractive female who stood in front of his
desk, her primary eyes glaring down at him, while her secondary orbs were in
constant movement, scanning the room.  And she had not bred yet, thought
the powerful male, who had already bred on a dozen females, and from them had
over a hundred children.  But this one might not see the advantages of
becoming another of my females, he thought.  She will probably save
herself for one male.

That was the way
with most females, since they could only become pregnant once in their lives,
and most preferred a permanent partnership to a liaison that might bring a
litter, and detract from their attractive potential for a new mate.

“Surely you can
see the danger, First Councilman?” asked the female, Scientist Sharrann
Lestacor, a rising star in the scientific community of the Nation of Tsarzor.
“When that star blows, we all die.”

“Half of our
population believes that star is one of our gods,” replied Contena with a
politician’s smile, his teeth hidden by curled lips.  “The other half are
afraid to offend the first.  And the Honish will raise hell if they hear we are
discussing their Demon Lord in such a manner.”

“I am a
scientist,” said the woman, four of her tentacles crossed over her chest, the
top pair waving in the air.  “I don’t believe in that superstitious nonsense.
Those beliefs are going to end us as a species.  Hrrottha is going to explode,
in the near future, and when it does the surface of our world will be scoured
clean by the particle radiation that will arrive less than a year after, if the
thermal wave doesn’t take us out first.”

The first
councilman gave her a disapproving look.  Hrrottha was both the name of the
star, according to the Honish, and the name of their god.  And the Honish took
great offense when the name was used for one while also not meaning the other.
One reason his people preferred to call the star Gromor.

“And what do you
want to do about it?” asked the First Councilman, looking at the picture on his
wall that showed one of the twelve structures of the gods that occupied
equidistant points on the globe.  No one knew how they had been built, or by
whom.  They only knew that the things were indestructible, as far as they could
tell.  Diamond drills, lasers, nothing scratched the surface.  And any energy
that was used to try and probe them just disappeared.  More God stuff?
thought the leader of the nation, who was only religious in public, and wasn’t
sure what he believed in private.

“Build
underground shelters, deep,” she said, leaning over the desk, supporting her
body on her four lower tentacles.  “Get as many of our people into protected
enclaves as possible.”

“Not send them
into space, like Scientist Kiristo suggested?”

“That male could
not find his solid waste orifice with all of his tentacles,” growled Lestacor,
standing up straight again, all of her tentacles waving in the air in
exasperation.  “We don’t have the means to get anyone out of the system, and
anyone we have in space is going to be fried just as surely as if they stay on
the planet.  And digging shelters on one of the moons or rocky planets is just
a waste of effort, since we can do the same thing here on Klassek.”

“Look,” said
Contena, glancing at the watch attached to one of his tentacles.  “I have a
meeting to attend to.  Why don’t you get with some engineers and work out what
we need to build these shelters.  Now, I’m not promising you anything, but get
me some figures, and I’ll see what I can do.”

The female did
not look like she was very happy with that answer, but she gave a head motion
of acceptance and turned away.  Contena watched her wide hips, the sign of a
good birthing female, and wondered again what she would be like during sex.  Forget
about that, he thought.  Just be glad that you’ve gotten rid of her for
some weeks.

“Councilman,”
came a voice over the intercom.  “There’s something happening in the outer
system that you need to be aware of.”

What in all
the hells now?  Little gray beings coming out of interstellar space?   The
Councilman got to his feet and gliding from the room in the graceful gait of
his people, contacting his siblings through their entanglement and letting them
know he would be late for the meeting with the other Counselors.

*     *     *

“You sure you
want to send both of them, ma’am?” asked the Senior Master Chief of the Ship.
“It might be nice to have one of them handy, in case something comes up.”

“I know, Chief,”
said Albright, listening to the wisdom of the senior enlisted man on the
vessel, but still making the decision she thought was best.  “This is too
important a find though, and I want one of them to get through, no matter
what.”

Space was full
of hostile races, pirates and aggressive cultures.  Both of the ten thousand
ton couriers, one carried by each cruiser, were hyper VII vessels, and so
should have been able to outrun anything that tracked on them.  She would be
sending them back to the Exploration Command sector base by separate routes.
Already this was looking like more than her two ships could handle, especially
if they were faced with evacuating a sizable percentage of an entire world’s
population.

“Very well,
ma’am,” said the Chief from the viewer.  “Our courier will be launching in five
minutes.  Lewis’ will go fifteen minutes after.”

And ours will
be on the shortest route, and get there some hours ahead of the other one.  And
surely they’ll send us some hyper VII ships.  In fact, Exploration Command
was supposed to have been outfitted solely with VII ships by now, but the war
had come, and with it, a greater demand for scout ships with the battle fleets.

“We’ve completed
preliminary scans of the system, ma’am,” said the Ensign da Conti.  The central
holo showed the entire system, from the G class star on out, and the eleven
planets and forty-two major moons that made up the system.  There were two
asteroid belts in the mix as well, slightly less massive than most by
themselves, but sufficient to run a major space based civilization when added
together.   The only problem was that such a civilization didn’t exist in this
system.

“They are in the
early stages of space exploration,” said Commander Nord Sekumbe, the Exec, and
the head of the anthropology department aboard the ship.  “Lots of satellites
in orbit around the planet, some artifacts on the two moons that point to
recent visits.  I would say they are a class six space based civilization, on
the verge of leaving the environs of their own planetary system.”

“So, no hope of
them escaping the supernova?”

“Not a one,
ma’am.  Their bad luck that their star drifted so close to one.”

“And what do you
make of their species?”

The Exec thought
for a moment before speaking.  “At least as intelligent as we are.  And, more
importantly, at least as innovative.  They’ve gone from prop driven aircraft to
manned space flight in about the same time as humanity did on the homeworld.”

Albright
grunted.  That last was important.  There were any number of intelligent
species in the Galaxy, but among those known, very few had the innovative drive
of the human race.  If they had found another such as they, it could really
help the war effort.  And if they were even more innovative?

“I have some
people working on signal analysis,” continued the Anthropologist, “along with
the people from the Lewis.  We have a good working vocabulary of
fourteen of their languages, those of the most advanced nations.  One problem
with contact is the number of different political divisions on the planet.  We
have no guarantee that the one we establish first contact with will even
cooperate with the others.  And we’ve picked up some disturbing sociological
data from the transmissions.”

“Such as?”

“There seem to
be a number of very rabid religious groups on the planet, and evidence that
several religious wars are going on at this time.  I’m not sure how this will
affect contact, but it could be very detrimental to any efforts we make toward
communicating as a rational species.”

Another image
came up on the main holo viewer, a smooth curving object rising up into space,
the curve of the planet in the background.  “We’ve found twelve of these
objects rising from the surface.  We’re not sure what they are, but they’re
well beyond the capabilities of these people.”

“Could they be a
threat to us?” asked the Captain, looking at the megastructures.  Not that her
Empire didn’t have larger structures.  The Donut, ship docks and
others.  But unknown meant unknown capabilities.

“Unknown,” said
another voice on the holo, the ship’s Weapon’s Officer, who was also one of
their astrophysicists.  “It doesn’t seem to interfere with the indigenous
population, but we have no way of knowing how they will react to a spaceship
coming in from the outer system.  Or even if they’ll react at all.”

“Understood.”

Albright sat
there for a moment, then looked over at the Helmsman.  “Put us on a least time
transit to just five hundred thousand kilometers outside of their orbit.”  She
looked over at Nagakami.  “Inform Captain Lewis of my intentions.  They
are to wait out here and observe, as per standard operating procedure.”

“Sure you don’t
want them along, ma’am?” asked the Exec over the side holo.  “From the looks of
things, there really isn’t anything to worry about in this system.”

The Captain
looked once again at the structure, one of the twelve that had been left on
this world by, something. Another intelligent species?  The ancestors of the
current inhabitants, before their civilization fell?

“Let’s do it by
the book, Exec,” said Albright with a nod at the holo.  “These procedures are
in place for a reason, so we’ll follow them.  Lewis will wait out here
and watch, and if anything happens to us, we’ll have them to get the word out
to the next ship.”  She looked at the holo that showed one of the huge
structures that poked out of the atmosphere of the planet, something well beyond
the capabilities of these people.  A mystery, and not one that a ship’s captain
was really all that eager to push her nose into.

“And I want us
at full alert status when we get within ten light minutes of that world,” she
told her Tactical Officer.  “Cold plasma fields at full strength, weapons
hot.”  And, hopefully, we won’t have to use them against something a
thousand times more massive than this ship, or a dozen of them.

*     *     *

“As you can see,
sir, these two heat sources appeared on our deep space telescope scan less than
an hour ago,” said the scientist, two of his tentacles working over the
keyboard while two more pointed at the screen that showed the objects in
questions as pinpoints.  “Even at highest resolution we cannot determine what
they are.  But ten minutes ago one of the objects started moving away from the
other by a small margin.  We’ve parsed the data, and it appears the heat
signature is getting stronger.”

“Which means?”
asked the First Councilman, pretty sure he knew exactly what it meant.

“A visitor from
beyond our system,” said the scientist, his lips turned and hiding his teeth in
a smile.  “Do you realize what this means, First Councilman?  We are not
alone.”

“But are they
hostile?  And are those two all there are?”  And could we successfully fight
them off?  There are only two of them, but they have the technology needed to
cross the space between the stars, something we can only speculate about.

“I have no way
of knowing their intentions,” said the Scientist, his lips scrunching into a
teeth showing frown.  “They could be peaceful, but I have no way of knowing.
The one thing I do know is one of those ships is coming here.”

But not both
of them, thought the First Councilman, allowing his thoughts to link with
those of his four surviving brothers.  Why are they leaving one of their
ships out so far.  Two light hours?  He looked at the figures on the
screen, and his brothers looked through his eyes by way of their entangled
brains.

I think they
are leaving the one ship out there as a precaution, thought his brother,
General Mazzat Contena.  If we do anything to the ship coming toward us,
they will be able to leave with the news.

To what
purpose? asked engineer Lazzit Contena.

To bring back
reinforcements to crush us, if we don’t acquiesce to their demands and attack
this first probe, said Mazzat.  Why else would they be here, but to
conquer us.

I don’t think
that is their purpose, thought Mizzit Contena, the artist of the group.  As
advanced as they are, they must be peaceful.

Like we’re
peaceful, thought the General.  The more advanced we’ve become, the
deadlier has been our military.

The First
Councilman closed off his thoughts for a moment, wondering what course to take
with so many dissenting viewpoints.  He and his siblings were not a group
mind.  They, as the members of a single litter, could communicate mind to mind,
no matter the distance or the circumstances.  They could look through each
other’s eyes, hear through the other’s ears, even feel physical sensations if
they opened their minds to such.  But they were still individuals, with their
own minds and thoughts.

What do you
suggest, Mazzat, he thought.

Destroy them
as soon as they come within range of our missiles.

But, you said
they would come back in force if we destroyed them, said the incredulous
Councilman.

We will have
to fight them anyway.  So we might as well open the war with a victory.

And the other
nations of Klassek?  What will they think if we drag them in an interstellar
war?

We are the
leaders on this world, thought the General, his mindspeak almost a shout.  We
are the most powerful nation on Klassek.  It is up to us to make those choices.

But all the
other nations will insist on having input, thought Kazzat, the financier.  As
soon as that thing is in orbit, every nation with a radio will be broadcasting
their strident pleas and demands up to them.

The Councilman
looked over at the scientist, who returned his glance with the patient look of
one who understood what the leader was doing.  All of the dominant species on
the planet could do the same with those they shared the womb with.  The
scientific community thought it was an evolutionary development that had
allowed them to become the preeminent hunters on their world, and to have
developed the intelligence that led to sentience.  Only those who had lost all
of their siblings were cut off from this kind of communion, and most soon went
insane.

Then I will
make that decision.  Thank you all for the input.  He severed the link with
a thought, cutting off his brother the General in mid-transmission.

“Will any of the
other nations know about them?” he asked the scientist.

“I wouldn’t
think so.  We’re the only ones with access to the deep space telescope.  And
therefore the only ones who have the capability of picking them up at a
distance.”

“Then this
information is hereby classified as top secret.  Under pain of accusation of
treason, and possible execution, this information will only be disseminated to
those cleared by my office.”

“But, the
scientific community?”

“I know you want
the academic glory, Professor.  And it will be yours, eventually.  But right
now we need to be able to act without the interference of our enemies.”  The
First Councilman turned to a com panel and tapped the connect key.

“Get me the director
of the launch facility,” he said into the com as soon as someone answered on
the other end.   Moments later he was connected to his nation’s spaceport, one
of only two on the planet.

“How soon can
you get a bird into space?  I need it for a mission out to Jerratt,” he said,
naming the farthest of the planet’s two moons, which his nation had visited
several times in the last couple of years.  “No, not to Jerratt.  Just out to
that distance.”

“We have a
launch for next week,” said the spaceport director.  “It is, in fact, a mission
to Jerratt.  Why do you want to launch early?”

“That’s
classified.  I will be authorizing an information transfer that will tell you
why.  This is for your eyes only, and the commander of the mission.  Otherwise,
no one is to know.  And they won’t be going to Jerratt.  Only to the same
distance.”

“But,” stammered
the Director.  “We need an orbital capture in order to return.  That will doom
the crew to a lonely death.”

“Don’t worry
about that.  Just get the bird off.  Arrangements will be made for pickup.”
The Councilman cut the link, then pulled open the small case he always carried
with him.  In a few moments he had issued directives, and the needed
information was on its way to those who would need it to prosecute the goal of
first contact.

And there is
nothing else I can do, he thought as he closed the case.  Except maybe
go and pray.  He laughed at that last thought as he walked out of the
Scientist’s office.  He didn’t believe in any of the hundreds of Gods
worshipped by the various peoples of the planet.  Worship that had led to a
large number of wars through the ages, and were still stirring up people enough
to cause campaigns of mass death and destruction.  Maybe our visitors will
have the solution, he thought hopefully.

*     *     *

“We have an
interesting development here, ma’am,” said Sensory Officer da Conti, switching
the view of the main holo tank to a zoom of the planet.

“Is that what I
think it is?” asked Albright, watching as a long object climbed from the atmosphere
and curved in a high orbit of the planet.

“It does appear
to be a space vessel, ma’am,” agreed da Conti.  “Very primitive by our
standards.”

“And why do you
think they picked this time to launch it?”

“It could be
coincidence,” said the Sensory Officer.

And I really
don’t believe in coincidences, thought the Captain as she watched part of
the craft fall away.  Minutes later the bright flame of a hydroxyl engine lit
up the rear of the craft, and it started moving away from the planet on a
curving path.

“Navigator.  Can
you track their destination?”

“Give me a
minute, ma’am.  As soon as they finish their burn I should know something.”

It took several
minutes for the burn to complete, and even then it took the Navigator a little
more time to crunch the data.

“Right here,
ma’am,” said the Navigator as a blinking curser appeared about a half million
kilometers from the planet.  “And unless I’m reading their technology wrong,
they will actually fall past this point and out into the system, until they
finally achieve an orbit around the sun about five million kilometers out.”

“Any reason for
them to do that?” asked Albright, her eyes narrowing.

“I would say
that they know we are here,” said da Conti, looking from Captain to holo and
back.

“And how would
they know that?” she asked.

“They must have
some orbiting sensor systems that picked us up on infrared,” said da Conti.
“So they launched a ship to meet us as far away from their planet as they could
manage.”

“I’m still not
sure why they would do that,” said Albright, shaking her head.

“Orders, ma’am?”
asked the Helmsman.

“Plot a course
to rendezvous with them at the earliest moment,” said Albright.

“Calculating,”
said the Navigator, running the figures of the vectors and
velocity/acceleration of both their vessel and the alien craft, calculations
that involved time as well as distance, figuring that included the knowledge
that what they saw of the alien craft was an hour and half earlier.  “Course
locked in.”

“Engaging,”
called out the Helmsman, setting the ship on the course he had received from
the Navigator.  “Estimated time of rendezvous, twenty-one hours, twelve
minutes.”

And then they
get a good look at us, thought the Captain.  I wonder what they’ll
think?

Chapter Two

The combination of nuclear
energy and the exploitation of the orbitals of a world is the danger zone.  The
time when a civilization is most likely to destroy itself.  Ours made it
through this period, barely.  Many do not.

Dr. Tan Hu, Sociologist, Imperial
University, the Year 854.

Astronaut Nazzir
Lamsat sat in his acceleration couch and looked with disbelief at the object
that was approaching his small capsule.  He could feel the alarm of his
siblings over his mind link, as they instantaneously looked through his eyes at
the same object.  While his fellow astronaut, Hzzart Nastra sat gripping the
arms of her chair.  They had expected strangeness.  After all, this was a ship
built by another race.

But we didn’t
expect for it to be so, big.  And fast.

“They’re coming
in too fast,” complained the other astronaut.

Lamsat checked
the radar screen, still surprised that they could even track such an advanced
ship.  Unless they wanted to be tracked, since they realize we know they are
there anyway.  “They’re decelerating at four point nine kilometers.”  That
can’t be right, can it?  That’s over five hundred gravities, and we’re lucky to
get eight out of our most powerful engine.  He ran the figures, two of his
tentacle tips poking into hole after hole in his board, flying across the
surface.  “It looks like they are going to stop just to the side of us.”

“But, what’s
propelling them?” asked Nastra, her primary eyes wide as her secondaries darted
all over the place, the sign of extreme anxiety.  “I see no drive flames
proceeding them.  An ion stream?  But I didn’t think it was possible to
generate so much force that way.”

“I think they
must use a reactionless drive,” said the Mission Commander over the com.

“Isn’t that
impossible?”

“Not if they do
it,” said Lamsat, looking at the alien ship on infrared scans.  “Those things
on the front, the big vanes, that might be the drive.  They’re glowing with
heat.”

“I thought those
were weapons.”

“They appear to
be radiating a lot of infrared, but nothing else, so I doubt they’re weapons.
But those big glowing rings.  Those look like weapons to me.”

“It’s so damned
big,” said Nastra, repeating his recent thought.  “How much more advanced are
they than us?  Several hundred years?  A thousand?”  She looked down at her
board, her eyes growing even wider.  “We’re receiving a transmission.  From the
alien.”

The small
viewing screen to their front came to life, at first filled with static, then
clearing to show what looked like the bridge of the alien ship.  A creature sat
in a chair, its head displaying a small nose and only two eyes, strange looking
objects on the side of its head.  Long reddish hair began at the top of its
skull and flowed back.  It only had two limbs on each side of its upper torso,
each ending in an appendage that had five small tentacles.

Two other
creatures stood near the chair.  One towered over the chair sitter, with a long
scale covered snout and an alarming array of teeth.  The other was not a tall,
and had a covering of feathers over its face.

“They have more
than one species of sentient aboard,” said Nastra in an excited voice.  “Do you
know what that means?  They have a confederation of intelligent species.  And
perhaps they will allow us to join.”

“Or they have
conquered other races, and will now add us to their slave empire,” said the
Mission Leader, not as willing to trust the unknowns as his younger partner.
“Are we transmitting?  Then go ahead and send them our take.”

A moment later
the creature in the chair started speaking.  At least that was what he thought,
as it was the only one whose lips were moving..  “Are they speaking Honish?”

“It sounds like
it,” said Nastra, referring to the language spoken by a people on another
continent than theirs, less advanced but more numerous than their own.  And
their greatest enemy.

“We don’t speak
that language,” said Lamsat, his eyes locking on that of what seemed to be the
dominant creature over there.

“Then we will
talk in this one,” said the creature in such a fast change that Lamsat had
trouble believing he was actually hearing his own language.  Their computers
are that advanced?  He wasn’t sure why that surprised him, considering how
advanced their propulsion systems obviously were.

“We would like
to bring you aboard our ship, where we can talk more comfortably.  I assume you
breath the gas mixture of the world below?”

“Yes, we breathe
our air.”

“And we breathe
a similar mixture, so you will do fine aboard our ship.  I assume you do not
have the fine maneuvering ability needed to safely land in our hangar.”

“I really don’t
know,” said the astronaut.  “I doubt that we do.”

“Then we’ll send
a cargo shuttle to pick your capsule up and bring it aboard.  If that is
acceptable to you?”

“That’s what
we’re here for,” he said quietly to Nastra, then looked back at the viewer and
the camera mounted on it.  “I would like to be taken aboard your ship.  I have
messages from our leadership for you.”  And I can’t wait to see that vessel
of yours from the inside.

“Then we will
have a shuttle out to pick you up in minutes.  Don’t worry.  It’s a highly
maneuverable ship, and this is something the crew is good at.”

The screen went
blank, and the female astronaut looked at the male with some alarm.  “Do you
think it’s safe?”

“I don’t know.
But do you think they couldn’t vaporize us in place if they wanted to?”

“True,” she said
with a smile.  “So we might as well go aboard to be vaporized.  At least we can
satisfy our curiosity before that happens.”

*     *     *

“Shuttle is
launching, ma’am,” came the call from the Senior Master Chief.

“Who’s
piloting?”

“Ensign Nguyen,”
said the Chief with a chuckle.

Albright
smiled.  Nguyen was known as the hottest pilot aboard.  If they wanted to
impress their new friends with capabilities, they couldn’t have picked a better
pilot.  If he doesn’t scare whatever passes for excrement from what orifice
they use for its ejection.

“Do you want to
greet them on the hangar deck with a full ceremony?” asked Lt. J’rrantar, the
Phlistaran commander of the ship’s Marine contingent.

“I would advise
against it, since we don’t know their cultural memes,” advised the Exec.  “For
all we know, seeing a bunch of uniforms and rifles may make them think we are
about to arrest them.”

“OK, a small
contingent of officers, myself included,” she said after a moment’s thought.
“Lt. J’rrantar as the single Marine, and Petty Officer First Hi’tarris as our
other alien delegate.”  The Gryphon crewman nodded from his position next to
the Captain, where he had been strategically placed so that the aliens could
see that not just humans were involved in their Empire.  “Let’s get moving,
people,” she said, getting up from her chair and heading for the bridge hatch,
which opened at her approach.

“You might want
to see this, ma’am,” said one of the com techs over her link as she walked
toward the lift.

“Hold one,” she
said as she stepped into the lift and the doors closed.  First the lift would
move up a half dozen decks, then over a hundred meters to the port hangar.  The
Captain closed her eyes and let the video and audio of the signal play over the
appropriate lobes of her brain, giving her the same input as if she had been
watching the vid from the bridge.

More scenes of
fighting, as small, helicopters, rose over the skyline and shot missiles into
other buildings.  A missile came back and blasted one of the gunships from the
sky.  An instant later the origin point of that antiaircraft missile was an
expanding fireball.

“So they’re
fighting,” said the Captain.  “We knew they were a warlike species, same as our
own.”

“This is a news
broadcast from the nation of our friends,” said the Exec, breaking into the
conversation.  “They have been fighting a war on another continent for more
than a local decade, and it doesn’t look to be ending soon.”

The lift door
opened and the corridor leading to the hangar stretched ahead thirty meters.
“Let’s establish normal relations with these people first.  Then we’ll get into
the question of social engineering.  And besides, I don’t think they’re going
to have much time for fighting after we tell them what’s coming.”

“That might be
the problem, ma’am,” said the Exec.  “These people may be so caught up in
fighting each other that they ignore the news we’ve brought.  Or just refuse to
believe it.”

“That would be
insane,” said Albright, walking onto the hangar deck and looking at the
shimmering cold plasma field that separated the air filled area from space.

“Wouldn’t be the
first time someone has gotten into space with a total lack of common sense,”
she admitted, stepping to the front of the small line of officers and senior
NCOs.

The nose of the
shuttle poked through the cold plasma field, which moved out of the way,
sliding around the hull of the ship and preventing the atmosphere from leaking
out.  It took only a few moments for the ship to fully enter the hangar and
thud down on the deck.  Its grabber units were red hot, radiating their heat
into the hangar area.  The hull was cold, the ship having not penetrated
anything that would have caused friction.

The upper doors
of the large shuttle opened up, revealing the alien space capsule.  A moment
later a hatch on the capsule opened, and the first of the alien astronauts
climbed out.  A couple of crew in shipboard armor rose up from the floor of the
hangar and landed next to the alien, then lifted it in the air and to the
deck.  A moment later a second astronaut joined the first, and they both stood
there and stared at their surroundings.

“Welcome aboard
the HIMS Clark,” said Albright, stepping forward.  “We are very pleased
to make contact with your people.”

*     *     *

“Our astronauts
have signaled that they are about to be taken aboard the alien ship,” said the
voice of the com center tech over the speaker.

“Have they said
anything about the aliens yet?” asked the First Councilman.

“We lost com
with them moments after that transmission, sir.  But we have one of Astronaut
Lamsat’s brothers at the spaceport, and he is saying that his brother is alive
and well, and that the aliens seem to be friendly.  Right now they are aboard
the cargo compartment of an alien shuttle, and are cut off from all sensor
reads.”

Thank the
Gods the entanglement is still working.  There had never been a
circumstance where the connection between siblings had been cut off, save by
the death or severe central nervous system damage to one of the members.  There
had been some concern about the connection remaining when one of the siblings
had gone off world, but it had worked perfectly.  In fact, as far as the
scientists could tell, it had transmitted information from brain to brain
instantaneously.

Do the aliens
have a similar mental capacity?  Or something even better?  There was still
a lot of debate in the scientific community as to whether entanglement was a
prerequisite for the development of intelligence.  This contact would have a
lot to do with proving or disproving that theory.  And was the least of the
leader’s concerns.

“Make sure you
get every word and impression from Lamsat’s sibling.  I want to know everything
I can about them before we have them coming down here.”  And whether their
intentions are peaceful or not, I have no doubt they are coming down here.

And you need
to be ready to blow them out of space, chimed in his brother, the General,
over the protests of the other siblings.

If we need
to, then I will demur to you, thought the leader.  But I will not start
a war with someone with unknown capabilities because of paranoia.  The
First Councilman cut off the link, wondering what he should do with his
sibling.  The problem was, the General was his sibling, and, according to their
social structure, there was no greater loyalty than to your litter mates.

The violet phone
started shrieking, at the same time flashing into the ultraviolet range, the
alert to an important transmission from the leader of the Honish.

“Yes,” said the
First Councilman as he picked up the receiver of the old fashioned telephone,
made that way on purpose.  “This is Contena.”

“And this is
Zzarr, and I call you a filthy breaker of our agreement, by Hrrottha.”

And it’s not
a good sign when the old pirate starts off calling on his bastard of a God.
“What are you talking about, Zzarr?  I am not aware that I had broken any
agreements.”

“You lie,”
snarled the leader of Contena’s greatest rival on the planet.  “We monitored
your launch.  And now an object of unknown origin appears at the orbit of the
outer moon, and I know exactly where that capsule was headed.  What is it,
Contena?  Are you now conspiring with aliens to take over the world?”

“We thought it
best to make preliminary contact ourselves,” said Contena, trying to keep his
voice calm and steady.

“I bet you did,”
said the other male.  “I bet there was no thought of getting an advantage over
the rest of us.  Alien technologies would make you unbeatable, wouldn’t they?
Well, you are not going to get away with it.  We will be launching our own
capsule in eighteen hours.  And don’t you dare let anything happen to that ship
unless you want a total war.  Understand?”

The line went
dead, and the First Councilman carefully put the phone handset back into its
cradle.  I want our forces at the ready, he sent over the link to his
brother, the General.  Just in case that old fool launches a first strike.

We have them
under observation at all times.  As soon as we see their missiles fueling, we
will plan a time on target strike to get them while they are starting their
accent.

Try to avoid
casualties if possible.  But get their missiles, no matter what.  I don’t want
us to suffer casualties either.

He cut the link
so his brother wouldn’t listen in on his next thoughts.  Surely they
wouldn’t be crazy enough to start a nuclear war.  But if he believes his
murderous God will protect him, no matter what, he might just start a nuclear
exchange.  The First Councilman shivered just a moment with real fear.
Hrrottha was also the name of the blue giant that Scientist Sharrann Lestacor
was so afraid was going to supernova in less than two years.  That was no
coincidence, since the Honish worshiped the brightest star in the sky.  And
if it blows, none of the rest of this crap matters.  But I can’t think like
that.   I have to plan and lead as if there is a future.  Not like it’s going
to end any instant.

*     *     *

“You have
gravity?” was the first thing that Lamsat said as he stepped onto the deck and
the human captain came forward in welcome.  “We did not see your ship spinning
when we approached.”

“We have
artificial gravity,” said the human as she pushed forward her strange looking
manipulation unit again.

Artificial
gravity? thought the Astronaut, looking at the member and wondering what he
was supposed to do with it, then reaching a pair of his manipulating tentacles
forward to clasp the unit.  Is such a thing possible?

We have known
of the possibility for over a decade, came back the thoughts of one of his
siblings, one who worked in high energy physics research.  But we are many
decades away from being able to manipulate gravity in such a way, if not
hundreds of years.

Then all
thoughts of artificial gravity were no longer at the forefront, as he watched
the officer the human was introducing come forward.

“This is the
commander of my Marine detachment, Lt. J’rrantar.”

By the Gods,
thought Lamsat, looking up into the face of the being.  What he saw was an
alarming set of jaws in a scaled face, with intelligent green eyes looking at
him with interest.  The creature was six limbed, walking on four, with a second
torso reaching up from the first, sporting two very strong looking arms and
manipulation digits similar to those of the human’s.  If they have warriors
like this, we would be doomed even in a conventional fight.

“And Petty
Officer Hi’tarris, one of my electronics techs.”

The second being
was also larger than the Captain, about of a size with Lamsat himself.  And
while not as fearsomely armed as the huge Marine, his sharp looking beak was
still a formidable weapon.

“And this is my
crewmate, Hzzart Nastra,” said Lamsat, introducing his partner.  It still
sounded strange using the translation program the humans had provided.  When
they spoke, they heard the words come out of their own mouths in their
language, yet the aliens seemed to understand them.  When the aliens talked,
they could hear the foreign, incomprehensible words, but they also heard their
own language.

“How many
species have you enslaved?” asked the female Astronaut, her own primary eyes
moving back and forth between the two alien species.

“The Phlistarans
and Gryphons are not slaves of my people, but free members of our Empire,” said
the human.  “As are over a score of other species.  And we trade with even
more.”

“And do you
fight any of them?” asked Lamsat, unable to tell if the alien was speaking the
truth or not.  After all, he could not even begin to read their body language
or voice tones.  It might be years before any of his people could.  He hoped
the same was also true the other way, but had no way of knowing.

“We try to get
along with the other space going species,” said the human, showing her teeth in
what looked like a grimace, but could have been anything.  “But not everyone
gets along, and there have been wars.  We’ve even started  few ourselves, I’m
sorry to say.”

The human looked
around for a moment, then motioned toward an open hatchway.  “And if you would
come with us, we have a more comfortable venue where we can talk.”

Hzzarts wants
to know if you believe them, said one of his siblings.

Lamsat glanced
at his companion for a moment, nodding his head.  I do believe them, to a
point, he told his sibling on the planet through the quantum connection of
their brains.  That sibling talked with one of Hzzarts’ sisters, in the same
room or by communicator.  Only siblings from the same litter could communicate
in such a manner, but using this method was the next best thing to his having
telepathic communication with his partner.  And they can’t tell what we’re
saying to each other, or even if we’re communicating.  And then a thought
struck that concerned him.  If the aliens also had quantum connectedness in
their mental makeup, they might guess what was going on, and with their tech
they might actually be able to intercept it.

They walked
through thirty meters of corridor and entered a lift, which whisked them away
from where they entered to somewhere else on the ship.  The lift opened up on
another corridor which looked much like the one they had just left.

“Did we even
move?” asked Nastra as they stepped out of the lift.  “I felt nothing.”

“The
compensators in the lift took up all the inertia,” said the human, giving them
another of those full tooth grimaces which Lamsat was beginning to suspect
weren’t such after all.  “It’s the same system we use on our ships when we
move, though nowhere near as powerful.”

The door to a
room opened as they approached, sliding into the wall smooth and silent, and
the Captain gestured them into the chamber, which had a long table and some
chairs, as well as a bench like thing that defied their understanding.  Until
the huge alien settled himself into it and made himself comfortable.

“I’m afraid we
don’t have chair configured to your physiognomy, at least yet.  But if you sit
in them for a little while they will start configuring themselves to you.  As
far as refreshments, I have ordered water, as well as a sampling of other
beverages, to be delivered here.  As far as we can tell, you have a similar
enough biochemistry to our own that none of our foodstuffs should cause any
harm, though I can’t guarantee the taste.”

“How do you know
we have the same biochemistry as you do?” asked Nastra, her secondary eyes
moving in alarm.  “Do you have sensory systems that allow you to do that?”

“It was the
nanites that have gotten into your systems since you came aboard,” said the
human Captain, who then looked as if she had mentioned something she shouldn’t
have.

“What are
nanites?” asked Nastra, as Lamsat wondered yet again if he was misreading the
aliens.

Our experts
think that we are starting to get a read on the body language of the humans,
said his sibling who was a psychologist.  The images coming across are
clear.

Amazing
technology, thought the Astronaut in his own private processes.  Everything
he was seeing was also seen by his siblings while he allowed those images to
pass from his mind to theirs.  And the Psychologist was able, through a state
of the art implant, to transmit those images to a vid for other experts to
watch.

She was
definitely uncomfortable with what she just said to you, came the thought
of his sibling.

“Nanites are
nanoscale robots,” said the human after a long hesitation.  “We use them for
just about everything on this ship, from basic maintenance of equipment, to the
protection of our bodily systems.  As soon as you came aboard you must have
ingested some into your systems, and they looked over your cells and sent the
information to our medical database.”

“You let these
things get into us,” said Nastra, her primary eyes widening while her
secondaries went into overdrive.  She started scratching at the back of her
tentacles, as if she felt the things attacking her.

“They will not
harm you,” said the human.  “We have been using them for over a thousand years,
and they are perfectly safe.”

Not according
to our research, came the thought to Lamsat from his sibling.  Our
researchers feel that they can be as dangerous as any technology we have ever
developed.

But they are
so much more advanced than we are, sent back Lamsat, trying to imagine just
how much further along the tech scale these aliens were.

“Our people
think these, nanites, can be dangerous if not deployed with sufficient safety,”
said Lamsat, looking into the eyes of the human.  A moment later he was
interrupted as more humans entered the room, bearing trays with glasses full of
several colored liquids.

“We have a lot
more experience with this tech than you do,” said the Captain, picking up one
if the glasses from a tray and taking a sip.  “Try them.  They’re safe as
well.”

Lamsat reached
for a glass that contained an orange colored liquid, brought it to his
ingestion orifice, and took a sip.  He gave a grunt of surprise at the taste
and sipped some more.  “This is delicious.”

“That’s orange
juice,” said the human.  “It comes from a Terran tree.”

“My brother
thinks it’s delicious,” said Lamsat, closing his mouth tight as he thought what
he had said.  They don’t know we can communicate with each other mind to
mind.  And that is an ability I’m not sure we want to give up yet.

“Why would your
brother think it’s delicious?” asked the large alien they called a Phlistaran.
“He couldn’t have known anything about orange juice.”

“It’s just an
expression,” said Lamsat, communicating through his link to his sibling, who
talked to his partner’s sibling, who communicated back to her.

The human
Captain looked at him strangely, and he looked away, refusing to meet her gaze
while he talked in lies.  He looked up after a moment, still aware of her gaze
on him through his secondaries.  He really didn’t know how intelligent these
creatures were.  More than his own people?  He wouldn’t be surprised, not only
because of their tech, but also due to their ability to get along with other
species, while his own couldn’t even get along with themselves.

“And what does
your high command think of us?” asked the Captain, narrowing her eyes at
Lamsat, another gesture he was unsure of.  “Do they see us as friends from the
stars, or invaders?”

“They’re not
sure yet, Captain,” said Lamsat, knowing exactly how his high command thought,
if not the commanders of the other nations.  He could feel his hearts beating
faster, knowing that he did not like this kind of maneuvering.  Especially with
creatures he could not read all that well.  And the information being sent to
him by his sibling was all guess work as far as he was concerned.  “That is why
we are here.”

*     *     *

Are you
thinking what I’m thinking, Exec, sent Albright through her com link.

Telepathy,
ma’am? asked Sekumbe.  Do you really think that’s possible?  Or if it’s
just a misunderstanding of the translation program.

That would be
the smart way to bet, sent the Captain, rubbing her chin with her thumb and
forefinger.  But we’re not picking up any kind of transmission from them to
the planet.  In fact, with our EW platforms active, that would be impossible
for their tech level.  If there is a chance that they have some kind of mind to
mind transmission, we have to pursue it.  What do you think, Doctor.

The nanites
are sending back a pretty complete physiological profile, sent back Lt.
Commander Sophia Romanov, the ship’s surgeon, as well as their chief of
exobiology.  If he were human, I would say he is distressed by what he is
saying.  If he were human, I would say he was lying.  And I’m getting a fairly
complete energy profile on his brain.  A small area in one of the lobes has
been very active in both of the aliens.  I can’t say what it is, but it is not
activating in response to their speech.

“I’m sure you’ll
want to contact your high command,” she said to the larger of the aliens, the
male.  “We can put in touch with them through our com.”

“I would
appreciate that, Captain,” said the Alien.

Albright nodded
to Hi’tarris and the Gryphon tech manipulated some controls on his board.  At
that moment the face of another alien appeared on the holo over the table, and
Lamsat started as he found himself looking through the holographic
communication.  The aliens started speaking, and though they heard everything
that was being said through the translation program, everything seemed to be pretty
innocuous.

Those brain
areas are radiating with high energy, sent Romanov.  Again, not in sync
with their speech.  I’m not sure what it is, but I’m willing to bet that it’s
some kind of communication.

“Excuse me,
gentleman, and lady” said Captain Albright.  “I have a question to ask you and
your leader.”

Both the alien
on the holo and the two in the conference room looked at her, all of their
eyes, primaries and secondaries, focusing on the human.

“And you able to
communicate mind to mind?”

All of the eyes
changed, turning to a fierce glare on the leader, and to panicked orbs on the
Astronauts.  That caused some physiological stress on the two on board,
came the com link transmission from the Doctor.  I think you hit a real
nerve there.

“Ma’am,” came a
call over the voice com.  “We’re tracking a launch from the largest land mass.”

“Show me,” she
ordered, and a second holo came to life over the table, this one showing a
globe of the world they were in far orbit of.  The globe, a composite of the
visual scanners of the ship and a probe they had placed opposite of the cruiser
in orbit, was a beautiful pearl of blue and white, like most living planets.
The vortex pattern of a storm swirled off the southern coast of the largest
continent.  The lights of huge metropolitan complexes sparkled in the night of
the smaller continent, one which was shaped like an upside down question mark,
stretching from icecap to icecap at both poles.  And most interesting of all,
the large structures rising out of the atmosphere and into space.  There were
twelve of those objects scattered equidistant across the world, eight of them
rising from land, the rest from the oceans.

We still
don’t know what they are, she thought, her attention captured by the
magnificent objects that were over ten kilometers in diameter at the base and
almost five hundred kilometers high.  And we haven’t had a chance to ask
these people about them.

A blinking dot
appeared rising up from the east of the largest continent, and Albright zoomed
in her take to see a shuttle similar to the one their new friends had come up
in.  There were differences, but the tech level looked to be similar, which
made sense, since these creatures occupied the same planet.

“We warned them
not to attempt contact,” said the Leader of the Tsarzorians over the holo he
was on.  “They were told what would happen if they tried.”

“What are you
talking about?” asked Albright, looking at the alien leader in alarm.  “What do
you intend to do?”

The holo went
off, the contact with the Leader of Tsarzor broken before she could get an
answer, and she found herself looking at the leader of the Astronauts.  “What
will he do?”

“The situation
with Honish is, tense,” said the alien, making what looked like a shrug of his
tentacle attachments to his torso.  “We have been in conflict with them for
decades, fighting through proxies.  And sometimes more directly.”

“Perhaps we
could help you to resolve your differences,” suggested the Captain.  Because
you’ve got enough trouble coming your way without fighting each other.

“They are,
different than us.  They look different, and do not do things the way we do,”
said Nastra, her head moving in a circular motion that the Captain took as a
negative.  “And they worship a false God, and commit atrocities in the name of
that deity.”

Sounds a lot
like our own history when we were at this tech level.  Except the ones who
committed atrocities in our timeline were much more primitive than the Western
nations.

“We have more
launches, ma’am,” came the call from her tactical officer over the com.  “Two.”

“More shuttles?”

“No, ma’am.  Not
unless they have inertial compensators that we don’t know about.   Those things
are lifting at over thirty gravities, and they’re launching from an aquatic
vessel.”

“Contena is
willing to start a war,” said Nastra in a soft voice, really too low to hear,
but picked up by the translation program and amplified.

“What are those
things?” asked the Captain, slapping a hand on the table to catch the attention
of the two aliens.  “Are they targeting that shuttle?”

“Those are
interceptor missiles,” said Lamsat, looking down at the table, then up into the
eyes of Albright.  “They are made to knock down missiles that are targeting our
ships, but can hit very high altitude targets as well.”

“Tactical,” called
out the Captain.  “Target those missiles.  Take them out.”

Everyone watched
the holo with high levels of anxiety, even if the reasons were different.  The
cruiser was at action stations, with its light amp rings fully charged, each
ring’s multiple emitters drawing power from their crystal matrix battery packs,
which tapped into the matter/antimatter reactors to recharge as they were
drained.  Laser A took aim at one missile, the B ring the second, and it only
took one shot from each to spread the missiles into clouds of plasma in the
upper atmosphere.

“I want one of
our assault shuttles out right now to escort that shuttle to us,” ordered the
Captain over the com.

“Do you want us
to take out those launching platforms, ma’am?” asked the Tac Officer.

Albright looked
up to see expressions on the faces of the two Klassekians that looked like
panic.  “Those are manned vessels, I suppose?”  She could read the answer in
the faces of the aliens.  “Just take out any more missiles, Tactical,” she
ordered over the com.  “Do not hit those ships.”

Albright looked
back at the Klassekians.  “Why in the hell would your leader order that shuttle
to be fired on.”

“The Honish are
our enemies,” said Lamsat, as if that was all the answer that was needed.
Albright kept him skewered with her gaze until he spoke again.  “We have lost
many of our people to them over the last four decades.  They are fanatics.
Their God, Hrrottha, is a murderous deity, at least in their delusional minds.”

“In their
minds?”

“Of course their
God doesn’t exist,” said Nastra.  “They say the Blue Giant star, what we call
Gromor, is their God, while we know it is not a deity.  They even call it the
same name as their God, Hrrottha.”

“Even some of
our own people believe it is a God,” said Lamsat, looking over at his partner.
“They believe that an Armageddon is coming, and Gromor is the harbinger of that
apocalypse.”

“And they are
correct,” said Albright, thinking about what astrophysics had told her as they
entered this region.  “But not in the manner in which your people believe.”

Chapter Three

My greatest privilege as a member
of Exploration Command has been to make first contact with several
intelligences.  To come before them in friendship, and to see it in their
eyes.  To know that they realize they are not alone in this Universe.

Rear Admiral Nguyen van Hung.

Many people
thought aliens, those who belonged to another species, were all monolithic
cultures, and that they all looked alike.  The members of Exploration Command
knew better.  They were trained in recognizing the differences that existed in
the members of all species, as well as the cultural differences that were
obvious to a skilled observer.  And then they interacted with many members of
other species of the Empire, so they could put their training into practice.
Mandy Albright had been an explorer for over twenty-five years, and this was
not her first first contact situation.  There were obvious racial differences
between the newcomers and the people they had already been talking to, especially
when able to compare them in the same room.

The newcomers,
both males, were slightly shorter than Lamsat, but that didn’t have to be a
racial difference.  The difference in skin coloring was a dead giveaway, the
newcomers at least a couple of shades lighter than both of the Tsarzorians.
And their eyes were much rounder, and actually protruded a bit more.

And I just
wish this day would be over with, thought the Captain of the William
Clark.  It had been a very long day, over forty hours, and though her
nanites would cleanse the toxins from her system, whether she slept or not,
there was still a psychological fatigue that they couldn’t touch.  And
dealing with these people would strain the patience of a saint.

“And what have
these liars told you,” said the primary representative of the Nation of Honish.

“We did not lie
to them,” yelled Lamsat, glaring at the other male, whose name was Jerarr
H’rrana.  “We told them the truth, before you could get to them with your foul
manipulations.”

“Gentlemen,” said
Albright, holding up a hand.  “I will not have you arguing on my ship. Now,
Nazzir, I would listen to these emissaries.  You will have a chance to rebut
whatever he says.”

Lamsat looked
away, obviously wanting to say something, but holding it in.  Albright looked
back at the representative from Honish, who appeared to be an older male, and
the only one of his team to talk so far.

“Thank you,
Captain,” said H’rrana.  “We wish to establish relations with your people, and
protest that the Tsarzorians tried to monopolize this contact, to the point of
committing an act of war against my people by firing on my shuttle.”  H’rrana
glared at the enemy male for a moment before looking back at the human.  “And I
wish to thank you for saving my life when they shot those interceptors at us.
And for sending out the other craft to escort us in.”

“You are very
welcome, Representative H’rrana.  We definitely wanted to meet with your people
as well.  Because we have something very important to tell you, both of you.
And I think you will want to settle your differences and cooperate with us
after I give you this news, if you want your species to survive.”

The expressions
on the faces of all the aliens mirrored as she spoke.  Good.  They need to
be concerned, and take this seriously.

“Your close
companion star, Gromor, is going into the final stages of its life.  It’s going
to go supernova within the next couple of years.  Maybe as soon as a year.”

She could read
the shock on the face of Lamsat, despite his alien features, it was so
obvious.  “No,” stammered the Astronaut.  “It can’t be.”  The reaction of the
other alien delegate was also shocking, in a different way.

“Gromor is the
manifestation of our God, Hrrottha,” said H’rrana, a strange expression on his
face.  He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, and the curving of
his speaking orifice seemed to signify pleasure.  “This is wonderful news.  I
have told the leader of my people through my sibling of the news, and it has
greatly excited him.”

“Why do you say
it’s wonderful news?” the Captain asked the Honishan.

“It has been
prophesized for thousands of years that our God would take us into his embrace
on the day our world ends,” said H’rrana.  “Through the years his manifestation
has grown larger, and we were sure the day was coming when he would take us
into his heaven, and cast the infidels and unbelievers into hell.  This means
that we win, and our enemies lose, according to the judgment of Hrrottha.”

My God, these
people are religious fanatics, thought the Captain, wondering how she was
going to get through to them with some sense.  Wait a second.  He said he
told his leader.   She linked into the network and contacted her Com
Officer.  Has there been any signals coming to or from our guests?

No, ma’am.
Not a watt of energy has passed either way.

She looked over
at the leader of the Honish delegation.  “You said you contacted your leaders.
How?”

“Through my
siblings,” said the alien, giving her another strange look.  “We are linked by
the God.  Are you not?”  The last was said in almost a hiss, as if the alien
was shocked by the concept that an intelligent being wouldn’t be linked to
those they had shared the womb with.

“And your
people?” she asked Lamsat, ignoring the question of the Honishan.

“Yes, we are linked
with those we shared the womb with,” said the Astronaut.  “I thought it best to
hold that knowledge from you, but since this idiot has given away the game,
there is no use now.”

“Who are you
calling an idiot,” growled H’rrana, starting up from his seat.

“Sit down,”
roared the Captain, pointing at the alien.  “I will have no violence aboard my
ship.  If you want to kill each other on your planet, that’s your right.  But
not on my ship.”

“They will all
die soon enough,” said H’rrana, sitting back down slowly, his glare never
leaving the face of Lamsat, who also sank back into his seat.  “The judgment of
God is upon us.”

“Not our Gods,”
said Lamsat, looking at the Captain.  “Our Gods do not want our people
destroyed.  We too have a prophecy.  It says that a God will come from the
heavens to aid us in our hour of need.”

Lamsat closed
his primary eyes a moment, then opened them wide and looked over at H’rrana.
“Why are you fueling your missiles?”

“Because our God
is nigh,” said the alien from the other power.  “Because his judgment is upon
us, and we have nothing more to fear from you, or any other worldly power.”

“Tactical,”
called out the Captain, alarmed by the words of the Honishan.  “Do we have any
missile tracks from the planet.”  She looked again at the Honishan, who had
closed all of his eyes and was mumblings words that the translation program
could not interpret.

“Nothing,
ma’am,” said the man.

“Check their
missile fields,” called out Lamsat, his own expression anything but serene.
“They still use liquid fueled rockets, unlike us.  They have to fuel them
before launch, and we can pick up the plumes of the fueling.”

“Scan the
surface of the large continent, Tactical,” she ordered, looking at the holo of
the planet and zooming in on that land mass.

“We have missile
launches, ma’am.”

“From the large
continent?” she asked, not seeing any tracks appearing on the tactical scan.

“No, ma’am.
They're coming up from the smaller continent.  Hundreds of them.  More every
second.  And we’re picking up some sea based launches as well.  Preliminary
trajectories indicate they are all aimed at the large continent.”

“Why did you
launch first?” she asked Lamsat, staring into his eyes.  There had been remains
of civilizations discovered that had killed themselves with nuclear warfare,
but this was the first eyewitness account of it happening.  And I’m one of
those eyewitnesses, she thought in horror.

“A first strike
is our only chance of surviving this,” said the Astronaut, all of his eyes
wide.  “We’ll still get hurt, but there will be survivors.”

“Our God will
protect us,” said H’rrana in that maddeningly serene voice.  “He will not allow
our lands to be touched, while our missiles will smite the infidel.”

“More missile
launches,” called out tactical.  “These are coming up from the large
continent.  Hundreds of them.”

“What kind of
warheads are these weapons carrying?” asked Albright, turning to look at
Lamsat, having given up on getting a rational answer from the Honishan alien.

“From a hundred
kilotons to thirty megatons,” said the Astronaut, his tone betraying his
disbelief at what was happening.  “Most of our missiles have smaller warheads,
but multiples per launch platform, while theirs are mostly unitary weapons of
greater yield.”

“I have over
three thousand objects in the air, ma’am.  And more launching every second.
What do you want me to do?”

“Target those
weapons and take them out,” she shouted, watching the missiles tracks all over
the holo globe.  “Launch assault shuttles and fighters.  I want them on courses
that allow us to hit all of the weapons, including those that Clark can’t
reach.”

“Yes, ma’am,”
replied the officer, and the com went blank as that man got busy with the task
of saving a planet from nuclear destruction.

“What are you
doing?” asked H’rrana, opening his eyes and staring at the human.

“Saving you from
yourselves,” said Albright as the first of the missiles disappeared from the
plot.

“You can’t do
that,” shouted the emissary from Honish, rising from his seat, looking like he
was about to climb over the table to attack the Captain.  A large hand came
down on his shoulder, and the heavily muscled form of the Phlistaran Marine
pushed him back into his seat.

“We’ll have none
of that,” rumbled the big officer.  “You be a good boy, and just sit there until
the Captain gives you leave to get up.”

*     *     *

Clark’s main
energy battery was built around her four laser rings, two each on bow and stern
sections.  Each was a marvel of technology, their design allowing the
accumulation of multiple hundreds of gigawatts of photonic energy that bounced
around within its confines.  Each ring was fed by eight accumulators that push
photons into the structure.  The material of the ring was made of nanomaterials
that could become transparent in any part of the outer surface.  They could
also grav lens as well as any purposefully built structure, focusing a beam
that stayed tight for well over several light minutes.  And they could change
the frequency of the beam, from infrared up to gamma rays, depending on the nature
of the target.

The targeting
system of the ship could track and target over two hundred objects at the same
time, and each ring could fire up to fifty beams simultaneously.  Against the
hard targets of modern warfare a one fiftieth strength beam was not much of a
threat.  Even a missile took a several second exposure to that kind of a beam
to kill, and no modern weapon would allow contact for that period of time.  So
the ship rarely used its full targeting and multiple beam capabilities.

But these targets
were not of the same tech level as the firing ship.  They were fragile, and it
didn’t take more than a momentary contact to vaporize the warhead.  Within a
second of opening fire, Clark had hit over a hundred missiles, blasting
them apart in the upper atmosphere.  In the great majority of cases the warhead
was vaporized so quickly that the conventional explosives needed to set off the
nuke were already expanding vapor before they exploded.  In very few cases did
the actual nuclear explosion occur, and those were either very high in or above
the atmosphere.

The missiles
from Tsarzor began separating as they arced above the atmosphere, turning into
three or more tumbling objects, each falling toward their targets.  They were
more difficult targets to track, and the increasing interference in the upper
atmosphere added to the difficulty.  The sensors of the cruiser could still
find them, but it added time to the location and acquisition of each target.

“I’m not sure I
can get them all, ma’am,” said the Tactical Officer over the com.

“Keep at it,
Tactical.  If one of them hits the planet, I’ll consider it a defeat.”

“Yes, ma’am,”
said the Tac Officer, dropping off the com so he could take care of the
business in hand.  The ship’s computer was finding the targets and prioritizing
them, but human oversight was still needed in the firing procedure.

The cruiser also
carried four, six hundred ton attack fighters, and six assault shuttles.  The
fighters were heavily armed with beam weapons and antiship missiles.  Capable
of a thousand gravities acceleration, they headed off on courses that kept them
above the atmosphere and to positions where they could cover areas hidden from
the view of their launching vessel.  The shuttles had nowhere near the
armament, nor the acceleration of the fighters.  Still, they were equipped to
land Marines against armed resistance, and had the weaponry to suppress ground
fire and battle atmospheric craft.  They were not the most effective craft to
shoot down ballistic missiles with, but they were better than nothing, and
added somewhat to the effort to render the strikes harmless.

The time clicked
by, and more and more missiles and warheads were knocked out of action, while
others launched from the weapons fields of both combatants.  And then another
complication entered the equation.

“We’re picking
up ground following weapons, ma’am,” called out one of the weapons techs who
was assigned to targeting.

“Show me,” she
called out, and the holo of the planet zoomed in to a view of the surface of an
ocean, and a long object with stubby wings streaking over the waves.

“Velocity is
point two six kilometers per second, ma’am.  About nine hundred and sixty
kilometers an hour.  We think it’s intended to fly under the enemy sensor grid,
and take out targets by surprise.”

“Time to nearest
potential target?”

“About seventeen
minutes, ma’am.  We’re picking up many others with the same velocity and
similar attack times.  Do you want us to fire on them.”

Albright thought
for a moment, zooming the holo back out to look at the battle between her ship
and the ballistic missiles.  Other missiles were rising from locations around
the larger cities, from their trajectories most likely defensive weaponry made
to shoot down the incoming weapons.  And Clark’s sensors were keeping
track of them as well in case they turned out to be something completely
different.

“Hold off on
firing on the, cruise missiles, I think they were called.  We’ll take care of
them once the ballistic missiles are gone.”

“Can you get
them all?” asked Lamsat, leaning forward and watching the tracks that were
ending with rapidity, though each wave of intercepts was further along their
arc.

“We’re trying,”
said Albright, looking up at the alien, then over at the other one, who still
had an angry look on his face.  “They’re easy to kill, but there are a lot of
them.”

“Then take out
the Honish missiles,” said Lamsat, looking over at H’rrana with glaring eyes.
“They started this thing, after all.”

“You launched
first,” said H’rrana, slamming his right tentacles on the table.  “We only
responded.”  He looked over at the human.  “You need to destroy their weapons
first.”

“We only
launched because you were fueling your missiles,” screamed Lamsat, sitting up
as if he wanted to jump out of his own seat.

“We are
targeting all of your weapons, without regard for who they came from,” said
Albright, shaking her head.  And if you weren’t so potentially important to
us I would just turn my back on both of you and fly away.  She shook her
head again, knowing that last thought to be false.  She was mandated to contact
intelligent species, and part of that mandate was to help them survive.

How’s it
coming, Tactical? the Captain sent over her internal com link.

It’s going to
be close, ma’am, sent that officer.

Albright sent a
mental nod as she watched the holo.  There seemed to be fewer missiles on it
than a minute ago, despite fresh launches.  The laser emitters were providing
plenty of power from the crystal matrix batteries that fed them, while those
batteries were being continually topped off by the reactors.  In a fight with
another ship of her class, she would be going through laser power faster than
she could replenish it.  Against primitive missiles, not so much.  It didn’t
take much power to blast them from existence.  Only their numbers were causing
much of a problem.

“How many damned
weapons do you both have?” she asked in frustration, looking at the two
aliens.  She looked back at the holo and saw that there were even fewer
weapons, but the ones that were still up were closer to the territory of their
enemy.  And the low flying weapons were still up in mass, with growing numbers.

Come on,
thought Albright, watching as scores more warheads disappeared off the plot.
And no more were rising from the continents, though there were still some
submarine launches.

“Tactical,
detail someone to take out every submarine you can locate with kinetics.”

“Yes, ma’am.
We’re on it.”

“You can’t do
that,” said Lamsat in a stricken tone.  “My people are on some of those
submarines.”

“And they’re
launching weapons of mass destruction at other people on your world,” said
Albright, staring at the alien astronaut.  “Tactical,” she said again, knowing
that the aliens would hear her and relay this message to their world through
whatever telepathic sense they had.  “Target those missile fields as well.  I
don’t want them to be holding any surprises.”

All of the
aliens sat there in shock, staring at the human who had just ordered strikes on
their world.  Moments later the first of the kinetic weapons landed in the
water near the icon of a submarine that had launched weapons.  The vessel was
probably not at that point anymore, which didn’t really matter as the weapon
struck the water with the force of a multi-megaton warhead.  Any sub within ten
kilometers of that strike was gone.  There were more hits on the water, then a
bright flash as a kinetic came down on a missile field on the larger continent.

We don’t have
that many kinetics aboard, thought the Captain.  Every ship carried some,
but they really didn’t expect to use them, especially Exploration Command
ships.   KE weapons were really nothing more than masses of iron, a ton each,
with a built in single grabber that could accelerate them up enough velocity to
generate megatons of force, along with their own acceleration due to gravity.
They could always make more, but they didn’t have the time for that now.

There were more
flashes on the holo as the lasers kept taking out warheads, and kinetics
continued to strike subs and missile fields.  Then the well ran dry, and there
were no more kinetics to drop.  Albright was tempted to order missile strikes,
which could double as kinetics if launched without their warheads.  She
resisted the temptation, since, as an exploration vessel, she didn’t have that
many in her magazines to start with, and they were really the only weapons she
had for use against ships of her tech level or greater, if any came along.

“I think we’re
going to get them all,” called out the tactical officer over the com.  There
were only a couple of score weapons left, and, though the atmosphere was
roiling with explosive energy and electromagnetic radiation.  And then the
unthinkable happened, and the tactical system lost lock on one weapon, which
hurtled down on a coastal city on the larger continent.

The weapon
flared, brighter than the kinetics, and a mushroom cloud rose into the air and
into the stratosphere.  The city below the blast started to dissolve as the
blast wave moved out, following the thermal wave that set everything burnable
on fire.

“There were over
five million citizens in that city,” said H’rrana in a hollow tone.  He glared
at Lamsat, and tried to rise from his seat before the Phlistaran Marine pushed
him back.  “Your people murdered five million of our citizens.”

“In
self-defense,” yelled back Lamsat, returning the glare.

“And you,”
continued H’rrana, turning his gaze to the Captain.  “You killed thousands of
our people, with your strikes on our submarines and missile fields.  You too
are a murderer, and the blood of those people is on your hands.”

Albright
suppressed a flash of guilt and looked up to meet the eyes of the Honish
representative.  “I do not accept your guilt, H’rrana.  I saved billions of
your peoples with the actions of this ship.  If you didn’t want your people put
at risk, you shouldn’t have launched thousands of damned nukes at the
Tsazorians while my ship was in orbit about your planet.  And you,” she said,
turning toward Lamsat, “are just as guilty.”

She looked back
at the holo, to see the large mushroom cloud still rising from the nuke strike,
and the several smaller from the kinetics.  “My God.  We came here to tell you
people what danger you are in from that damned blue star, and all you can think
about is killing each other.”

She looked over
at her Marine Lieutenant, making sure she had his attention.  “Lieutenant
J’rrantar.  Would you please escort the gentlemen, and lady,” she nodded to
Nastra, “to suitable quarters.  They are our guests while we sort this
situation out.”

As soon as the
aliens were all out of the conference room Albright contacted Nagakami.  “Get
me the leaders of the two nations on the com.  I want to make sure we
understand the situation here.”  Moments later the heads of the two leaders of
Tsarzor and Honish appeared in separate holos floating above the table.  She
wasn’t sure if they could see each other, though both casts were also being
recast to the other side.  Albright took a deep breath and began the work of
diplomacy, making sure both leaders knew what was going on.

Chapter Four

It is hard to reason with a
species gone mad.

Old Brakakak saying.

“We’ve confirmed
it, Captain,” said Commander Sophia Romanov, the ship’s surgeon and
exobiologist.  “The last subject received the information from his brother as
instantaneously as to make no difference.”

And that
subject was over a light hour from his brother, who was on the planet,
thought Albright with smile.  This is something that can really help the
Empire, if these people don’t let themselves get taken out by that damned
supernova.

That was the
problem here.  While there were some who were willing to leave the planet and
go with the Terrans, there were many more who had one excuse or another for not
cooperating, and those were willing to interfere with those who wanted to go.
Point in fact was the newcast she was watching at that moment, where one of the
talking heads was telling the people of the planet that the humans were here to
kidnap them, to take them into space to labor as slaves at some diabolical
mining colony.  A second holo had a spokesman from the nation of Honish telling
his people that their God was near, and extorting them to resist any attempts
of the humans to get them to leave this world before the deity arrived.

And so much
potential here.  They had proven that the natives could communicate mind to
mind, thoughts, images, sounds, across great distances with no degradation in
the signal, and without the passage of time.  Romanov had scanned them with
both external imagers and nanotech while they were transmitting and receiving,
and had found the area of their multi-lobed brain where the ability seemed to
reside.  The kicker was that only siblings from the same birthing seemed to
have connections with each other.  Some form of quantum entanglement, where the
cells of that section of the brain shared a quantum state with the similar
cells in those of the brother or sister.

The good news
was that Klassekian females, though only capable of one or at most two
pregnancies in their lifetimes, had large litters of from six to twelve babies,
all of them connected.  And surely we can find a way to use this ability to
augment our fleet communications.  Wormholes are great, and expensive, and we
definitely will never have enough for all of our ships.  But with these people
in our com sections.

“What’s the next
step, Doctor?”

“I’d like to
take a couple of them into hyper and see if the effect works no matter the
dimension.”

“And for that,
you need to send one out to the Lewis, and let them translate into
hyper?”

“Exactly right,”
agreed Romanov.  “And I would like to test them across every dimension of
hyper.  We need to know the limitations of this thing as well as its benefits.”

“Go ahead and
set that up,” ordered the Captain.  “If you need Lewis to come in from
the hyper limit, I’ll order them in.  It’s obvious these people aren’t going to
be a threat to any of our space based assets.”  It might be a different
story on the ground.

She had people
on the planet now, over a hundred, mostly researchers and their Marine security.
About half of them were looking at the huge constructs that rose up above the
atmosphere.  They still had no idea what they were, or why they were put where
they were.  What was known was that they were impenetrable to any kind of
energy probe, and invulnerable to any kind of laser of material drill.  They
couldn’t even get an estimate of their ages.  All they knew for sure was that
they had been here since the beginning of written history on this world, and
there were legends of them that predated that history.

What in the
hell are you? thought the Captain, looking at one of the huge, curved
spikes rising out of the mountains in the center of the continent.  The view
was from the ground looking up at the structure as it rose up through the
clouds, taken from the camera of the crew that was working that site, looking
for any evidence of a construction center that might have been used in raising
it.  We’ve been here almost a month, and we still don’t know what you are.
She sat there staring at the structure, trying to will it to give up its
secrets, to no avail.  There must be a reason you are there.  No one with
the tech to build something like this is going to just put it up for
decoration.  So what are you for?

“Ma’am,” came a
call over the priority com.  “We have a situation on the planet.”

What now,
thought the Captain, looking at the source of the call, her heart skipping a
beat as she saw it was from her Security Chief.

*    *     *

Ensign Meridith
Danvers was new to service, and to Exploration Command.  Clark had been
her first assignment out of the Academy, and she was looking forward to many
voyages of exploration aboard this ship, or one like her.  Now it was looking
as if she might have reached the end of her career, and life, before either had
truly begun.

The Ensign had
thought she was safe, walking back to the shuttle on her own, not even dressed
in the light battle armor that security was wearing for this mission.  She was
not security, though she was armed with a military class laser pistol.  The
people in this city had seemed to friendly and helpful, answering all of the
team’s questions about the ancient construct that arose from the plain at the
edge of the city and swept up into the clouds.  Then there had been a slight
interuption in telemetry, and Lt. Commander Larson, the team leader, had
ordered her to check up on it, as all other hands were busy with mission
oriented tasks.

She had just
disengaged the locking protocol of the shuttle through her implant when she
became aware that there were locals closing with her.  A lot of locals.  She
just had time to send one warning squawk out and touch her hand to the butt of
her pistol when they were upon her.  She had time to throw two blows that sent
aliens to the ground, one with what looked like a broken neck.  Then something
hard slammed into her head, and everything went black.

When
semiconsciousness returned, she found herself being carried along through some
darkly lit hallways, her hands bound.  She wondered in almost panic if she would
be able to contact the ship.  It was obvious that she was not going to get
herself out of this with her own resources.  She could see one of the aliens to
her front waving her laser pistol in the air, and many of the rest seemed to be
armed with weapons that must have been taken from the shuttle.  As they reached
a branch in the tunnel most of the aliens headed away through the cross
passage, moving very quickly with that strange gait of theirs that seemed to
eat up distance as fast as a sprinting human.

Her head finally
cleared enough for an attempt at communication, she tried to raise the ship and
almost breathed out in relief as the warbling carrier wave appeared.

Help me,
she thought over her implant, sending a transmission to the ship.

Stay calm,
said the officer on the other side of that transmission.  Keep your eyes
open, so we can see what is going on.  We’re tracking your whereabouts, and
will have a response team there as soon as possible.

The Ensign, an
assistant com officer who was also assigned to Sociology/Psychology, sent a
mental nod as she forced her eyes to stay open.  She knew she had to have
suffered some brain damage from that blow to the head, which, due to its
effect, had to have been given with a very hard blunt object swung with a lot
of force.  In someone who was not protected by military grade nanite systems,
she would still be concussed, and probably sliding into a coma.  But her
systems were in the process of repairing the damage to her brain, and, while
she still felt great fatigue, and a tendency to lose her track of reality,
things were improving.

But is that a
good or bad thing? she thought, straining her hands against the plastic
restraints that were holding them together to her front.

She was hustled
through an open door which slammed shut behind her, then forced into an alien
chair that did not fit her body.  Skilled hands released her restraints, strong
arms forced her arms down to those of the chair, and she was secured in place.
Bright lights shone in her eyes, and she caught sight of the aliens standing
around her, all wearing masks to prevent their identification.

“What did you
come here for?” asked one of the larger of the creatures, a shadow in the light
shining on her.

“We came here to
help your people,” she said, her tongue feeling the strange gaps in her teeth
that the aliens had left when they struck her.  “We are here to save you from
the supernova.”

“You lie,”
hissed the alien, his masked face lowered so his eyes could stare into hers.
“You came here to destroy our culture, throw down our institutions of faith,
and eventually enslave us.  Admit it.”

“That is not
what we are here for,” she protested, crying out as a hand grasped her hair and
twisted.  “We mean you no harm.”

“Confess your
sins before us,” said another of the aliens, this one of gentle voice.  “The
God will have mercy upon you if you speak truly, and will punish you eternally
if you continue to lie.”

“It is not my
God,” she said, summoning up a bit of defiance.

“But you are on
his world, and so you are subject to his judgment.  Now tell us the truth. You
are here to enslave us, to bind us to the service of your evil kingdom.”

“Enough,” yelled
the first speaker.  “Is the cast going out?”

“It is,” said
another alien, this one with what looked like a camera pointed her way.

The leader drew
a long sword from its sheath and moved it into a position even with her neck.

We’re coming,
Danvers, said the voice of the security officer in her head.  Delay
them, somehow.

“Wait,” shouted
the Ensign.  “If you spare me, I’ll confess.”

The room shook
at that moment, and the leader glared at her, then drew his sword back.  It
blurred forward, and the last thing she felt was the razor edge striking her
neck.  She saw the room spinning, and wondered what was going on, until her
body came into view, the stump of her neck spurting blood into the air.  She
tried to scream, but there were no lungs attached to the severed head, and her
lips worked slowly as it hit the ground and rolled.  The world started going
dark, and she was gone.

A moment later
the door and part of the wall erupted inward, the powerful particle beam eating
through tough plastic and stone like it was thin spider webbing.

*     *     *

Gunnery Sergeant
Jack Hawks, Imperial Marine Corps, was the first through the door that his
particle beam had blown to splinters.  He was dressed in heavy combat armor, a
ton of alloy and electronics.  It had been a tight fit through the passageway
to this point.  In fact, the passage had only allowed the Marines to approach in
single file.  Still, the stealth outfits on the suits had worked perfectly,
hiding the massive suits both visually and electronically, getting them to this
door unseen, except by the few outlying sentries who had been silenced before
they could raise the alarm.

The battle armor
scraped the stone of the doorway, breaking off a piece here and there where the
width of the suit was greater than the entry.  Hawks aimed with his particle
beam rifle from the hip, the weapon’s sight projecting an image onto his HUD.
He cringed as he saw the state of the Ensign’s body on the chair.  Her torso
and the top of the chair had been vaporized, as had most of one of her captors.

Bullets bounced
from his armor with a rattle, a few striking his faceplate to shatter into small
pieces of lead and alloy.  He swung his rifle and sent off a quick burst that
took out a pair of aliens, dropping what was left of their bodies to the
floor.  The Sergeant took a couple of steps into the room and fired once again,
taking out another alien.  Sense seemed to take over the others, and the
remaining four dropped their weapons to the floor.

Hawk swept the
room with his suit sensors, stopping on the severed head of Ensign Danvers
laying on the floor.

“Medic,” he
yelled into his com link, as another Marine came into the room behind him.  “We
need a medic here, right now.”

It only took
moments for the Naval rating to get there, wearing the medium combat armor that
the Fleet favored for shipboard duty.  The woman knelt down by the severed
head, looking it over quickly, pulling out a cryo bag and arranging it on the
floor, then placing the head into the bag and pulling the tab that ordered the
container to shrink to the size of the object it was holding.  Instantaneously
the container dropped its internal temperature to a hundred degrees below
freezing.

“Are you going
to preserve the body as well?” asked the Sergeant, pointing toward the remains
in the chair.

The Medic
hurried over and ran her scanners over the lower torso and the legs.  After a
moment she shook her head.  “There aren’t enough living cells here to bother
with.  It will have to be a complete rebuild from the head.”

And that will
take a good four months of regrowth, thought the Gunny, just happy that the
person they had come to rescue was at least to be listed among the recoverable
dead.  He looked over at the aliens they had captured, standing under the guns
of several of his men.

“We’ve got her,
LT,” he sent over the com while the Medic secured the container that held all
that was now the Ensign.  “Tell the Old Lady that we got her.”

*     *     *

What an awful
ordeal she went through, thought Captain Albright, as she wondered what it
must have been like to have her head taken off.  She’s going to have
nightmares for the rest of her life, if she doesn’t opt for a selective mind
wipe.  But that would, of course, be the Ensign’s choice.  Only people
given certain sentences by the courts could be wiped against their will.  But
she didn’t see why the young woman, once she was back in the realm of the
living, would elect to keep memories like those.

“That’s the good
news, ma’am,” said Lt. J’rrantar, standing in the holo in his singular battle
armor.  The huge Phlistaran’s faceplate was raised, and his toothy snout was
set in a grimace.

“And the bad?”

“The aborigines
stole all of the ready weapons in the shuttle,” said the Marine Officer.
“Thirty-three particle beam rifles, a pair of heavy crew served lasers, and a
good dozen shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile launchers.  Those are what I
worry about the most, ma’am.  They could use them to knock down a couple of
shuttles if they employ them carefully.”

“Will they know
how to use them?” asked the Captain, her brow furrowing in worry.  “They have
to be a thousand years or more advanced on their tech level.”

“They have
shoulder fired missiles,” said the Marine, shaking his large head.  “They’ll
figure them out.  And, even worse, some of the units have holographic manuals
built in.”

“Any chance of
finding them?”

“We’ll may pick
up something when they’re activated,” said the Lieutenant.  “But remember, we
built them to be hard to track in combat.  Not impossible.  They will have an
electronic signature that will be traceable for several hundred meters.  We
just have to be within those couple of hundred meters.”

“And their
range?”

“They can hit a
target they are in line of sight of at five hundred kilometers,” said
J’rrantar.  “Maybe further with some luck.”

Bad luck for
us, thought the Captain, imagining her shuttles being knocked from the sky
by one of the fanatical aliens that were opposing her people’s efforts to save
them.

“I want every
weapon we have to have a tracer placed in it,” she finally said after a
moment’s thought.  “I know that defeats the purpose of all the electronic
stealth we have built into them, but I’m more concerned about them being stolen
than their giving us away in combat with these people.”

“Yes, ma’am,”
said the Marine, nodding.  “Any other precautions you want us to take?”

She thought
again about one of the shuttles, hit with a hyper velocity missile that blew
through the hull, or ripped off a wing and its grabber units.  “From now on,
all personnel are to be in full battle armor, at least medium suits, at all
times to and from the planet, and whenever there is a possibility of contact
with the aliens.  That includes helmets on at all times.  Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,”
said the Marine crisply, snapping to attention.

“I will not have
my people be easy targets for the fanatics among these people,” she said with
finality, then cut the transmission.  And I will be damned glad when some
support comes, she thought.

She was limited
in the number of personnel she had.  Each light cruiser had just under seven
hundred and fifty crewmembers, Spacers and Marines.  Almost all of the Marines
from the Clark were on the planet, with the remainder, a couple of
squads, on-board as a ready reserve.  She also had over a hundred Spacers,
officers and enlisted, on the planet, more than she would normally deploy for
the initial surveys this kind of ship was intended to conduct.  Lewis had
also put a similar number of crew on the planet, just before she headed off on
her own mission to the blue supergiant.  Both ships could still operate very
well with such reductions in on-board personnel.  Unfortunately, as shown by
this incident, the Imperials needed more boots on the ground.

“Message coming
in from Zzarr, ma’am,” came the call from her Com Officer over the link.  “Do
you want to take it?”

“Not really,”
said Albright, grimacing at the thought of talking with the leader of the
Honish.  While the Tsarzor had been giving her problems, they were nothing as
compared to the fanaticism of their enemies.  And I bet when we get those
people we captured to talk, they’ll have a connection to the bastard’s country.
“Put him on, anyway.”

The glaring face
of the Premier, really the dictator, of the Nation of Honish, looked out at her
from the holo.  They had given the native leaders com sets that allowed them to
send and receive holos.  The units were black boxes that couldn’t be tampered
with without causing a meltdown of all the molycircs on board.

“How dare you
kill the people of my nation, Captain Albright,” growled the alien, primary and
secondary eyes all locked onto hers.  “What gives you the right to do so?”

“Your, people,
kidnapped and decapitated an officer under my command,” said Albright,
returning the glare.  “Under interstellar law, that gives me the legal
authority to kill or capture the perpetrators.  And I have a question for you,
Premier.  Did these people act on your orders?”

“That’s a
preposterous allegation,” said the alien, his glare growing even more intense,
if that was possible.  “I resent what you imply, Captain.”

And of course
your people will not know from whence the orders originated, she thought.  You’re
too smart for that.

“I order all of
your people off of my territory, Captain Albright,” continued the Dictator.
“You have one day to remove them, or my military and police forces will remove
them.”

“I would not
advise that, Premiere,” said the Captain in a low voice.  “You know we have the
firepower to keep you from doing that.”

“And how will
you use this, firepower?” asked the Dictator.  “I do not believe you will hit
us with kinetics or nuclear weapons.  That is not your way.  Your way is that
of a soft people.”

“Believe what
you want, Premiere.  But be assured that we will not allow you to use force
against us without our complete and total resistance, with every means at our
disposal.  And you also might see to it that the weapons that were taken from
my shuttle are returned.”

“I had nothing
to do with that,” said the Dictator, his tentacles waving in the way of his
people, like a human shoulder shrug.  “You seem to labor under the
misconception that I have complete control over all the supplicants of the
religion I adhere to.  Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“We will defend
ourselves against those weapons,” said Albright, pointing a finger at the
Dictator.  “By any means possible.  You might want to remember that, before
your people try to take out any of my assets.”

With a thought
over her link she killed the transmission, feeling a small surge of victory as
the last thing she saw was the Dictator opening his speaking orifice to fire
back at her.  What the hell is wrong with these people? she thought.  We’re
here trying to save them, or at least as many as we can get out of here with
our limited resources.  Can’t they see that?

Unfortunately,
the religion of the Honish, the worship of their God, Hrrotha, of which the
blue supergiant was the physical manifestation, called for them to accept the
fate their deity had proclaimed for them. They looked forward to the end of
their race, believing that they would all awaken in the heaven of their God.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, they also rejected the idea that anyone of their
race should survive, not just the relatively few nonbelievers of their own
land, but those of all other nations.

We could
probably just get away with taking the volunteers from Tsarzor and the other
nations.  But I really want to get some of the Honish away as well, if they
would let me.

She thought
again about the relief she had sent for.  The hyper VII courier would take at
least three weeks to get back to Exploration Command base.  Depending on what
was available, relief could head out in two or three days after the arrival of
the courier.  How soon they got here would depend on what they sent.  Hyper VII
would arrive in three weeks or less.  Ships with a VI hyperdrive would take
four times as long.

It had been planned
to replace all the current Exploration Command ships with hyper VII vessels,
due to the huge volume of space they operated in.  The war with the Ca’cadasans
had sidelined those plans.  They had some VII vessels, and were receiving a
trickle of new ones, but the need for ships to match that of their enemy, which
were all hyper VII, had sucked most of the new ships out of the Exploration
Command pipeline.

And if it
wasn’t for the damned war, we could do so much more here, she thought,
looking at the holo that showed a large scale representation of this section of
the Perseus Arm.  They could have rallied a true rescue mission, thousands of
ships lifting most of the population of this world and relocating them to safe
planets.  And that damned time bomb keeps ticking away.  How long do we
have?  I guess that Lewis will give us that answer.

Chapter Five

A supernova is probably the most
interesting thing in this Universe that can kill you.

Dr. Larry Southard.

JULY 15TH, 1000.
D-355.

“I really don’t
like getting so close to this thing, Captain,” said Commander Stephanie
Harrison, the Exec of the LC Merriwether Lewis.

“You and me
both, Ms. Harrison,” agreed Captain Walther Huang, staring at the holo of the
bright blue ball that was centered within the viewer.

From a distance
it had looked so peaceful.  From their current vantage of thirteen light
minutes, with the star on high magnification, it looked anything but.  Huge
prominences rose from the star, arcing millions of kilometers out into space
to, mostly, fall back onto the surface of the stellar body in great splashes
that could swallow scores of Jovian worlds.  Each flare would have totally
destroyed a terrestrial world  that got in its way.  But there were no worlds
that close in to the star.  The few planets it had were further out, the
closest over a hundred million kilometers, and entirely covered in either
molten rock or superhot gas.  None of those worlds would be given a chance to
cool, to become something of use to the intelligent species of the Galaxy.

“The star masses
approximately twenty eight Sols,” stated Lt. Commander Christi M’tumbo from her
sensor station, using the term for stellar mass based on that of the sun that
mankind had evolved near.  “Running close in spectrograph now.”

The Captain
nodded as he looked at the tactical holo.  Their own ship sat at over two
hundred and forty million kilometers from the surface of the inferno,
electromag shields on full, the supermetal radiator surfaces facing away from
the star radiating furiously, trying to relieve the ship of the heat being
sucked in from the superhot body.  And in closer, at one hundred million
kilometers, arranged in an equidistant formation around the periphery of the
stars, blinked the icons of the probes Lewis had deployed.

“Data coming in
and correlating now,” stated the Sensor Officer.  “The star is definitely into
the last stages of carbon burning.  Program estimates neon burning will
commence in four months.”

“We need a
better name than ‘the star’ for this thing,” said the Captain, looking at the
numbers coming up on his side holo from the sensor station.

“How about Big
Bastard,” suggested the XO.  “It fits,” she continued as the Captain sent
her a questioning glance.  “It’s certainly big, and it’s going to be a bastard
when it blows.”

“OK,” said the
Captain with a smile.  “Big Bastard it is.”

“The star, I
mean Big Bastard,” said M’tumbo with an embarrassed smile, “will start
burning oxygen in seven months.  Silicon four months after.  The core will
start accumulating iron in approximately three hundred and fifty days.”

“And then she
blows,” said the Exec in a hushed voice.

And then she
blows, agreed the Captain in his thoughts.  And six months later the
radiation wave strikes a world with billions of sentient inhabitants and wipes
them out.  The Captain shook his head at the thought.  If it had been a
time of peace, the Empire might have been able to rally an effort that would
have save most of that population.  But, engaged as they were in a war of
survival, they just didn’t have the resources to spare.  We might get out a
couple of million, out of what?  Six billion plus.

“Sir,” said
M’tumbo, excitement in her voice.  “I have an anomaly here.  Make that several
of them.”

The Captain
walked quickly over to her station to look down on the holo.  There was an
object there, almost completely black against the background fury of the star.
And nothing to give it scale.

The Sensor
Officer adjusted to take, lowering the background brightness, firming up the
image.  What appeared was a globe with numerous spiked projections on its
surface.  He looked over at the tactical holo, finding a dozen of the objects
arranged around Big Bastard, sitting about sixty million kilometers from the
roiling surface.

“How big is that
thing?” asked the Captain as M’tumbo started sending radar and lidar beams
toward it.

“It will take
about eight point eight minutes for a return,” stated M’tumbo, looking up at
her Captain.

“It takes what
it takes,” agreed Huang, staring at the object, trying to will the information
to appear sooner than allowed by the laws of physics.  That never works,
thought the Captain, a natural explorer who wanted to know, and know now.

“Getting the
feed from active sensors now,” said M’tumbo as the information started
scrolling across a screen at her station.  She hit a panel, and the info
appeared on the main holo.

That big,
thought the Captain in surprise.  Not the biggest thing in the known
Universe.  That would have to be the Donut.  But big enough.

Each of the
objects was over fifty kilometers in diameter.  Except for the protrusions, the
surface was completely featureless.  With one exception.

“Is that what I
think it is?”

“It does look
like an opening, sir,” agreed the Sensor Officer.  “Most probably to some kind
of a hangar.”

“It looks big
enough for the Lewis to enter,” said the Exec from CIC.

“I want a team
to go to the nearest structure and check it out,” said the Captain, looking at
the object.  Which could contain tech we desperately need.  “Pick the
people, and let’s get a look at this thing.”

*     *     *

Lt. Commander
Chadrick Balasubramanian kept his eyes focused on the viewer as the shuttle was
on final approach to the artifact.  Commander
Bala, as he was known to the engineering crew, was the obvious fit for
commanding his mission, with his specialty in engineering, and degrees in the
mechanical and electrical aspects of the discipline.  Add to that an interest
in ancient civilizations, and he was perfect for this mission.

But I sure
don’t like getting this close to this furnace, he thought, his eyes taking
in the bloated form of the blue giant that back dropped the structure.  He knew
it wasn’t supposed to blow for about a year.  Intellectually he knew that.  But
deep down in his lower animal emotions he cringed with terror that the stellar
furnace might blow at any minute, converting all that he was to glowing atoms
tossed about on the supernova wind.

“It’s damned hot
already,” said Warrant Officer First Debra Conner, the pilot of the shuttle.
“Big Bastard is really putting out the ergs.  I can’t wait till we’re in the
shadow of that thing.”

“Won’t make any
difference,” said Bala, shaking his head.  “The whole object has to be hotter
than hell, if it’s sat out here for as long as we think it has.”

“Temperature
readings on the outer surface of the object put it at four degrees above
absolute zero,” said the Pilot with a smile.

“That’s
impossible,” said Bala, looking to his own screen to verify what she had said.
Unless it’s real.  He thought over what he knew about thermodynamics.
The star had been pumping heat into that object for how long?  Thousands of
years?  Enough time to raise the temperature of the entire object to tens of
thousands of degrees.  Even if the surface away from the stars was made of
supermetal radiators, the temperature coming off of it would still be in the
tens of thousands of degrees.  But it was just above the ambient temperature of
the space between the stars.

“So we might
just freeze to death,” he said aloud, mostly talking to himself.  “Wonderful.”

Actually, it was
not as bad as burning to death when the heat of the star overwhelmed the
cooling systems of the battle armor suits.  A frozen body could actually be
reanimated with nanotech.  A body reduced to ash could not.  Still, his mission
parameters called for checking out anything unusual, on an object that was
unusual in its own right.

“Let’s see
what’s in there,” he told his Pilot.  “Get us into the shadow of the object,
and we’ll send a probe in to check it out.”

It took some
minutes for a slow approach to the object.  When they had entered its shadow
the shuttle began to lose heat at a prodigious rate through its own supermetal
radiators.  One of the true wonders of modern tech, supermetals were a series
of elements high up on the periodic table, inhabiting an island of stability
among neighbors that only lasted in the microseconds before decaying to lesser
substances.  But the supers, s-iron, s-gold and s-platinum, had half lives in
the hundreds of years, and had the wondrous properties of being super
superconductors of all forms of energy.  They made possible the inertial
compensators that allowed fragile beings to travel in vessels accelerating at
multiple hundreds of gravities, converting inertia to heat, then radiating it
out into space at an almost unbelievable rate. And, since they had to be made
in industrial processes that used up entire moons and planets as heat sinks,
there was never enough of them for every need.  But there were enough in this
shuttle to let it quickly download heat into an environment that was much
colder than the vessel.

“Launching
probe, now,” called out Conner, hitting a lit up panel on her board.

The probe, a
meter long robotic craft bristling with sensors, dropped from the open bay of
the shuttle and boosted at a gentle ten gravities toward the entrance of the
object.  Halfway there it reversed its drive, until it floated to a stop just
outside the opening, its passive sensors questing for every bit of information
they could find.

“There’s no
appreciable energy being radiated by the object,” said Conner, watching the
take from the probe on multiple holos.  “Heat just above absolute zero, five
Kelvin.”

“Go to actives,”
ordered Bala.  “I want to see what’s in there before I let the probe poke its
nose into whatever’s waiting.”

Conner nodded
and sent the commands to the probe.  Images started to form on the holos as the
takes from lidar and radar came back.  But they were very distorted images,
without the clarity one would expect from active sensors.  “Something seems to
be absorbing most of the active sensors’ energy,” said Conner, adjusting the
gain.

“Send it in,”
ordered the Commander.  “We’ll see what its visual sensors can tell us.”

Conner nodded
again, then maneuvered the probe inward with a small joystick set on her
board.  Its cameras could see in all spectrums, but it was also radiating
energy out on all those spectrums to give its sensors something to see by.

The opening was
about four hundred meters wide, and extended into the object at least two
kilometers uninterrupted.  At the end it widened somewhat, forming a round
chamber two kilometers in circumference.  A featureless round chamber, as far
as any of the returns from the probe could indicate.

“Move it around
the chamber,” ordered Bala.

Conner began moving
the probe around, getting with ten meters of the wall, then moving around,
active sensors on full.

“What are we
looking for?” asked the Pilot.

“An opening,”
replied Bala.  “Of any kind.”

Conner grunted
and set the probe on a search pattern that would cover every surface of the
chamber, eventually.  Bala sat and waited in his own seat, watching as the
probe covered square meter after square meter of the surface.

“I think we have
something here,” said Conner, as the probe stopped in front of a wall section
that looked no different than any other.  “Look here,” said Conner, zooming in
the holo.  “The consistency of this line here is slightly different.  Like a
nanoseal.”  The line went upward for a couple of meters, then took a right
turn.

Bala nodded. He was
familiar with nanoseals, which were widely used in Imperial tech.  Where there
was a door, the added strength of nanites sealing the materials of the hatch
and surrounding hull made it almost one piece.  The nanites could open the
bonds in an instant when wanted or needed, making the door seem to appear out
of nowhere while opening quickly.  It was also used to make armored suits much
more internally sturdy, eliminating the weakness of seams.  And it seemed that
the aliens used a similar process.

“Try different
forms of radiation into that area,” ordered the Assistant Engineer.  “Send it
in varying patterns, and let’s see if we can get this thing to open up.”

They tried that
for almost twenty minutes before something happened.

“Something is
impacting on the probe, sir,” said Conner, punching some lighted panels on her
board.

“What kind of
something?”

“Energy all
across the spectrum, being beamed into the probe from several sources around
the surface of the chamber.  A lot of radio waves.”  The Pilot hit another
panel and the sound of the waves filled the cockpit.

“Can you
translate it?” asked Bala.

“I can’t even
figure out the algorithm they're using for their signal.  Without that, they
could be sending a full tridee movie, and I wouldn’t know.  But if I had to
guess, they’re trying to warn us away.”

“I want to see
inside this thing, so I’m going to ignore that warning,” said Bala, his
curiosity getting the better of him.  “I want a full power laser along that
line.  If we can’t burn through, at least we should be able to generate some
outgasing we can collect for sampling.”

“Are you sure,
sir?” asked the Pilot, giving the Engineer a nervous look.

“I’m sure.  Now
do it.”

Conner nodded
and punched in the commands for the probe.  They were close enough to the
object that there was no appreciable delay in the probe receiving the command,
or in their getting its take.  “Probe laser is impacting the line,” said
Conner, even though there was really nothing to see.  Which in and of itself
was notable, since any metal gas coming off the target would have made the beam
visible.

“Increasing
power,” said Conner, looking back at her leader to see if he might change his
mind.  “At full power.”

“Run through
different frequencies,” order Bala.  It’s like those constructs on the
planet.  We haven’t been able to touch them with anything we have.  But they
also didn’t react to us at all while we were trying to get samples.

The holo died,
and Bala gave Conner a questioning look.

“We’re not
getting any signal from the probe, sir,” she said, checking all of her links,
sending new commands to the probe.  “Nothing.  If I had to guess, the probe is
no longer intact.  It warned us, we ignored it, and it took action.”

“Send in the
other probe,” said Bala after a moment’s thought.

“You sure you
want to do that, sir?”

“Do it.  We’ll
just observe this time around, and see if it will let us stay if we mind our
manners.”

Conner launched
the second probe, and they watched as it went through the entire approach
process and disappeared into the object.  And then the signal died.

“I would say
that we are no longer welcome, sir,” she told the Engineer.

Bala cursed
under his breath and stared at the large object, whose purpose he was no closer
to figuring out than when he first saw it.  “Gather as much information as you
can on passives for the next twenty minutes, then take us back to the Lewis.”

“Only passives,
sir?”

“I don’t want to
piss it off anymore.  I may be impatient at times, but my momma didn’t raise an
idiot.”

Chapter Six

Sometimes we find things in our
explorations that make us sit up and think.  We believe we’re the big dogs in
space, but sometimes something comes along to prove us wrong.

Captain Stafford Singh,
Exploration Command.

SEPTEMBER 5TH, 1000.
D-304.

So, what’s
the connection between those big constructs in orbit around Big Bastard
and the things on the planet, thought Captain Albright.  She knew there had
to be one.  Otherwise, it would be the most unlikely coincidence in the history
of space exploration.  Both were large, both seemed to be all but
indestructible, and the same number of objects occupied both locations.  And
we don’t have a clue as to what they do.

She pushed that
thought away, something that she wanted to spend more time on, to work on a
subject that was not close to her heart.  Dealing with these damned
natives.  I almost wish we could just boost out of here and leave them to their
own devices.  But that was not an option.  Her directives were clear.  The
primary purpose of the command was to explore, to discover, to advance science,
to advance the Empire.  But running a strong second was the directive of to
help other alien races in need.  And one about to be wiped out by a nearby
supernova was definitely one in need.

Just their
bad luck that their primary got caught up in the gravity of the blue giant five
thousand years ago.  Her historians had been looking over the records of
the Klassekians.  The blue star had appeared in the sky about five thousand
years before, when the first civilizations on the planet had started on the
road of astronomical observation.  The blue approached and swung the primary
into a far orbit of between six and eight light months.  Not enough to endanger
the primary in the short term, but not allowing it to escape either.  It was just
their fate to be pulled along behind a ticking time bomb.

And these
damned fools just won’t cooperate, and I don’t have enough people to do
everything I need to do to start their evacuation.  She looked at a report
on her holo from her com section, detailing the increase in broadcasts calling
for the eviction of the humans.  Rumors abounded that the Imperials were here
to kidnap their people, to use them for some unknown project involving
dangerous labor, or for biological experiments.  Hysterical stuff.

“Ma’am,” came
the call over the com.  “We’re picking up hyper translations from VII down to
VI.  Two objects in the eight million ton range, and three much smaller.”

“Resonances?”

“They’re ours,
ma’am.  No doubt about it.  ETA to normal space, three and a half hours.”

After a moment’s
thought the Captain switched the link to her com officer

“OK,” said
Albright.  “I’m going to compose a message for whomever is in charge of that
force.  I want it sent out on grav pulse as soon as possible.  Then send all of
my logs to them timed to get there as soon after they translate down as
possible.”

Maybe once
they know what we have here, we’ll get some more aid.  Enough to get the
majority of the population of this world to safety?  Maybe, but if not, enough
aid to get a significant number of them away.

*     *     *

Five objects
erupted from hyperspace less than a light minute outside of the barrier around
the star.  All were coasting in at point two c, the maximum velocity they were
capable of translating to and from hyperspace.  Three of the vessels, two
battle cruisers and a destroyer, started accelerating as soon as they were in
normal space, over five hundred gravities, set on a least time arrival at the
inhabited planet.  The two smallest vessels, a pair of couriers, put on six
hundred gravities deceleration, obviously planning on coming to a stop, then
retreating back beyond the barrier, where they would be ready to haul a message
from the force commander back to base.

Minutes after
the ships left hyper the grav pulse message arrived.  Gravitons, unlike any
other form of radiation, traveled in all dimensions of space, normal, hyper and
sub, simultaneously.  They made their presence known to ships that could detect
them in hyper VIII over a hundred thousand times faster than light speed
signals in normal space.  Unfortunately, grav pulse was an exceedingly slow way
to transmit information.  The pulses were a code, much like old style Morse,
and it took over a second for the transmitter to generate each note of the signal.
The long paragraph that Albright had ordered sent took almost eight minutes.
Minutes later the first packet of the light speed transmission from the light
cruiser Clark arrived, picked up by the com of both alert battle
cruisers.  It was a burst transmission, several hundred gigabytes per second,
including high definition three dimensional images.  It still took over a half
an hour for all of the reports to be transmitted.

Moments after
the last of the report arrived, a signal was sent to one of the couriers, which
was still furiously decelerating prior to heading back out.  Within a half an
hour the couriers were at a dead stop, then accelerating back out.  Thirty
minutes later one of the couriers was translating back into hyper, starting the
long voyage back to the nearest Exploration Command base.

“We’re receiving
a grav pulse transmission from the flagship, ma’am,” said the Com Officer,
turning to look at the Captain.

Albright was
sitting in her bridge chair, looking at the central holo tank, configured to a
tactical representation of the system. Clark sat in a close orbit about
the planet, Lewis, now back in the system, in a much further
orbit, while the two battle cruisers and the destroyer were accelerating
inward.

“They identify
themselves as battle cruiser division 1430, HIMS Boudeuse and HIMS
Challenger, accompanied by DD Argonaut,” reported the Com Officer.
“Rear Admiral Nguyen Van Hung commanding.”

A rear
admiral, thought the Captain, bringing up the record of the flag officer on
her repeater screen.  Admiral Nguyen’s face looked out of the screen, of
obvious Asian genealogy, by the name Vietnamese.  She had never worked with the
Admiral before, and was somewhat surprised that a commodore or senior captain
wasn’t commanding.  Which meant that someone at the base took the situation
very seriously, even without knowing about the singular abilities of the
sophonts.

“Light speed
transmission to follow,” continued the Com Officer.

Albright looked
over the Admiral’s record, noting that he had degrees in both biology and
chemistry, and quite the record as an explorer.  Four first contact situations,
and commendations from the Emperor himself, which had been Augustine at the
time, for his skills as a diplomat.  It looked like they had lucked out with
this flag officer being assigned to this mission.

It took several
hours for that light speed message to arrive, and Albright found herself
looking at the now animated face of the Exploration Command Rear Admiral.

“I’ve looked
over your reports,” said Nguyen.  “I think we really have something here.  I
would like to meet with you on Boudeuse as soon as we get into orbit.
Nguyen out.”

“Not really one
for words, is he?” asked Sekumbe, the Exec, from the compound down in Tsarzor,
where he had received a copy of the transmission.

“I’m sure he
wants to have a conversation that doesn’t involve long periods of silence,”
said Albright with a grin.  “I for one am very glad to see him.  And all of
those Spacers and Marines with him.”

“Me too,”
admitted the Exec.  “I kinda hate having to send out research teams without
enough security.  And forget about our people leaving the compound in Honish,
or any of those flyspeck nations that border them.  Damned fanatics.”

Albright
nodded.  There had been scores of incidents since the decapitation of her
ensign.  None of her people had been killed in any of the attacks, though there
had been some serious injuries that required tanking the crew people.  And
there had been significant equipment damage. I’m surprised they could find
ways to hurt our stuff at their tech level, she thought.  But I guess it
doesn’t take much more than ingenuity to make effective explosive devices.

“I wonder how
those fanatics in Honish are going to react when they see those battle cruisers
enter orbit?” asked Sekumbe.

“I would give
just about anything to see his face when that happens, said the Captain with a
smile, thinking of the Premier.

*     *     *

What have the
devils brought to our world now? thought Zzarr, looking at the viewer that
showed the massive ship in orbit around his world.  It is almost
incomprehensible that they could put something that large into space.

Unlike most of
his kind, Zzarr did not have the wisdom of his siblings to chime in.   He had
come to power partially through the elimination of those brothers.  He was sure
that whatever he planned was only in his mind.  What others knew of his
thoughts was restricted to what he told them.

There must be
thousands on each of those things, and now we will have thousands of the aliens
on our sacred soil.  This must not be.  But there was really nothing he
could do to them up there in orbit.  His nation had expended all of its ICBMs
on the strike that the smaller alien ship had thwarted.  He still had nukes,
but no way to get them into orbit.  But once they are on the ground, that’s
another matter.  He would make sure that they took none of his people away
from their fate, against the wishes of Hrrottha.  And it was also the God’s
wish that the infidels of Tsarzor, and all the other nonbelievers, suffer their
fate as well.  Hrrottha had a place in hell waiting for them, and he did not
want the God to be disappointed.

“Summon my
military commanders,” he said into the intercom after he had pushed the
switch.  We have much to discuss.  He wasn’t sure that his military
could stand up to the aliens in a fight, but his people were past masters if
hidden warfare, such as they trained other peoples in to resist the
Tsarzorians.  He was sure he could hurt them.  Maybe even enough to make them
leave this world, and leave the fate of its people in the hands of God.

*     *     *

“William
Clark arriving,” announced the Officer of the Day, the officer charged with
the scheduling of departures and arrivals from the battle cruiser Boudeuse.

“Permission to
come aboard, sir?” asked Captain Mandy Albright, rendering a hand salute.

“Permission
granted, ma’am,” replied the OOD, returning the salute.

Mandy turned and
saluted the banner of the ship that was hanging on the wall, then did a slow
turn to look at the boat bay, one of four on the vessel, each capable of
hangaring more ships than both of the light cruisers combined under her
command.  A half dozen assault shuttles sat in their cradles, along with ten
smaller general purpose craft.  Halfway through the turn she saw the large
hatchway her shuttle had passed through, seemingly open to space.  The slight
shimmer of the cold plasma, held in place by a strong electromag field, kept
the air enclosed in the compartment. When flight operations were suspended the
armored hatch would be closed, giving the compartment almost as much protection
as the hull afforded the rest of the ship.

“Captain
Albright,” said a tall, slender man wearing the insignia of a captain as well,
bright teeth shining out of an ebony face.  “I’m Captain Joshua Jackson,
Admiral Nguyen’s flag captain. Welcome aboard the Boudeuse.”

“Thank you,
sir,” replied Mandy, holding out her hand.  Technically, she was of equal rank
with the other captain, but he commanded a capital ship, and she only a
cruiser.  “Let me introduce my executive officer, Commander Nord Sekumbe.  And
this is my Marine commander, Lt. J’rrantar.”

Jackson shook
hands with the other officers, looking up at the Phlistaran Marine as he
clasped that being’s great paw.

“First time
aboard a battle cruiser, Captain Albright?” asked the other Captain, obviously
in reference to her star struck appearance while she had surveyed the hangar.

“I served aboard
the Golden Hind as tactical officer,” said Mandy, shaking her head.  “I
had just forgotten how, big, everything was.”

Jackson laughed,
then gestured toward the hatch leading inwards.  “The Admiral is waiting for
you in the flag conference room.  If you would follow me.”

With high speed
lifts it was not a long trip, even if they did traverse almost a kilometer
horizontal, and several hundred meters vertical to get there.  The doors to the
conference room slid open as she approached, and she sighted the Admiral
sitting at the head of the table as soon as she entered.  Snapping to
attention, she rendered a perfect salute.

“Captain Mandy
Albright, reporting as ordered, sir.”

Nguyen returned
the salute while remaining seated.  “At ease, Captain.  I really don’t stand on
all the spit and polish BS of the Fleet.  Go ahead and take your seats, and my
steward will ask what you want as far as refreshments.

Mandy nodded,
then took the seat that had a blinking cursor over it in her implant generated
overlay.  She asked the steward for a coffee and some croissant, then turned
her attention to the Admiral.

“I read as much
of your reports as I could on the way in,” said Nguyen, looking over at another
of his officers, a statuesque redhead.  “Commander Bergland here, my staff
intelligence officer, also read some other sections, and has advised me on her
impressions.  Commander.”

“First, I must
say, Captain,” stated the Commander.  “You have done as well as could be
expected with your limited resources.  But we need to mobilize a much greater
response if the Empire is going to take advantage of this resource.”

“Resource?”

“Yes, Captain,”
said the Admiral.  “Resource.  Of course we do not want this species to go
extinct, and the Command has an obligation to make sure their genotype does not
die out.  But this, telepathy of theirs.  This could be a game changer.”

“It’s not really
telepathy, sir,” said Sekumbe.  “It only works between siblings from the same
birthing.  It’s like before the separation process, while the siblings are
still only one being, an entanglement occurs in one piece of neural tissue,
which then separates when the brains pull apart in the individuation process
about the fourth month of the pregnancy.”

“Excuse me,
Commander,” said the Admiral.  “The explanation is all well and good, and I’m
sure we’ll have many biologists assigned to this phenomenon.  But it acts like
telepathy, for all intents and purposes.  And I, for one, can think of a lot of
uses for that kind of ability.”

“I thought the
wormholes were giving us instantaneous com, sir,” said Albright, pulling on an
ear as she thought about what the Admiral had just said.  Not that she hadn’t
thought it herself, but she had tried not to get too excited about the
prospect.

“The problem
with the wormholes, Captain Albright,” said Captain Susan Lee, Nguyen’s Chief
of Staff, walking into the room, “is that we only have one station that
generates them.  They can make about two dozen a day, or about eighty-seven
hundred a year.  And all of that is spread among ships, planets, bases, more
places than we can possibly service with wormholes.  Especially as the Fleet
itself has over a hundred thousand major vessels in service.  Add in five
thousand inhabited planets of developing rank or above, the ships of our
allies, and the hundreds of thousands of small craft used for reconnaissance
and strike duties, and you can see that there are nowhere near enough to go
around.  And with combat losses, there probably never will be.”

“We’re starting
to deploy subspace coms in all of our ships as soon as they hit a major base or
repair ship,” stated the Admiral.  “In fact, your ships will be equipped with
them as soon as my engineering people can get the equipment over to them, in a
day or two.  That will give you the ability to communicate at over ten times
light speed, in most conditions, which is nothing to complain about.  But it is
short ranged, no more than a score of light hours, and doesn’t really give us
that instantaneous com we really want.”

“Still, sir,”
said Albright after digesting what she had just heard.  “It would seem that if
flagships were equipped with wormholes, and everyone in the task group is
equipped with subspace com, everything is solved.”

“Not quite,”
said Nguyen with a frown.  “Two factors make that proposition just a little
more complicated.  One is the fact that a wormhole equipped ship cannot traverse
a wormhole.  Something to do with the twisting of space when two space warping
connections interact.  Any ship that tries is totally destroyed, converted to
energy that comes spewing through the other end of the wormhole they are trying
to traverse, as well as through the hole that the ship’s wormhole connects to.
Not something that the other ship or base would really be looking forward to.
And the wormhole they are trying to traverse also goes up in a blast of energy,
at both ends.  Ships with com departments with one or more of these,
Klassekians, do you call them?  They won’t have this problem.”

“At least that’s
what the people of Tsarzor call their species,” said Sekumbe, nodding his
head.  “The other language groups have a different name.”

“You said there
were two factors, sir,” said Albright, curious to hear what else might be in
the works that the Klassekians might be able to aid the Empire in.

“What I’m about
to tell you is Top Secret Cosmic,” said the Admiral, using the term for the
second highest level of secrecy in the Empire.  “No one in this room is to talk
about this out of this room, though we will be briefing all ship captains and
executive officers on this in the near future, since knowledge of this
development will help you to judge and evaluate tech and phenomenon you find
for possible inclusion into this project.”

The Admiral
looked down for a moment, then back up, looking from eye to eye, including the
Marine Officer in the room.  “What do you know about inertia?  In particular,
the possibilities of an inertialess drive?”

Albright looked
at the Admiral with a blank expression, as did the Phlistaran Marine.  Sekumbe
looked as if a light bulb had gone off in his mind.

“I know there
was a lot of arguing going on about whether it was possible or not, sir,” said
the Exec.  “From what I remember, the majority of the experts thought it wasn’t
possible, though some big names thought it was.”

“Well, now we
know, Commander,” said Captain Lee.  “And not only is it possible, but we have
a working system that gets our attack craft up to twice the speed of light.”

“And as soon as
we have enough of them worked up into wings, we’re going to shock the Cacas
with something they’ve never seen before,” said the Admiral.  “And they will
not see it coming until it hits them.”

“The only
problem is that the inertialess strike craft are, for all intents and purposes,
cut off from the regular Universe,” said Lee, pulling up a picture of the
inertialess attack craft, which looked like a much larger version of a standard
attack fighter.  “No radiation goes in through the bubble, and none comes out.
So communications are more or less impossible.  They may spend several hours in
their bubbles, with no idea of what their targets are doing.  Ships can change
vectors.  And fighters can come of their bubble into an attack profile and find
their targets have moved by millions of kilometers.”

“So you think
having Klassekians aboard each fighter, tapped into a tactical net with the
carrier, would allow them to receive the information they need to adjust to
target?” asked Sekumbe.  “That could be kind of rough on Klassekian sibling
units.”

“We would only
use volunteers, those who would join our military establishment,” said Lee,
looking at Sekumbe with narrowed eyes.  “They would be forced into nothing.
But, just maybe, they might feel grateful that we have rescued them from
annihilation as a species.”

“And if these,
bubbles, cut them off from the rest of the Universe as well?” asked Albright,
playing devil’s advocate, even though she knew that the awareness of their
possible utility would push the Empire into saving as many of them as it could,
and not just a minimal breeding population.

“They seem to
have passed every test you’ve given them,” said Lee, shrugging her shoulders.
“If they pass the bubble test as well, great.  If not, they still offer us a
resource for regular fleet communications that we cannot pass up.”

“I have sent one
of my couriers back to base in order to request all the aid we can get,” said
the Admiral.  “Normally, there would not be much available at this time.  But I
think we can shake some loose once Fleet hears about the potential of these
people.  I asked for a wormhole as well, though I really can’t say how much
luck I’ll have with that request.”

“We’re still
having a problem with the natives cooperating with us, sir,” said Albright,
thinking it was all well and good to talk about what they were going to do with
this people, when the people in question, at least a good number of them,
didn’t seem to want the help.

“I’ve brought
along two rump battalions of Marines,” said Nguyen, looking at the Phlistaran
Lt.  “That’s four reinforced companies, almost nine hundred men and women.  If
the Lieutenant could get with Lt. Colonel Isaiah, I’m sure she would appreciate
your take on what security concerns there might be.  But we will establish a
presence on this world, on all parts of this world, whether the leadership
wants it or not.  I will not have people turned away because of what their
government thinks about us.  If the people themselves don’t want to leave,
that’s their decision.  And I have asked for more Marines, along with the
liners and transports I hope will come.”

“I’m not sure
how the Honish will respond, sir,” said Albright, already seeing trouble on the
horizon.  “They are the most problematic of the people down there.  They want
to see this supernova cleanse their planet.  They see it as a judgment from
their God, a judgment that applies to all the people of the planet, believers
and non both.”

“Then we will
have to guard against their obstructionism, Captain,” said the Admiral, his
eyes almost glaring at her.  “Let me make it clear.  Our mission is to get the
most of these people to safety that we can.  How they feel about that is not
really my concern.  We will evacuate as many as we have room for.  Is that
understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now,” continued
the Admiral, his features relaxing a bit.  “Our next priority is this thing.
Or should I say things.”  The holo changed to show one of the massive quarter
arcs that arose from the planet to reach into the near space.  “If not for the
singular attributes of the natives, and the threat of the, what did you label
it, Big Bastard, these would be our primary focus.  From your report,
these things represent a technology well beyond our own.  And what we might
gain from it?”  He shook his head as he stared at the holo.

“The only
problem, sir,” said Albright, “is that we cannot find out anything about them,
besides the fact that they seem to repel any kind of energy we have tried to
probe them with.”

“That is a
problem,” agreed the Admiral, nodding.  “And not one I have an answer to.  And
these objects in orbit around the blue giant?  They seem to be made of the same
material?”

“They sure look
like it,” said Albright.  “Of course, since we can’t take a sample, that’s the
only connection we have between them.  The way they look.”

“Then let’s just
assume that they were put there by the same people,” said Nguyen, looking at
the Captain, then back at the holo.  “Which, to my intuition at least, means
they are there for a purpose.  The same purpose.  But what is that?”

The Admiral
looked at the holo for some moments, everyone else in the room silent, letting
him think.  He looked over at his Chief of Staff.  “I want as large a research
team as we can gather looking at these arches.  If we can’t look into them, we
can at least look at the geology around them.  Let’s see how far they go down,
and if there might possibly be some entry way below the ground.”

“Yes, sir,” said
Lee, making some notations in her flat comp spread on the table to her front.

“Obviously they
have something to do with Big Bastard,” continued the Admiral.  “And if
I had to venture a guess, the pending supernova is also something that led to
their placement.  But why?  That’s the question.”

“We may never
find out, sir,” said Sekumbe.

“But we can try,
dammit,” growled the Admiral.  “One thing I can’t stand is a mystery.  I have
to solve it.  It’s part of my nature.  And we will do our best to figure this
one out before that star blows.  And if we can’t by then, we’ll come back after
the radiation wave has cleared.”

Albright nodded
to that.  After all, the blue star was too far away for its thermal wave to
destroy the planets of this star system.  That was not the problem.  No, the
problem was the particle radiation storm that would come along just a little
after six months, crossing the six light months at point nine nine light.
Slower moving particles would sustain the storm for about two or three weeks.
Then it would clear, and all life, even down to microbes, would be dead all
across the system.

If given time,
they might have been able to prepare deep shelters, far into the bedrock of the
planet, shielded with heavy alloys and electromag fields.  They didn’t have
that time, and besides, the planet would be sterile when they left the
shelters, and there would not be any way to grow enough food to prevent
starvation.  Even if the Imperials were able to move in protein tanks, large
manufactories that used nanotech to build eatable food, they would not be able
to get enough of them in place in the time they had, and ninety percent of the
population would still die.

So we do what
we can, thought Albright as the Admiral dismissed them from the
conference.  We save what we can, and have nightmares for the rest of our
lives, seeing the billions we couldn’t save.

Chapter Seven

And on the twelfth night Hrrottha
create the people, that they might worship him, and do his will in all things.
And Hrrottha looked at those who already inhabited the world, and in his wrath
commanded his people to smite them.

From the Holy Book of Hrrottha.

OCTOBER 8TH, 1000.
D-271.

“What the hell
are they doing?” yelled the Warrant Officer piloting the assault shuttle as it
dropped into the lower atmosphere.  For the last day every shuttle in the small
force had been dropping toward and lifting from the planet, delivering
personnel and equipment to the several compounds that had been established
before the arrival of the battle cruisers, reinforcing them.  And it had
proceeded without incident until now.  When a squadron of atmospheric fighters
had climbed into the path of the shuttle at high Mach.

“Just make sure
you don’t hit them,” cautioned Lieutenant Junior Grade Helen, occupying the
copilot’s seat.

Everyone in the
shuttle was in battle armor, as per the instructions of Admiral Nguyen.  For
the naval personnel that meant the medium armor that most wore aboard ship
during battle drills, or real battle.  There were ten Marines aboard as well,
six in the medium suits that the naval infantry wore aboard ship, four in the
heavy suits used for landing operations.  The medium suited Marines would
provide normal security for the naval personnel, while the heavy suits would
provide part of the reaction force.  If we can get to the ground,
thought the young Command officer.

There were a
dozen of the fighters, all approaching fast, paired in six close teams.  And it
looked like two of those pairs were going to pass close enough where a collision
couldn’t be ruled out.  A collision would take them out, though we would
probably survive, thought the woman.  Why the hell would they even
attempt it?

The fighters
blew by at Mach three, their passage rocking the shuttle.  The shuttle itself
had slowed down to Mach two after atmospheric entry, part of the policy to not
cause too much of a disturbance in an atmosphere that was teeming with military
and civilian aircraft.

“They're turning
around,” shouted the Warrant Officer, and the tactical plot above the cockpit
control panel showed the twelve objects going into turns, six to each side,
that might have been impressive to those of their tech level.  Imperial craft,
with inertial compensators, could turn well within their arcs.

“I think they’re
playing chicken with us,” said Moyahan, looking over at the Warrant.

“I could fire a
couple of particle beams their way,” said the Pilot.  “Not anything that would
hit them, you know.  Just something to frighten them off.”

“You will not
fire,” ordered the Lt.  “They may be looking for an incident, and we are not
going to give them one.”

“We’re being
painted by radar, ma’am,” complained the Pilot.  “They’re targeting us for
missiles.”

“How much damage
will their weapons do?”

“I have no idea,
ma’am,” said the Pilot, shaking his head.  “Probably not enough to splash us,
unless they get really lucky, but I wouldn’t want to stake my life on it.”

“Right.  Then
get us the hell out of here.  Maximum acceleration, and full velocity to the
base.”

“The Admiral
won’t like that.”

“He’ll like it
even less if we get hit.  So power up the grabbers and get us out of here.”

The Warrant
nodded and advanced the throttle.  The shuttle jumped forward at a hundred
gravities, the motion of which they could not feel at all inside.  In seconds they
were past Mach three, then on to four, five, six, seven, finally up to Mach
fifteen.”

“That’s probably
enough,” said Moyahan, tapping the Warrant on the forearm.  “Decelerate when we
get within twenty klicks of the base, then bring us in slow and easy.”  And
I need to get on the com and make sure that the flag knows about this.

*     *     *

“That’s the
seventh incident so far, sir,” said Captain Susan Lee.  “and it’s only morning
in Honish.”

“And that’s
where all the incidents have occurred?” asked Nguyen, looking up from a report
he was reading on the natives’ abilities.

“No, sir.  Four
have occurred in Honish, over in their airspace.  Two have occurred in allied
territories, and one Tsarzor, though we suspect the operatives were working for
the Honish.”

The Admiral
pulled up the globe of the planet on the holo over his desk, looking at the
seven glowing icons.  He pointed to one, and the holo zoomed in on a display of
that incident, a groundcar slamming into hovercarrier.  The hover vehicle, a
large armored personnel carrier, was barely damaged, while the groundcar was
almost totally destroyed, going up in a ball of burning hydrogen fuel.   The
Admiral pointed to another one, and that holo showed something falling out of a
window to strike a Spacer in medium armor.  Whatever the object was, some kind
of cabinet, it bounced from the armor with little more than some mental shock
to the wearer.  But it bounced out and struck a line of children on the
walkway, killing two of them.  And so it went on, some action caused by a
local, caught on the scanners, that resulted in death or injury to native
sophonts.

“It’s all over
their local news channels, sir,” said Lee, reaching into the air and pulling
open another holo screen, which showed some talking heads in a studio
discussing the callous nature of the alien invader to their world.

“What in the
hell are they trying to accomplish?” growled the Admiral, staring at the holo,
the translated voices of the newsies coming through loud and clear.  The
Admiral looked over at another spot on his desk and sent a signal through his
implant.  A moment later the face of Lt. Colonel Isaiah, the commander of the
force’s Marines, appeared on the holo.

“You’ve heard
about the rash of incidents occurring on the planet, Mary?” asked the Admiral,
looking into the stern face of the Marine, who was currently down on that
planet.

“Yes, sir.  And
another has just occurred.  A truck fell over outside the gate of one of our
compounds and exploded.”

“Were any of
your people hurt?” asked the Admiral, his eyes narrowing.

“No, sir,” said
the Colonel, shaking her head.  “But the same cannot be said for a score of the
citizens of the nation of Tsarzor who were burned up by the flames of the
explosion.  We sent out a rescue team as fast as we could, and the death toll
would have probably been much higher without our intervention.  But we weren’t
fast enough to save those poor suckers closest to the blast.”

“What do you
think is going on?”

“I think we’re
being set up, sir,” said the Marine, who had worked her way up the ranks in the
Command, and had been involved in several first contacts, as well as numerous
follow up missions.  “They’re trying to make us look like the bad guys.  To fit
into their narrative that we’re here to force them into our service as slave
labor.  And once they have convinced enough of their population that their
narrative is fact, they will declare war on us.”

“That’s what I
think as well, Colonel” said Lee, looking up from the other screen she had
opened.  “We may be getting some cooperation from the government of Tsarzor,
but the majority of their population doesn’t trust us.  If they can erode that
trust some more, the citizens may resist us, despite the directives of their
government.”

The Admiral
looked over at Lee.  “Can our people use psychology and propaganda to get them
on our side?”

“We might be
able to mitigate the response some,” said Lee, shaking her head.  “But the
problem is they don’t trust us in the first place.  They see us as intruders
here to make them do what we want, for our own purposes.  I’m afraid, if this
was a normal first contact situation, I would advise that we just pack up,
leave some surveillance assets in place, and leave.”

“And if we do
that, this entire species dies,” growled Nguyen, closing his eyes and shaking
his head.  “We might be able to get some of them to go with us, volunteers.
Even some real kidnaps.  But not enough.”

“I hate to say
it, sir,” said Lee.  “But that may be all we have.”

“Unacceptable,”
said Nguyen, shaking his head even harder.  “We have a mission to accomplish,
and we will accomplish that mission.  These people are going to be saved
whether they want to be or not.  And I mean a significant sample of all their
ethnic groups.  There is no way we’re going to take one particular group, and
leave everyone else behind.”

“We may be able
to produce enough species specific nonlethals to let us take who we need,” said
Isaiah.  “Gas, or sonic frequencies.”

“I really don’t
want to resort to that,” said the Admiral, gritting his teeth.  “But if we have
to, that is what we will do.”  He turned to look back at Lee.  “Susan.  I want
you to get a team together to look into the possibility of developing something
we can use to knock a large number of these people out in one attempt.”

“And test
subjects?  I don’t think we’re going to get many volunteers.”

“Are there any
diseases rampant on this planet?” asked Nguyen.  “Something their medical
science can’t deal with that we can.”

Imperial
medicine was very advanced, and humanity had not only conquered all of its own
diseases, but those of every client species in the Empire.  Gene sequencing and
the application of nanotech to attack the disease vector made it easy work to
cure anything that nature could come up with.

“I’ll get some
of our medical people to look into that, sir,” said the Chief of Staff.  “I’m
sure there must be something that the Tsarzorians at least would appreciate our
stamping out.  And once we find something that safely knocks out any of the
Klassekians, it should work on all of them.”

“Sounds like a
plan,” said Nguyen, looking back at the Colonel.  “When we’re ready to send
some doctors in, I want a strong Marine presence with them.  But in the
background.”

“I think that
can be arranged, sir,” said the Colonel.  “I don’t think they can see through
our stealth systems.”

If they can,
thought the Admiral, we’re already in trouble.

*     *     *

The shuttle set
down on its grabber units, touching gently to the ground.  We got down in
one piece, thought Lt. Moyahan, standing by the hatch and waiting for it to
open, the other personnel lined up at her back.

“Tower says the
field is cold,” stated the Pilot over the com.

The officer sent
back her acknowledgement, then turned to make sure the people behind her all
had their faceplates down.  The field might be cold, which meant there was no
sign of hostile action, but there was no use taking any chances out in the
open.  Not when they had the means to defeat just about any weapon the natives
could deploy against them in a ground role.

The hatch slid
aside, and Helen jumped the short distance to the ground and moved aside,
making way for the next person.  She looked around as the other people
disembarked, taking in the sights of the base.  The shuttle was sitting on a
flat field, four hundred meters on a side, surrounded by a prefab wall of
plasticrete.  There were towers every hundred meters along that wall, each
manned by a pair of Marines with a heavy particle beam weapon.  Two other
shuttles sat on the honeycombed alloy landing platform, while a pair of
atmospheric transports sheltered in bermed revetments on one side of the field.

On the way in
she had seen the way the base was laid out, sitting a couple of kilometers
outside a medium sized city.  There were four of the landing squares arranged
into a larger square, with a central armored building that contained quarters,
support facilities, and the defensive domes that would defend the base from air
and artillery attack.

The entrance to
the dome was guarded by a thick door of metal alloys and ceramics that could
stand up to anything the planet’s tech level could come up with.  Moyahan
followed the first of the people who had come down with her into the quarters,
a set of stairs that led down into the ground beneath the dome and its control
room and labs.  Exploration Command had learned through hard experience how to
secure a base in difficult, hazardous territory.

“Lt. Moyahan,”
yelled out a young Petty Officer as she entered the common hall below.

“Guilty,” she
said, looking at the woman who ran up to her.

“I was sent to
show you to your quarters, then take you to meet with Commander Duran, your
team leader.”

Helen nodded and
followed the woman through a series of corridors until she stopped in front of
a door that only opened when the Lt. placed her hand on the locking panel.  Pretty
damned efficient, thought the officer as the door slid on its track into
the wall, revealing a small chamber containing a bed, chair, desk and small
wardrobe.

“The bathroom is
down the hall, ma’am,” said the PO, pointing the correct way.  “Now, if you
will follow me, the Commander is waiting.”

Helen wanted to
ask what the rush was, why there wasn’t time to get out of her armor and into a
more comfortable uniform.  But if Commander Duran, whoever that was, wanted her
to come as soon as possible, she had guessed she should start moving according
to his wishes.

The Commander
was waiting in one of the meeting rooms under the dome.  Helen looked over the
high ceiling as she entered.  It looked solid, like it had been there forever,
and not the prefab construct it was.  Again, the Command was equipped for these
situations, and both of the battle cruisers carried the components to put
together several planetary bases like this one.

Duran was a
swarthy skinned man of moderate height and muscular build, with coal black hair
and eyes so dark brown they looked just as black.  A score of people were
already gathered in the room, sitting around the large table, some right up to
it, others further back.  There was one open chair, and a cursor blinked in
Moyahan’s vision as she looked at the seat.  She hurried over to it, gave the
Commander a head nod, and took the seat.

“Now that we’re
all here,” said the Commander in a voice higher pitched than his bulk would
have indicated, “we will go over our mission parameters for the morning.  And
this is that mission,” he continued as a holo sprung to life, showing one of
the huge quarter arcs that rose out of the bones of the planet.  “Your team
will form the second excavating shift at this site.”  The holo zoomed up to
show surrounding mountains and desert scrubland.  “There is already one team on
the site, and a platoon of Marines as security.”

“Are we to
assume that we will be camping on site,” asked a Lt. Commander sitting at the
table.

“You are.  The
Admiral wants to find out as much as he can about these constructs before we
are forced to leave the planet.  Since they will not yield up their secrets
from above, we are going to see what we can find by burrowing into the earth.
And to answer your implied question, we will bring you back in small groups to
the base about once a week, where you can clean up, have a good meal, and
relax.”

The room shook
just a bit, then again, and several of the Spacers looked up to the ceiling in
alarm.  The Commander closed his eyes, the concentrated look on his face
showing that he had gone into com link.

“We are being
attacked by mortars, ladies and gentlemen,” said the Commander.  “Nothing to be
alarmed about, since our defensive lasers are picking them out of the air
before they get to us.  Probably wouldn’t do too much damage if they hit,
either, considering the tech of their weapons.”

He closed his
eyes again as some more faint crumps sounded from beyond the ceiling.
“However, we have been asked to relocate to the lower levels, just in case.”

We’re here to
help these people, thought Moyahan with a scowl as she got to her feet and
followed some Spacers out of the room.  Only an hour onto this world, and
they have already tried to kill me twice.  She wasn’t sure if the attempt
with her shuttle was really an attempt to kill her and the people with her, but
she was willing to give the natives the benefit of a doubt.  And tomorrow I
get to go out into the boonies, where they’ll have an even easier time getting
to me.

*     *     *

Shoot and scoot
was what it was called.  The process of firing one shot, or only a couple,
before moving the firing tube.  Or, in the case of the prepositioned mortars,
moving from tube to tube.  The theory was that counterbattery could not track
the shell back in time to kill the firing crew, or, in this case, the lone
operative who had dropped the round down the tube before running to the next
one to repeat the process.  It might have worked against their own tech.
Against something well over a thousand years more advanced?  Not a chance.

Warrant Officer
Melissa Sung watched the round from the mortar arc up on her monitor, on a
heading toward the compound.  As soon as it started its drop a laser linked its
projector and the round for just an instant.  Enough to pump sufficient heat
into the high explosive round to detonate it in midair.  Shrapnel rained down,
very little of it hitting the compound.  Several Klassekian civilians were not
so fortunate, and two went down on the street.

“Bastards,”
cursed the Pilot under her breath, setting her stingship’s weapons system on
automatic wide beam.  It was bad enough that the terrorists were trying to hurt
her people, who were, after all, combatants.  But hurting their own people, and
innocent bystanders at that, was going too far.

The craft’s
sensors picked up the next shot, another mortar round starting its rise into
the air.  It had only reached two meters above the ground, and the being that
had dropped it had only taken one step away, when the laser beam, three meters
wide as the point of strike, hit.  The round exploded under the imparted energy
of the coherent energy, sending shrapnel scything through the space for ten
meters in every direction, including the terrorist who had just sent it on its
way.  That male was already in the process of being incinerated by the portion
of the beam he had interrupted.  It would be hard to say what killed him
first.  The point was moot, as his scorched bones and some kilos of cooked
flesh hit the ground, while a mist of superheated steam rose into the air
around him.

Sung barely had
time to register the kill before another round started on its rise, and the
stingship’s main laser repeated the same procedure, leaving another partially
incinerated body on the deck.  It seemed that none of the alien operatives
realized what was going on, and the other four continued with their mission
until, one at a time, they were all killed.

Dumb fucks,
thought the Pilot, rising back into the sky and up to her station altitude,
setting the craft to hover in place and go to full stealth.  The skin of the
stingship shimmered for a moment, and it faded from the view of all sensors,
visual and other electromagnetic.  If one knew where to look, it could still be
picked up on infrared from the heat the craft’s fusion power plant was putting
out.  Otherwise, it was as undetectable as anything could be.

Chapter Eight

I’m going to save these people if
I have to kill every one of them, and resurrect those we can.

Report from unidentified officer.

“Of course,
Admiral,” said First Councilman Rizzit Contena, looking at the human in the
holo.  “We will fully cooperate with you on this.”

You are
getting all of this, my brother, he said to General Mazzat Contena, his
litter mate.

I am,
sent back the General.  They could both feel the other siblings from their
litter in the background, listening in, ready to give their input when needed.

“All of our
police and intelligence agencies are on full alert, as of this moment,”
continued the First Councilman to the leader of the humans.  “I am also
considering putting all of our military forces on alert as well.”

“I’m not sure
that last is a good idea, First Councilman,” said the Admiral, who had become
the contact person of the humans within days after he had entered the system.
“Tensions are already high enough, and from what we have been seeing in your
news reports, even the majority of your own population is on a razor’s edge.”

He does not
trust us, sent Kazzat, the financier, and the member of the litter who was
probably the best negotiator of the group.

“The safety of
your people is my primary concern,” said the First Councilman.  “It does none
of us any good for violent confrontations to occur between yours and ours.”

We have
enough volunteers among our nonbelievers to fulfill their needs, sent
Mazzat.  I say we just give them those people, and ask them to leave.

And then wait
for the blue giant to kill the rest of us, sent Lazzit, the engineer.  We
should see if we can get their technological secrets from them.  Then, just
maybe, we could build our own arks, and get at least some more of our people
out of here.  At least the important ones.

Which means
us, and the people in our circles, thought the First Councilman in his
private thoughts.  And when that gets out to our population, we have riots.
Possibly mutiny by our own forces.  The masses overrunning the construction
sites.

“Have you
thought anymore about trying to build shelters for at least some of our
people?” asked Rizzit.  “I know you don’t have the resources to save all of us,
or even a very large percentage.  But every one you can save is a blessing.”

“We have more
ships due to arrive in the next couple of weeks,” said the Admiral, looking off
the holo for a moment.  “I’ll see what we have to work with when they come
insystem.”

You would
think he would know what is coming aboard those ships he ordered here, sent
the General.  I have to wonder what he’s hiding.

“I have to go
now, First Councilman,” said the Admiral, looking back out of the holo.  “I
have a staff meeting scheduled.  But I would definitely like to talk with you
again tomorrow.”

“I look forward
to it, Admiral,” said Rizzit, listening to his brothers chime in with their
take on the human’s cutting the com short.

The holo died,
and the First Councilman sat back in his chair, digesting everything the human
had said, every remark, every expression.  And his brothers looked over his
memories as well, and added their own, filling in any details he might have
forgotten.

They examined
every nuance of the Admiral’s presentation.  None of them were expert on
humans, yet.  But they still had gotten a better handle on the humans than they
thought the humans had gotten on them.

*     *     *

Tzapp Kelish was
something that had not been seen in the Empire.  Not since humankind had left
the Earth.  He was a minister, which was not an unusual occupation, even in the
Empire, which had a great many religions, most with a good number of adherents,
though none were as fanatical as the majority of those on Klassek.  No, Kelish
was what had been known on old Earth as a televangelist, a minister who
preached to his congregation through the airwaves, or in this case, mostly,
through cable and satellite.  It was, just as it had been on Earth, a lucrative
business that pandered to the easily fooled, the gullible, the perpetually
angry.

Kelish stood at
his podium in front of the cameras, his six litter mates, also members of his
ministry, sitting behind him.  He was linked with them while he spoke, using
their awareness of the live crowd, of the religious texts, of the news that was
circulating through the news media.

“And Gallact
said to his brothers, looking down upon the world from their seats in heaven,
‘the people are ours to protect.  From all of the dangers of the Universe.’
And so the Gods placed the twelve temples upon the world, that we would be
protected from the evil plans of the Dark Gods.  As so they wait, for the time
of danger, when the power of the Gods will flow through them.”

Kelish closed
the book on the podium, the holy text of his religion, and looked out over the
audience, then to the cameras.  “The word of the Gods is clear.  We are to
trust in their word, and seek comfort in the fact that they are our protectors,
as long as we are faithful to them, and keep their strictures.  But their words
also come with a warning, that we must obey their word, or their protection
will be removed from us.  And the Dark Gods, including the Demon God of the
Honish, Hrrottha, will destroy us utterly, and our souls will not ascend to the
home of the Gods to live there forever.”

The crowd
shouted out their version of an ‘amen’, and Kelish held his hands in the air.
“Hrrottha has told his worshipers that we are all doomed, that he will send
destruction to this world, and our souls will be eaten by he and his Demon
Servants.  Will we let this happen my fellow Children of the Gods?”

“No,” shouted
the crowd, and Kelish received the feedback from his siblings that let him know
he was playing the congregation like a master.  No, not really playing them, as
he also believed his own words.  While he made his money on their gullibility
much of the time, he also held a deep seated belief in Gallact and the other
Gods.

“Now we have
strangers among us, telling us that the star that the Demon Worshipers call
their Hrrottha, the manifestation of their Demon God, is about to explode, and
kill this world.  The worshippers of Hrrottha wish for this to happen, as,
according to their belief, they will go to the hell of their God and serve him
there, forever. Nothing any of us would desire, but what those misguided souls
do.  And we?  We will be tormented as unbelievers in this hell.  But Gallact
gives us a different story.  That his hand will protect us, but only if we
remain faithful to him.

“And the
strangers tell us that the tale of the Demon God Hrrottha is true, that our
world will be cleansed with fire.  That only they can save a select few of us
from this disaster.  And our politicians, our leaders, bend their ears to their
tale, and many of our people also panic, and follow the strangers, the
unbelievers.”

There was more
murmuring among the crowd as they bought into the words of their minister.

“The strangers,
these aliens, are asking us to follow them, and not our Gods.  They ask us to
turn our backs on the Holy Word of Gallact, to trust in them instead.  And that
path leads to our doom.  That path leads to us turning our backs on our Gods,
on the leader of our Gods.  And when we have done so, Gallact will no longer
hold us in his hands and protect us from the Demon Star.  We will be truly
doomed, our souls forfeit.”

People started
yelling now, imprecations against the humans, against the demon worshippers of
Honish.  There was true anger there, such as could only be seen in people with
deep beliefs when someone threatens those beliefs.

“Calmly, my
brothers and sisters,” said Kelish, raising his tentacles into the air.  “Anger
solves nothing.  Violence solves nothing.”  Though a little bit of focused
violence might actually be of use, he thought, receiving the agreement of
his siblings.

“The aliens are
not evil, I do not believe.  Merely misguided.  They have their own Gods, just
as we do ours.  They believe they do good.  They see a threat, and their own
beliefs compel them to come to our aid.  In this they are mistaken, as are our
leaders, who grasp at secular straws when their own faith wavers.  But in
grasping at these straws, they doom us all.”

He stopped for a
moment and let his eyes again roam the congregation, taking in the rapt
attention of every member upon him.

“Violence begets
violence.   I call not upon you to turn to violence.  But no matter what, the
plans of the strangers must be stopped.  It is the only way on which our own
salvation will find us.  They must be obstructed, delayed, so that our Gods,
through the twelve temples they have placed upon our planet, may save us, as
promised in their word.”

*     *     *

“This is
interesting, sir,” said Captain Mandy Albright, sitting behind the desk of her
dayroom, looking at the face of Admiral Nguyen van Hung.

“Your history
section has made progress on that project you were assigned?” asked the
Admiral, looking up from the flat comp he had been studying.

Each the ships
in his command had been assigned a number of projects.  Clark’s section
had been given the assignment of looking into the history texts of the
nation of Tsarzor to see what references there were to the ancient constructs
on the planet.  They had found many references, many conflicting, when someone
had thought to look at the major religious texts of the primary religion of
that nation.

“One of my
officers translated one of their religious texts, The Book of Gallact, and
found many references to the constructs.  According to the earliest books, the
constructs, which are called temples, were placed by the God Gallact to protect
this world from a future disaster.”

“And this has
relevance because?”

“I’m not saying
it’s factual history, but at one point these people came to the conclusion that
those things were put there as a defense against something that would threaten
the entire planet.”

“Which proves
nothing,” said the Admiral, shaking his head.  “Just because the primitives of
this world looked at those advanced constructs and decided they were something
from the Gods means nothing.  In fact, it would be surprising if they didn’t
think that, seeing something that was obviously artificial in origin, and also
obviously beyond anything they could do.”

“And if this
religious book references something that was told to these people by whomever
put these things in place?”

“What do you
want us to do, Captain?” asked the Admiral, steepling his fingers, his eyes
narrowing.  “Leave this world alone, in the hope that these constructs will do
something miraculous to save these people?  I don’t think so.”

“What about the
constructs in orbit around Big Bastard?” asked Albright.  “There must be
some connection.”

“I’m sure there
is.  But we have no idea what that connection is.”  The Admiral looked away for
a moment, his attention caught by something off the holo.  He looked back at
the Captain, his brow furrowed.  “Have you seen this, Captain?”

The Admiral
disappeared from the holo, to be replaced by a shot of a crowd of natives, all
holding up signs and shouting protests outside one of the Imperial compounds.
Mandy looked at the signs and listened to the yelling, her implant translating
for her.  The signs ranged from ‘humans go home’ to ‘death to the invaders’,
while similar things were being shouted by the aliens, who were arranged in
front of the gate to the compound, obviously there to stop ground traffic.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t doing them much good, as Command aircraft were still
launching, in some cases carrying ground vehicles underneath their fuselages.

“So far it has
been nonviolent,” said Nguyen.  “And we’re not too worried about any weapons
their civilians might have.  We have to remember, though, that we let a half
dozen shoulder fired antiair launchers and almost a score of particle beam
weapons, including four heavy beamers, as well as two heavy lasers, fall into
their hands.”

Meaning my
command let those weapons fall into the hands of the natives, thought the
Captain, reading between the Admiral’s lines.

“I believe those
weapons were taken by the Honish, sir,” said Albright, forcing herself to
remain calm.  “I don’t think the Tsarzorians have any of those weapons.”

“And I tend to
agree with you, based on your report on the people who kidnapped and injured
your ensign at the time.  But the bottom line is that we just don’t know where
those weapons ended up.  I commend you on setting all of our equipment to be
easily tracked afterwards, though I could wish it had been done prior to the
incident.

“Back to the
original question,” continued Nguyen.  “I don’t believe in fairy tales.  We had
enough of them on Earth, thinking we were special, protected by our deities
against all comers.  Until the Cacas came along and showed that we were not
special after all.  So these people have their legends.  Great, and someday
some scholar will catalogue them for the entertainment of the rest of the
Galaxy.  But, as far as I know, they are just legends, and there are fifty
other conflicting legends on this world that are just as compelling to those
who believe them.

“So keep on the
research, Captain.  I want to know these legends, of course, and any other
information you might be able to find.  But I will not base my actions on
them.  Nguyen out.”

Albright stared
at the dead holo for a moment, then shook her head.  She knew in reality that
it was nothing to bet on, but her intuition was telling her there was something
to it.  That it wasn’t just religious mumbo jumbo from another world whose
people at one time thought they were the center of the Universe.  She had a
thought, and translated it into action.

“Hangar One,”
said the voice over the com.

“Chief, this is
the Captain.  I want a shuttle prepped.  I’m going down to the planet.”

“Destination,
ma’am?  If you don’t mind me asking.”

“The alpha
excavation site.  I want to get up close and personal with one of those
constructs.”

*     *     *

Merriwether
Lewis sat fifty-five light hours from Big Bastard, just outside the
hyper VI limit.  A number of recon probes were deployed further in, watching
the star, sending their telemetry at light speed to the cruiser.  They were
also in contact with the ship through grav pulse, not really transmitting all
that much information, but letting the cruiser know almost instantaneously when
there was a major change in the enormous fusion furnace that was the star.

And I still
really don’t like this, thought Captain Walther Huang, sitting in his
bridge command chair and staring at the holo that showed the bloated blue white
body of the star, massive prominences rising and falling by the second.

The plan was for
them to jump into hyper VI as soon as the star blew and head back to the star
of Klassek, on a least time profile.  It would take less than one day to get
there, and they would send a grav pulse signal, as well as a com laser, as soon
as they translated out at the hyper I barrier.  That would give the Imperial
force almost six months warning.

And everyone
believes, based on the data, that it won’t blow or another nine and a half
months.  I should be comfortable with that estimate as well.  But it’s
different when you’re sitting next to the biggest time bomb in the Perseus Arm,
hoping that the timer is set to the correct setting.

“I almost wish
the show would start,” said Commander Stephanie Harrison, the Exec, standing by
the Captain’s chair.  She was off duty, but, like many of the other bridge
crew, she was drawn here, where the commands would be given when Big Bastard
blew.

“I don’t think
the Admiral would like that,” said the Captain with a smile.  “And I’m damn
sure the Klassekians wouldn’t be too enthused by the idea of an earlier show
time.”

“I was doing
some research on supernovas, Captain,” said the Exec, who had advanced training
in astrophysics, just below the doctoral level.  “You know, these things
release a shitload of gravitons when they blow.”

“So.  I would
expect as much, with the damned twenty-eight solar masses of material being
blasted away from their point source out into the Universe.”

“The problem is,
sir, that it effects hyperspace as well.  We won’t be able to pick up any
transit signals through any of the dimensions.”

“I don’t think
that will be that big a problem, Exec.  There aren’t a lot of ships running
around here for us to track.”

“There’s also a
theory that we might see some other effects,” said the Exec with a frown.

“Like what?”

“Problems
entering and leaving hyper, for one.”  The Exec smiled as she watched the
expression on the Captain’s.  “Of course, this is all theoretical.  There is a
lot of disagreement about the effects on hyper, as no one has tried to enter or
leave hyper in the vicinity of a supernova before.  In fact, the last known
supernova in this arm was six hundred and thirty-two years ago, and it was over
two hundred light years from civilization.”

“Then how do we
know so much about them?” asked the Captain, a worried expression on his face.

“Long range
observation.  With grav lensing, we can see them almost like we’re there.”

“Thanks for
telling me this, Exec,” said the Captain with a grimace.  “I feel so much
better about sitting here now.”

“My pleasure,
sir,” said the other officer with a smile.  “I figure if I have to sit around
for the next nine months worrying about this, the guy who makes the decisions
should have to worry as well.”

Chapter Nine

We tend to think that we have
this space thing licked.  The truth is, we are still relative newcomers to
space, having only traversed it for less that twenty-five hundred years.  We
have evidence of species that had traveled space for a hundred thousand years,
and they too had their limitations.  I believe there are a lot more surprises
out there than we think, and we shouldn’t grow so complacent.

Industrialist Yang Chung, the
Year 754.

NOVEMBER 20TH, 1000.
D-228.

Captain Mandy
Albright had started off in the small craft pilot track before switching to the
tactical track, then the series of others that were required for command of a
starship.  She still loved the feel of a shuttle or other small craft under her
hand, though she didn’t have much chance to pilot anymore.  So she took
advantage of the opportunity to sit the pilot’s seat on this trip, relegating
Ensign Nguyen Dat to the co-chair.

She was not
surprised to discover that the young Ensign was a relative, distant, to the
Admiral.  Many families had a tradition in the Fleet.  And some had that tradition
in certain areas of the Fleet, like the Command.

“How am I doing,
Dat?” she asked the Ensign as she cut into the atmosphere on manual, the only
way a real pilot would fly the transition from vacuum to planetside.

“Fine, ma’am,”
said the youngster, who was regarded as the hottest pilot on the Clark.
“You still have the touch.”

Flatterer,
thought the Captain with a silent chuckle.  But she could feel how steady her
own hand was on the stick, as the craft shook slightly from the turbulence of
hypersonic travel.

I better slow
it down, she thought as they penetrated into the denser atmosphere.  She
checked the scope, looking for those fighters that had been playing chicken
with so many shuttle flights.  There was nothing to be seen, and the best
stealth the aliens had stood out like a flashing strobe to Imperial sensors.
It only took the shuttle minutes to go from orbit to atmosphere, and, with full
stealth systems engaged, the Honish had not had time to scramble their aircraft
on an intercept.

But now that
they were deep into the air, with the shuttle traveling at high Mach, they were
producing prodigious amounts of friction generated heat, making them easy to
spot.

“The site is
just beyond these mountains,” said Nguyen, pointing to the high peaks ahead.
The valley between was a favorite route to the site, due to the beauty of the
scenery at this altitude.

Mandy checked
the sensors and saw that the altitude of the valley between the two highest
peaks was about four thousand meters, and she dropped the shuttle to
forty-three hundred and slowed to just over Mach 2.  The mountains towered
thousands of meters higher to each side, and the pass was more than wide enough
for safe flight through.  She caught sight of several lower mountains behind
the high range.

“Warning,”
called out the craft’s computer.  “We are being impacted by targeting systems.”

Nguyen looked
down at his panel.  “We’re being painted with targeting sensors.”

“Theirs?”

“No, ma’am.
Ours.”

Albright engaged
the craft’s defensive systems, which would have defeated any targeting systems
the aliens possessed.  But their own technology was made to defeat defensive
systems like their own.  Not one hundred percent, but close enough.

“Second source
is locking on,” called out Nguyen.

“Locking
missiles on sources,” said Albright, opening the ordnance doors and reaching
for the trigger on the stick.  “You all hang on back there,” she called over
the intercom to her passengers, a pair of ratings and a Marine along for
security.

“We have….”

Nguyen never had
a chance to finish his statement that the missiles targeting them had
launched.  Those weapons left their launchers at eight thousand gravities
acceleration, streaking the eight and ten kilometers from their respective
launch sites and heading into the shuttle in less than a thousandth of a
second.

One missile, the
closest, was hit by an automatic defensive laser and broke apart.  The warhead
exploded five hundred meters from the shuttle, sending a wave of shrapnel into
the left side of the craft.  Most of it broke up on the tough armor, though
some of the larger pieces penetrated, one to pass through the armored body of
one of the ratings, pureeing her internal organs within her suit.

The second
missile streaked in, a clean miss by the defensive laser, to strike the rear of
the shuttle.  The two hundred ton equivalent antimatter warhead detonated as
the weapon penetrated through the armor and into the rear cargo compartment.
The blast tossed the shuttle over and down, and it headed into the mountains at
Mach 3.

The autoeject
system worked perfectly, at least for those it worked for at all.  Albright had
an instant of awareness as her straps locked into place, and the armored panels
that made up her escape capsule moved so quickly into place that they seemed to
teleport.  Foam injected into the capsule, filling up the spaces between the
shell and her suit.  An instant later the capsule was ejected from the craft,
and the dazed officer realized she was going to survive.

The capsule
headed for the nearest flat area, touching down gently, the metal panels
falling away, the foam evaporating in an instant, leaving the Captain in her
seat, enclosed in her battle armor.  My people, was her first thought,
and she checked her HUD to ascertain their locations.  A red icon showed up
down the valley, an indication of the homing beacon of one of the spacers whose
life functions had terminated.  She turned her head and saw two more beacons
appear, Nguyen and the Marine.  She breathed a sigh of relief as she noted that
both icons were green.

Uh oh,
she thought as she focused in on Nguyen, who was unmoving in his seat, and saw
movement down the valley, working their way to the position of the Ensign.  She
zoomed in on the people, and saw that they were dressed in very good low tech
cammo, weapons in hand.  Including what looked like a stolen particle beam
rifle.

We fell for
their trap, sending shuttle after shuttle through this same spot, just asking
for it.  She pulled her pistol from its holster and pushed some studs on
the receiver.  The scope rose into place, while a wire stock extended from the
back.  She got into a prone position and took aim at the alien with the
particle beam.

“What do you
want me to do, ma’am,” asked the Marine, Private DeGeorgio, over the com.

“Do you see
those people heading for Nguyen?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“When I fire at
the one with the beam weapon, you take out the man to the rear, then switch to
the point.”

“Can do, ma’am.”

Albright took
aim, placing her cross hairs right on the chest of the alien with the beam
weapon.  It was a flat trajectory weapon, the protons traveling at such
velocity that there would be no drop off, no deflection due to wind.  Where the
crosshairs were set the beam would strike.

Mandy squeezed
the trigger, and the dark red beam, buzzing like a million angry bees,
connected the barrel of her pistol with the chest of the alien.

With a spurt of
red steam the torso of the alien disappeared, vaporized by the terrific heat
generated by the transfer of kinetic energy.  She moved the beam down a bit and
hit the receiver of the rifle, vaporizing plastics, melting alloys, and
basically rendering the weapon useless.

The beam from
the Marine’s rifle hit the trailing guerilla at almost the same instant, with
similar if even greater results.  Just over a second later the point man, or
the half of his mass that was left, hit the ground.

“I’m going for
Nguyen,” she told the Marine over the com.  “Cover me.”

“Maybe I should
go, ma’am.”

“You’ve got the
better weapon, so you cover,” she growled, jumping to her feet and flying down
the slope on her grabbers.

Some rounds
cracked by, one striking her helmet and bouncing away.  She wasn’t worried
about their personal weapons, not with her armor.  She was concerned about any
shoulder fired antitank weapons they might have, which could damage her suit,
and possibly penetrate.

The Marine’s
particle beam buzzed, twice.  The second time, the loud crump of an explosion
sounded, and Albright raised her eyes to see a cloud of smoke and dust where an
alien had once been.

“That last one
had one of their shoulder fired rocket launchers, ma’am.  I was thinking that
you really didn’t want to test your suit against that one.”

“Thanks,” she
told the Marine, stopping her suit and settling to the ground next to Nguyen.
She checked the vitals of the Ensign, sighing again as his signs showed that
though he was unconscious, he was not in any danger.  At least until those
fanatics get a hold of him and make him a hostage.  Or an example of how to
take a head off.  She unstrapped the Ensign, ran a wire from her suit to
his, and took to the air, his suit now slaved to hers.

She landed the
both of them next to the Marine.  “Set your suit to full stealth.  I want us
well out of this area.  Have you tried to contact the ship?”

“I have, ma’am.
But something is jamming us.”

The damned
launchers, she thought.  They had the functionality to jam the defensive
systems of targeted craft, giving the missile a much better chance of
penetrating the defensive envelope.  But with a little tweaking, they could
also jam com.  And obviously the aliens had figured out how to tweak it.  Probably
thanks to the damned holo manuals that were built into them.  Each launcher
had four ready rounds in it.  They had to have used two launchers to fire at
her shuttle, based on how closely spaced the launches were.  So, they have
six more shots, and the hope of luring more of our aircraft into range.  And
we’ve got to give them something else to think about.

“How are you at
guerilla warfare, Private DeGeorgio?”

*     *     *

“We’re picking
up radiation consistent with plutonium, Lt,” said the Corporal in charge of the
perimeter patrol.  “I think it’s coming from that vehicle parked on the
roadside.”

“Check it out,
Gallager,” ordered Lt. Dietz, the officer in charge of the excavation site
security.  “But be careful.  These people do have nuclear capabilities.”

No shit,
thought the Corporal, who had some coursework in physics through the Command
Education Program.  Plutonium’s not something they’re just going to find lying
around.

The van like
conveyance had a couple of aliens around it, both looking with what appeared to
be nervous expressions at the advancing Marines in their ton of armor.  A
couple of kilometers up the road was a moderate sized town of about twenty thousand,
so there was always traffic.  And people stopping to gawk at the humans.  In
fact, this vehicle, being a hundred meters outside the perimeter, would not
have attracted much attention except for the fact that it was emitting rads.

“Hey,” yelled
the Corporal over the speaker of his heavy battle armor, the translation
program translating their speech into the local lingo.  “What are you doing out
here?”

“We’re having
engine trouble,” said the smaller of the pair.  “We were just about to walk
into town and arrange for a tow.”

“We’re picking
up some strange readings from your vehicle,” said Gallager, motioning for one
of his men to keep the pair covered with his particle beam.  “I have to ask you
to open the vehicle so we can check it out.”

“What gives you
the right to stop us and search us like common criminals,” said the larger of
the aliens.

“Stand where you
are,” ordered the Corporal, pointing at the two aliens, then walking up to the
van and grabbing the door handle.  He pulled and discovered that it was locked,
then looked over at the aliens.  “Would you mind unlocking this door.”

“I refuse,” said
the smallest alien, while the larger’s nervous eyes kept moving from Marine to
Marine.

“Suit yourself,”
said Gallager, gripping the handle tightly, then ripping the door open, the
strength of his suit tearing through the metal.  The door slid open, revealing
a large cylinder sitting in the cargo compartment.  It would be the last thing
the Corporal would ever see.

The device was a
twenty megaton warhead, a city killer.  It was much larger than a comparable
Imperial weapon, if they had even used fission/fusion warheads anymore.  The
van was being monitored from afar, taking the triggering of the device out of
the hands of the beings that had driven it there.  They might not have the
nerve to push the button while they were in the blast range.  Instead, they
were spared from making that decision when the triggering signal was sent from
scores of kilometers away.

The fireball
reached out to over four kilometers in each direction, encompassing the
excavation site and the ancient arch, as well as the nearby town.  The blast
radius, over six kilometers, exerted pressures of up to eighteen thousand
kilograms per square meter, destroying steel reinforced concrete buildings as
if they were made of cardboard.  Out to thirteen kilometers that blast wave was
strong enough to destroy anything made of wood or plastic.  The heat was fierce
out to forty kilometers, and any life forms within that range suffered third
degree burns.

Heavy combat
suits were tough, and even a nuclear blast with a zero point less than a meter
away was not enough to destroy the Marines’ armor.  Even the radiation, enough
to kill any life form instantly, could only push through a dose that would
prove fatal in a short time, but no more.  The suits were lifted into the air
by the blast effect, and the concussive effect of the explosion killed the
Marines within their armor before they knew what was happening.

The town first
flashed with heat that set everything flammable aflame, then blew out the
flames as it leveled every building in sight.  Any survivors of the blast and
heat waves would have died quickly from the overdose of rads.  But there was no
one left to die from radiation sickness.  The death toll was total.

*     *      *

“Under cover,”
was the command shouted over the com circuit as the flash of the detonation
flared across faceplates throughout the excavation site.

Lt. Helen
Moyahan looked up in time to see the wave of dirt and dust rolling toward her,
as her suit registered the first of the heat and radiation.  She looked for
cover, someplace she could fly her suit in a moment, and saw no place close
enough.  Her suit was tough, like all medium battle armor, but only possessed a
quarter of the heat and radiation protection of one of the heavy suits.  She
might survive a blast less than two kilometers away, but the odds were not
good.

Even as these
thoughts flashed through her brain faster than she could be aware of them, the
huge structure to her forward left began to glow.  First red, then white, while
the heat and radiation, even a good bit of the blast effect, was absorbed by
the structure.

What the
hell? thought the Lt as she stared at the ancient structure, then looked at
her HUD as it displayed the sensor take of her suit.  That’s impossible.
The heat and radiation that should have been washing over the area was only a
fiftieth of what it should be.  Even the blast effect was reduced to a stiff
breeze that did little more than raise some dust from the ground.

The mushroom
cloud rose into the sky, while the blast wave continued to move out, except for
the area of the ancient artifact and a couple of hundred meters to each side,
like a big chunk bitten out of the disaster.

*    *     *

“We’re picking
up a small energy surge from artifact Alpha-four,” said Lt. Commander Christi
M’tumbo, the sensor officer of the Lewis, looking back at Captain
Walther Huang.

Lewis had
been given the duty again to watch the blue star.  It wasn’t a duty he wanted, but
the Admiral hadn’t asked his opinion, and here they were again.

“Any idea where
it’s coming from?” asked the Captain, looking at the blinking icon of the
artifact on the tactical display.

“Not a clue,
sir.  And none of the other artifacts are exhibiting any change.”

“Strange,” said
the Captain, his eyes narrowing.  And we aren’t expecting a courier here for
another week, and no other way to get the news to the Admiral without leaving
our post.

“Keep a close
watch on it, Christi.  As soon as there are any more changes, let me know.”

Five minutes
later the Sensor Officer looked back at Huang again.  “Energy readings have
dropped back to normal background for the star.”

Enough energy
to incinerate a human in an instant, thought the Captain, looking at the graph
that showed the minor blip of whatever had been radiated from the object.  So
the other energy had to come from somewhere, but where?  And why only that one
object, at this time?

*     *     *

Rear Admiral
Nguyen van Hung watched the holo of the mushroom cloud that rose into the upper
atmosphere of the planet.  Twenty megatons, he thought, shaking his
head.  Every one of the offensive missiles in his flagship’s magazines had
warheads at least fifty times more powerful.  But this one was detonated on the
surface of a planet, within less than two kilometers of a number of his
people.  And if not for that effect from that artifact, it would have been
much worse.

Still, he had
lost four Marines permanently dead, unrecoverable by the medical science of the
Empire.  Eleven other personnel had been rendered temporarily dead, and would
be resurrected and returned to duty with time.  And there were over a score who
were injured to varying degrees.  Out of over a hundred people who had been
within the serious damage range of the blast.

“The first of
the rescue shuttles has arrived at the site, sir,” came the call over the com.

Nguyen opened
another holo with a thought through his implant, watching the scene as
personnel started from two grounded shuttles to fan out across the site, while
another started to settle toward the ground, and yet one more was on final
approach.

“I want every
one of those people brought up to this ship,” ordered the Imperial commander of
the system.  “What about the nearby native habitations?”

“The town
nearest to the blast was totally destroyed,” said Captain Susan Lee, Nguyen’s
Chief of Staff, breaking in on the conversation.  “We don’t expect any
survivors there.  Every town and village for fifty kilometers was damaged to
varying degrees.”

“And the state
of the local response?”

“They're
starting to move.  Aerial vehicles are on the way, and while they can deliver
medical and rescue personnel, they only have limited utility as lifting
bodies.”

“Meaning they
have to bring in heavy ground equipment to lift and dig,” said Nguyen, nodding
his head.  “I want every heavy lifting body we have down there aiding in the
rescue.  I don’t care how much effort it takes search and rescue, we will get
the job done.”

After all,
even if it was some alien fanatics who set off the bomb, they wouldn’t have
bothered if we weren’t there.

Every Imperial
ship, from frigates on up, Fleet and Command, had personnel trained in search
and rescue.  In everything from rescuing the crews from wrecked ships on the
verge of exploding, to planet side disaster relief.

“We’ll get them
organized, sir,” said Lee, dropping off the com.  She was back on in a moment.

“I’ve just
gotten word from Clark that Captain Albright was on a shuttle heading to
the site when the bomb went off.  She dropped off the grid just before the
detonation, in the high mountains overlooking desert.  And sir, Ensign Nguyen
Dat was with her.”

“Crap,”
exclaimed the Admiral, staring at the holo that now switched views to the
mountains, and a high pass that led between two really massive peaks.  Dat was
a very distant relative, which meant that in his family he was still family,
and still to be protected.  “Start a search of the area with sting ships,” he
finally said, looking over the list of small craft dispositions and seeing that
the cupboard was just about bare.  “When we have some atmospheric troop
carriers available, and a location for her shuttle, start a ground search of
that area.  Get with Colonel Isaiah and have her detail a platoon.”

“I have to warn
you, sir,” said Lee.  “There was no way that blast could have brought them
down.  Not at that range.  And I doubt they just crashed.”

“So, what are
you saying, Captain?”

“The aliens
still have some of the weapons they captured from Albright’s assault shuttle.
Including antiair missiles.  Anything we send down there could become a target
as well.”

“So you think we
should not send down a search and rescue party?” he asked with a raised
eyebrow.

“No, sir.  Just
warning you.  And I would advise that one of our ships keep a close watch on
that area, and be prepared to provide covering fire if needed.”

“Give the orders
to Captain Jackson,” said Nguyen.  “I want Boudeuse to keep a close
watch over the Marines, and provide any fire support they need.”

And what the
hell do they expect to accomplish with this madness? he thought, switching
back to the view of the mushroom cloud.

Chapter Ten

Technology gives many advantages.
But without sufficient training, technology is a false crutch.  A well trained
soldier with minimal tech is the match for any rabble carrying more advanced
equipment.

Imperial Army Infantry Training
Manual.

“How are you
feeling, Ensign?” asked Albright as she pulled Nguyen along.  The young officer
had regained consciousness moments before, the nanites in his system repairing
the damage of his concussion.  He was still a little groggy, but that would
pass.

“Where are we?”
asked the Ensign, looking around him.

“We came down on
the mountains, son,” said Albright, releasing her grip on the Ensign’s suit and
keeping one hand on him to steady him on the path she wanted him to take.  “We
took out the people who shot us down, but I think there are more out there,
waiting to get shots at whomever is sent to look for us.”

Albright looked
back at the Marine who was watching the rear.  “Any sight of them, Private?”

“No, ma’am,”
said the Marine, his helmeted head turning as he covered the area to the rear.
His heavy suit was not only stronger and carried much stronger armor, but his
sensor suite was also an order of magnitude more sensitive.  Their medium
battle suits were made to interface with ship and small craft systems, while
the Marine armor was designed to search the natural environment for threats.
“I’m still picking up the jamming though.  And it doesn’t appear to be moving.”

“Can you get a
fix on it?” asked Albright, looking back at the Private.

“I’m close,”
said the Marine. “While we’ve been moving, my suit has been working on the
triangulation.  Fortunately, these guys don’t seem to know about moving the
source.”

Albright
nodded.  Under normal circumstances, it would take two or more suits in
different locations to triangulate a target, as targets tended to move to keep
from being located.  If it sat in place for too long, even a single suit moving
along a path could triangulate.  And the manual on the launcher’s
capabilities wouldn’t have given them much in the way of information about our
suits and their capabilities.

“That way,” said
the Marines, pointing across at the slope of another mountain.

The directional
indicator of the Captain’s HUD blinked into life at the same moment, giving her
an accurate pointer to the launcher.  If they knew what they were doing,
they would leave the damned thing off until they were ready to engage.  But if
they left the jammer off, we would be talking to our own side about now.

“I think we can
get a good line of sight on them over there,” said the Marines, and another
blinking cursor appeared on her HUD.  She turned in the direction of the arrow,
moving her viewpoint down, until a small hollow on the side of the mountain
they were on lit up with the same color as the cursor.

“Let’s go,”
ordered Albright, then turning to her Ensign.  “Can you make it, Nguyen?”

“I think so,
ma’am,” said the young man, lifting his suit a couple of centimeters off the
surface.

The Marine led
the way, rifle ready, dropping down the side of the mountain, his suit’s
stealth field blending him in with the rock and ice.  Nguyen followed, while
the Captain took up the rear, keeping an eye on the young pilot.  When she set
down gently on the rock Nguyen was already lowering himself into the
depression, while the Marine was lying prone, his scoped particle beam pointed
toward the target.

Albright again
extended her own scope and stock as she settled into a firing position that
would give her the best cover and concealment.  She slaved the scope to her HUD
and saw what looked like over forty of the aliens.  With them were two
launchers and at least three particle beams.  Enough to down a couple of sting
ships and damage a troop carrier or two before the Imperials even knew what was
happening.

And we’re not
going to let that happen, thought the Captain, waiting for the Marine to
open fire to start the ball rolling.

*     *     *

Warrant Officer
Melissa Sung kept a close watch on her sensors as her sting ship flew over the
valley.  It was fantastic scenery, and she found herself sorry that all of this
was doomed.  When the radiation wave struck, there wouldn’t even be a microbe
left on the surface of this world.

Snap out of
it, Lissa, she told herself, concentrating on her instruments again,
looking for the tiniest inconsistency that might point out her target.

“Anything,
Sung?” asked Lt. Commander Karl Heinzmann, the leader of the squadron.

“Just that damned
jamming,” she replied, looking at the wave pattern on her holographic
oscilloscope.  “I wonder what they’re trying to accomplish.”

The powerful
laser transmitters on the sting ships had no problem reaching one of the ships
above, which relayed it to the next one.  It didn’t do much to their sensor
suite either, though it was hard to localize the source.  And it means they
have some of our tech down there, whoever they are.  Most probably one or more
of those launchers they stole from us.

She couldn’t think
of any reason why their own people would try to jam a search and rescue
effort.  They would be doing everything they could to attract the aircraft to
their location, so that left the aliens.  And if one of those missiles could
knock down an assault shuttle, they could blow a sting ship completely to
hell.  So what are they waiting for?  To get as many of us into their basket
as possible?

So Melissa
continued on her search, cringing a bit inside at the thought that she might
get a fraction of a second warning before a hypervelocity missile took her
craft out, and her with it.  All of her systems were armed, her AI set for
auto-targeting, ready to light up anything that appeared that looked like a
threat to her ship, while at the same time aware that the last thing she needed
to do was to kill the people she was trying to rescue.

She twisted her
head around, and the ship followed her motion, as her sensors picked up a flash
of light off her port stern.

*     *     *

The Marine fired
as one of the aliens holding a launcher put it to his shoulder and aimed.
Albright gave him the go ahead, not sure if they were getting ready to fire on
the single sting ship hovering above the peak to the east, and not willing to
take the chance.  The particle beam, fired by a trained Marine in combat armor,
was of course perfectly on target, almost obliterating the alien while slicing
through and destroying the launcher.

Albright fired
her own weapon, aiming for one of the aliens with a particle beam and hitting
the male who stood up in front of him at the last moment.  The particle beam
gunner threw himself to the ground and swung his weapon around, using the
pointing line of the Marine’s heavy rifle, as it destroyed the second launcher
and operator, to fire back at their position.  The beam splashed from the heavy
armor, doing superficial damage, but forcing the Marine to duck down before it
caused more serious problems.

Albright ducked
down as well, pulling a still confused Ensign Nguyen down with her.  Particle
beams continued to strike the rocks in an explosion of fragments, while
automatic weapons fire spattered the mountainside around them.

*     *     *

“Gotcha,” cried
Sung as the nose of her ship swung around and the targeting carrels sprung into
being on her HUD.  Her finger stroked the trigger, and every weapon aboard the
small craft fired in an instant.

The lasers from
the nose ring struck first, sending megajoules of power into the mass of aliens
who were trying to kill a ground target.  Twin particle beams hit a nanosecond
later, pumping high energy protons into the enemy and the rocks around them.
The grenade launcher in the nose popped off a trio of forty millimeters that
packed a heavier punch than any comparably sized weapons the Klassekians
possessed.  And the heavier punch of a pair of rockets sped from their rails at
thousands of gravities, the ton equivalent antimatter warheads blasting bodies
and boulders into the air to rain on the valley below.

Two seconds.
That was all it took to kill every one of the aliens.  It might not have even
needed that much time, but that’s how long her weapons systems engaged in a
severe case of overkill.

All of the
guerillas had siblings who were not there, from one to eight, who were
connected to them through their quantum entangled nerve tissue.  The guerrillas
who had been killed did not suffer much.  They barely had time to realize that
they were dead.  Their litter mates, on the other hand, felt the echoes of
their deaths for days afterwards, and would try to sleep with memories of
sudden death for the rest of their lives.

*     *     *

“We’ve found
Captain Albright and your cousin, sir.”  Captain Susan Lee looked out of the
holo with a smile on her face.  “Both are well, though I can’t say the same for
the people who shot them down.”

“Did we get all
of the guerillas?”

“As far as we
can tell.  And the sting ship, as well as Captain Albright, accounted for at
least two of the missing launchers, and a half dozen particle beam rifles.”

“That is good
news,” agreed the Admiral, looking over at another holo that showed one of his
shuttles hovering in the air over some rubble, lifting a vehicle above the
house it had been flung into by the blast.  Battle armored figures moved
through the remains of that house, pulling out bodies, including some very
small ones, a young litter of children.

“I want us to
find out who was responsible for this,” he growled, looking back at the holo
with his Chief of Staff centered in it.  “I want these bastards.”

“Shouldn’t we
give any information we have to the local authorities?” asked Lee.

“The hell with
the local authorities.  When we find out who they are, we will go after them
and end them ourselves.  Once we get all the information we can out of them.
Understood?”

“Yes, sir.  I’ll
get our intelligence people working on it right away.”

“Tell them I
want to know who’s at the top.  It’s one thing to strike at combatants, but
what these people have done is a crime against sentient life.  And they will
pay.”

He killed the
com link and sat back down, his eyes glued to the holos that were following the
rescue efforts.  Over sixty thousand dead.  More injured.  And it would have
been much worse if it had been in a much more densely populated region.  I know
most of these people don’t have much more than a year remaining, but that’s
sixty thousand years of sentience wiped away.  I will see these bastards
killed.  I will take from them what they took from these others.

*     *     *

Revador was the
capital city of Honish, the dwelling place of over fifteen million people.
Despite the number, it did not have the vitality of Tsranar, the capital city
of Tsarzor.  It lacked the industry, and there were fewer vehicles on the
streets.  The only vitality in the city revolved around the numerous temples
that seemed to take up all prime locations that weren’t occupied by government
buildings.

There were some
humans in the city, those belonging to the diplomatic missions that the
Imperials had insisted on.  Mostly they stayed to their compound, when not
engaged on business with one of the Honish government agencies.  When moving
through the city they rode in armored vehicles, or walked in groups, all in
their battle armor and accompanied by Marines.

But today some
other humans moved through the city, also in battle armor.  Very specialized
battle armor, made for a very specific purpose.  Recon suits, maximized for
both stealth and sensor capabilities.  Worn by naval officers and ratings who
had primary or secondary specialties in intelligence.

Chief Petty
Officer Travis Martin was one of the score of people who were floating through
the air over the city, his stealth field bending the light waves around him, so
that anyone looking in his direction would see an image of what was behind
him.  The field was not perfect.  There were some minor flaws, some wavering of
the image, but only in small places along the entire field.  Only someone who
was looking for a stealth field would have a chance of spotting it on visual.
It did give off quite a bit heat, but reflectors controlled by the suit’s
on-board computer sent most of that infrared off on angles that were less
likely to have sensors ready to pick it up.  Radar and lidar was absorbed.
Rain and snow could be a problem, but not on this day.

Martin dropped
his suit down toward one of the government buildings, angling toward an open
window the occupant of the office was using to enjoy the weather.  Stopping
right outside the window, he snaked a thin nozzle through the opening and
started spraying a light mist into the office.

His HUD showed
him the take of that mist, which was not made up of any liquid, but instead was
comprised of hundreds of millions of nanoscale machines.  As soon as they
entered the office they floated throughout the room, attaching to any surface
and crawling about.  It would be some minutes before a number of them were
outside the room and into the hall, starting on their way to other rooms.  In
an hour or two they would have infiltrated the entire floor, in a day the
entire building, and Intelligence would start to monitor the take all day,
every day, looking for keywords that might alert them to conversations of
interest.

“Ministry of the
Army is good to go,” the Chief transmitted to the ship.

“Acknowledged,
Chief,” returned Commander Bergland, the intelligence officer in charge of the
operation.

After rising
toward the roof, the Chief pulled a small unit from his suit’s belt and pushed
it onto the stonework of the building, where other nanites attached to the
contact surface bonded with the structure.  The unit would control the nanites
in the building and organize their data, which would consist of sound and vid
bites, then transmit it up to one of the battle cruisers, whose massive
computers would crunch the data.

The same
procedure was being followed in the capital of Tsarzor, Tsranar, and the
capitals of all the smaller nations would soon follow.  And then every military
base, every major corporate headquarters.  If there was anyone involved in the
terrorist or guerrilla attacks in any of these organizations, eventually the
word would get back to Admiral Nguyen, who would then act.

Chapter Eleven

Search and rescue operations can
involve from one person to an entire task group.  The size of the operation is
not the only measure of its importance.  The saving of any sentient life is of
the utmost importance.

The Imperial Navy Manual of
Search and Rescue Operations.

DECEMBER 23RD, 1000.
D-194.

Eight ships
translated down to hyper I a couple of light seconds from the limit.  The ships
insystem had tracked them from their approach through VI, their highest hyper,
down through the dimensions and into normal space.  They had been expected, but
any commander worth his salt tried to be ready for the unexpected even when the
expected was scheduled.

Ships’ captains and
tactical officers still breathed a sigh of relief as what came out of hyper and
into normal space matched up with those expectations.  The largest ships were a
pair of fast freighters, seven million tons of vessel, including over four
million tons of cargo each in their voluminous holds.  Almost as large were a
pair of liners, five million tons, capable of carrying six thousand passengers
in comfort, or almost three times that number in cryo.  Each carried a
battalion of Marines, detached from the brigade that garrisoned the Exploration
Command base from which the ships had originated.  A light cruiser headed the
escort, along with a pair of destroyers.

Admiral Nguyen
read the message from the grav pulse transmission, sent by Commodore Natasha
Khrushchev, the commander of the convoy.  His own orders had already been
transmitted by the same method from his com section.  He wanted those
freighters in orbit and unloading as soon as possible.  The fusion reactors and
electromag generators would allow them to place particle protection around a
number of the sites the natives were preparing.

Nguyen pulled up
one of the sites, in, of course, Tsarzor, since only they and their ideological
allies were trying to save some of their people.  Honish and their coreligionist
couldn’t seem to care less about saving anyone, and were still arguing over the
airwaves that such efforts were against the will of their God.  The problem
with digging in was the amount of material needed to protect living things from
the massive wave of particle radiation that was coming.  It could be done, but
it would take most of the efforts of the building nations to put a relative few
into the ground, whereas high tech protection allowed the construction of
shelters much closer to the surface.

“Sir,” came the
voice of Captain Susan Lee over the com.  “Intelligence thinks they have a lead
on the attacks.”

“Tell me,”
ordered the Admiral.

“Let me show you
instead, sir,” said the Chief of Staff, and a holo sprung into existence over
the Admiral’s desk.

The image showed
what looked like a conference room, with Klassekians in the military uniforms
of the Nation of Honish sitting in their peculiar looking chairs around a large
table.

“We have the
bombs in place, sir,” said what looked like a young alien with the rank
insignia of a ship commander in their navy.  “At your command, we can detonate
them.  All at once, or one at a time.”

“I think it
would be more effective if we set them off one at a time, sir,” said another
officer, this one a division commander in the male only military of the
ultra-religious nation.

“But if we set
them off one at a time, we will alert the aliens to our plan,” said yet another
officer, this one a wing commander in the air force of the nation.  “They will
increase their search assets, and with their technology, they would be very
likely to find our unexploded weapons.”

“I still like
the idea of setting them off in a sequence,” said the male with the most ornate
uniform in the room, sitting at the head of the table, both indications that he
was in charge.  “But it isn’t really up to me.  I have to kick this upstairs,
and see what he says.”

And who the
hell is he? thought the Admiral, trying to will the male to say a name.

The conversation
went on for some minutes before the officers started getting to their feet and
filing out of the room.  “What else do we have?”

“We think we
have a copy of their operations plan,” said the Chief of Staff.  “At least it
looks like it, and some of these same people had met on it last week.”

The holo
changed, the view of the room fading and another room, this one much smaller,
with the kind of lighting that reminded the Admiral of a dungeon like chamber
deep beneath a building.  Some of the same people who had been in the last holo
were in this one.  Nguyen had trouble differentiating between the aliens, but
the computer didn’t have that difficulty.

The view changed
to look down on the table as the computer took the take from the nanites
scattered through the room to give a shot of the most important angle.  There
was a map on the table, showing all of the land masses of the planet.  And
sixteen dots on that map.

“We think these
are their targets,” said Lee, and the action stopped and the holo zoomed in on
one target after the other.  “Six shelter sites, five Tsarzorian cities, and
five landing zones that we have been using.”

“I want all of
those areas searched, and any warheads there disarmed,” ordered the Admiral,
pointing at the holo.

“Do you want us
to take those officers into custody?”

“A couple of
them,” he said after a moment’s thought.  “A few on the periphery, that we
might be able to spirit away without creating too many suspicions.”

The Admiral
looked again at the map, now presented in its entirety.  “How are our studies
of Klassekian neurology coming?”

“If you mean,
have we developed nonlethal gases that are effective against them, then the
answer is yes,” replied the Chief of Staff.  “That was actually relatively
easy, once our biological staff got on it.  As far as working on
nano-interrogation?  That’s a different matter altogether.”

The Admiral
nodded, wondering if they should have started that research earlier than they
had.  If Albright should have started on it before he had arrived.  No use
worrying about the past.  “How much do we know?”

“We have a
pretty good handle on whether they are lying or not when we question them.  As
far as tapping into their memories?  That’s a different matter entirely.”

“Push the
research,” he ordered, scowling as he saw the disapproval on his Chief of Staff’s
face.

“I’m not sure
that’s ethical.  Not with the volunteers at least.  They volunteered to help us
with our research into their biology, so we might be able to transport more of
them to safety.”

There had been
several thousand volunteers from Tsarzor, open minded citizens who were willing
to do almost everything for the promise that their families would be
transported off the world before the radiation wave hit.  There had been many
groups of siblings in the mass of people, giving the Imperials even more
insight into the phenomenon that allowed Klassekians of the same litter to
communicate across almost any distance.

Some of them had
been used to test incapacitating agents, something that a few of the medical
staff had balked at, until it was explained to them that it might otherwise be
necessary to use lethal force on those who tried to interfere with the
evacuation.  After that they had proceeded, cautiously, and none of the natives
had been harmed in that testing.

But this would
be an angle of research of much greater risk and invasiveness than even the
testing of the incapacitating agents.  Nanites would have to be injected in
great quantities into the minds of the aliens, used to monitor the release and
absorption of neurotransmitters at trillions of synapses during the
presentation of various stimuli, not all pleasant.  It was a long, drawn out
process, and had been used on many other alien races in order to get a look
into memories and thought processes.  It allowed intelligence interrogators to
ask questions of, and receive information from, the most intransient of
subjects.

“Just do the
preliminary scans on the volunteers then,” ordered Nguyen after some thought.
“We’ll obtain some other subjects for the more intrusive procedures.”

“What kind of subjects?”
asked Lee.

“The kind that
look to already be involved in trying to make us abort our mission,” growled
Nguyen.  “That kind.  So see to it that we have some of that kind.”

An hour later,
Nguyen was in a video conference with First Councilman Contena.

“We should be
able to load up the first twenty thousand of your people in the next couple of
days,” said the Admiral, looking into the face of the Leader of Tsarzor.  He
was almost proficient at reading the expressions of those faces, and could tell
that the Councilman was excited about the news.

“Do you have a
place to bring them?” asked the alien.  “And how long will it take to get
there?”

Good
questions, thought the Admiral.  The less time it took, the more trips the
liners could make, and with them the freighters that could bring enough
supplies for them to survive until they got their own agriculture going.  But
they needed a planet that met several requirements.  For one, it couldn’t be
within twenty light years of the blue giant, or they would just have to be
either moved or shielded again in the near future.  It also couldn’t be
inhabited by an intelligent species, unless such a race could be convinced to
allow the strangers to settle.  And the environment must be suitable for the
biology of the settlers.  Not all biologies were compatible.  Some were indeed
deadly.

“We’re still
working on a place to settle them permanently,” said Nguyen.  “But we could
always start by taking the first groups to our base.   We can expand it to
handle at least a hundred thousand of your people.”

“And your
shielding of our shelters?” asked the leader, his species’ equivalent of a
scowl on his face, teeth showing.

“The freighters
have enough fusion reactors and electromagnetic field projectors to protect
maybe a dozen shelters.  And we should be able to produce enough shielding
material to handle the neutrons.”

“So, you can
maybe protect a couple of million people.”

“That’s the bad
news, First Councilman.  However, there is some good.”

“And I can’t
wait to hear this news.”

“First off, more
equipment will be coming, and we will also be setting up factories to build
reactors and projectors in place.  Probably more than you need for your
shelters, though we will also add to those, with your permission.”

“That is
wonderful news.  Any other?”

“All of the
people saved will be yours or those of your allies, since the Honish don’t seem
to want to have anything to do with us.”

“I am worried
that they might do something to, sidetrack, I think is the term, the rescue
attempt.”

“We are aware of
that as well, First Councilman.  Our intelligence services are monitoring all
of their communications.”  And yours as well, thought the Admiral,
something he wouldn’t say, but was pretty sure he didn’t have to.

“I have a
question for you, Admiral,” said the First Councilman.  “I’m not sure if you
will answer it, but I still have to ask.  What would you people have done if
none of us had been willing to cooperate in our own rescue?”

“Why, we would
have taken as many of you as we could by force,” said the Admiral with a
smile.  “Don’t get me wrong.  One of our prime values is to respect the
decisions of other species.  However, an even more important value is to not
let any species go extinct, if we can prevent it.  All worlds have a biological
distinctiveness that we feel must be preserved.”

“Even though the
Universe has been ending species, entire ecosystems, for billions of years?
And is doing so this day, and will into the future.”

“You aren’t a
believer are you, First Councilman?”

“I was raised to
believe,” said the being, giving a head motion of negation.  “I wanted to go on
believing.  But my siblings, especially the engineer and the general, lost
their belief as they delved into science, and all of our thoughts influence
those of the others who are connected.  So I lost my belief as well.  No,
Admiral.  I believe in science, and the power of the intelligent mind to shape
our own future.  Not what some deity ordains.”

“Many of our
people still believe, despite our scientific progress,” said Nguyen, thinking
of his own parents.  “They compartmentalize, faith in one box, the Universe in
another.  But many of us can’t do that anymore.  Which doesn’t make us cold and
uncaring as concerns our fellow beings, like many of the religious claim.
Instead, it makes us care more, since we realize that there is no caring God
out there, looking after his peoples.  It’s an uncaring Universe.  It couldn’t
care less that your world, billions of years of evolution leading to your
people, is now within range of a blue giant star about to snuff out all of that
hard fought progress.  So it’s up to us to do what we can, those of us who are
lucky enough to have the technology to do what we are able to.”

“And you don’t
think you’re superior to us primitive aborigines?”

“I can’t say
none of my people do.  But most of us don’t think that way.  We just started up
our technological path before you did.  Once you are up to our level, you may
very well surpass us in the near future.”

“Well, Admiral,
I for one am very glad that you found us when you did.  I’m biased, but I hate
to think that my people might have ended, and a people like yours only found
the remains of our civilization.”

“Believe me,
First Councilman.  We have found enough of those civilizations, though most
ended themselves.”

“Like we almost
did,” agreed the leader.  “If not for Captain Albright and her ship.”

Nguyen looked
down at a holo, making sure what he thought was true.  He looked up into the
eyes of the First Councilman.  “I’ve noticed, looking over the names of the
people who have already been listed for shelter, or evacuation, that neither
you or your siblings are on either list.”

“We are too old
to waste the resources on,” said Contena.  “We have lived our lives, and all of
us have achieved what we set out to do.  We leave the spaces to those with
lives still ahead of them, those who have children to raise.  All I ask for is
that my name goes into our history books. Books that will be written, now that
you are here.”

“Commodore
Khrushchev is on the com, Admiral,” called out the Communication’s Officer.

“I have to go,
First Councilman.  The officer in charge of the convoy is now within real time
com range, and she seems to have some news for me.”

“I hope it’s
good news, Admiral,” said the First Councilman.  “Thank you for talking
truthfully with me.”

The holo went
dead, and a moment later another sprung into existence, showing the head and
shoulders of Commodore Natasha Khrushchev, who was flying her flag on the light
cruiser Tyger.

“What’s the
word, Natasha?” he asked.  Tyger was in orbit around the planet, and
there was no appreciable time delay to this conversation.

“You’ve heard
about Bolthole?”

“I got the basic
word from your grav pulse.  I was kind of surprised it was approved.”

“Headquarters
didn’t see why not,” said the Commodore.  “It isn’t like they’re going to tell
anyone where it is.  Or even know where it is to start with.”

I don’t even
know where the damned place is, thought Nguyen, nodding.

Bolthole had
been the brainchild of Emperor Augustine I’s father.  Augustine had gone ahead
and pushed a black bill through the Parliament, gotten the initial funding, and
anted up some of his own fortune.  Bolthole resided in an area about
fifty light years across, from thirteen hundred and thirteen hundred and fifty
light years from the spinward border of the Empire.  There were a lot of stars
in that globe, and no Imperial ship was allowed into it without special
permission.

There were now
over twenty million Imperial citizens in that system, which included manufacturing
facilities and shipyards, major asteroid bases, and a planet that was in the
process of being terraformed.  Future plans included a supermetal production
facility.  The idea was to have a fleet production facility that could not be
hit by any possible enemy, since they wouldn’t be able to find it.

The great
majority of those people in the system were there as workers, and almost none
of them knew where they were really were, astronomically speaking.  They had
signed long term contracts, twenty standard years, at triple the normal pay
scales for their professions.  And now higher command was willing to let aliens
resettle into the expanding asteroid bases, which showed just how important
they were to the military leaders who knew about them and their specialized
abilities.

“How many?”

“They estimated
about a million, if they can find the transport for them.”

“That many,”
said the Admiral after a whistle.  “That is very good news.”  And we might
be able to save twenty to twenty-five million of them between here and Command
Base.  Which sounded really great, until he remembered that there were over
six billion of the Klassekians.  “I guess the next question is, do we have more
transports coming?”

“That is the
bottleneck, so far,” agreed the Commodore.  “A general recall is out for all
Command ships to head this way, but you know how that goes.”

Nguyen knew how
that went.  There were scores of exploration teams, pairs of ships, out on
sweeps through the unexplored areas of this arm.  Some of them would be out of
contact for months, some for half a year.  No one knew where some of them were,
since they might change plans depending on what they found on earlier stops.
Meaning that it might take months to get most of those ships here, if ever.

Supply ships and
escorts were also part of a constant stream from the Empire to the Exploration
Command base that was located about five hundred light years outside the
borders of friendly territory.  They brought parts, antimatter, food, and
replacement personnel.  Some of those ships could be added to the evacuation,
but not all of them.

“Headquarters
has also sent requests back to the Empire for more ships, but you know how that
goes.”

Yes,
thought Nguyen.  We’re involved in a war, and shipping is precious at this
time.  If it had been peacetime, the Empire would have sent a thousand
ships out here to rescue these people, without thought of recompense.  That was
just the way most humans were.  But diverting ships that might be needed to
protect and supply Imperial citizens, no matter how precious a resource these
aliens might be, that was another thing.

“All we can do
is all we can do,” said Nguyen, wishing it wasn’t so.  “Get your cargo unloaded
and down to the planet as soon as possible.  And I want the orbital factories
up and running in twenty-four hours.  As soon as the asteroid miners are ready
I want them transporting raw materials.”

“Yes, sir,” said
Khrushchev, sitting up straight in her chair.  “We’ll get right on it.”

Nguyen nodded,
terminated the com, and started up another one, this time linking with the
Marine Colonel aboard one of the transports.

“Colonel
Margolis,” answered the petite redheaded woman on the holo.

“Colonel.  I
understand you brought a platoon of Force Recon with you.”

“Yes, sir.
Forty-three of the baddest Marines this side of hell.”

“I have a
mission for them.”

Chapter Twelve

When we first sent out the call
for volunteers for Special Ops; Naval Commandos, Army Rangers and Marine Recon,
we really expected to have trouble filling the quota.  After all, who would
want to give up three or four decades of life for the chance to put their lives
on the line on hazardous missions.  We underestimated the call of adventure to
young people.  After all, who could resist the lure of becoming a literal
superman.

Field Marshal Ceasar Mgombi,
Commandant, Imperial Marine Corps, the Year 721.

JANUARY 11TH, 1001.
D-175.

The humans
seemed to come out of nowhere.  One moment the two Honish officers were walking
down the street, returning from dinner, anxious to get back to their planning.
The next six humans, not armored like most of the ones they had seen, came from
the shadows and surrounded the pair.  Both were trained warriors.  They didn’t
panic, but moved into defensive positions, their hands reaching to the butts of
their sidearms.

Klassekians on
average could move much faster than humans.  They could run faster, jump
higher, and respond quicker.  But not these humans, who seems to blur slightly
as they ran ahead and grabbed the tentacle bunches of the aliens before they
could draw their weapons.

The officers
strained against the iron sinews of the Recon Marines, and met their match in
creatures that were much stronger than they looked.  In moments they were on
the ground, some sort of strapping over their breathing and speaking orifices,
limbs bound.  The humans picked them up and ran with them, through the darkness
of back alleys, then up the stairs of a building.  Once on the roof, they were
deposited into some kind of aerial vehicle, where humans in body armor took
charge of them, and the unarmored ones ran back to the stairwell and
disappeared.

The vehicle
leapt silently into the sky and turned in the air, accelerating away, to
deliver its captives to the nearest human compound.  Minutes after arrival they
were on a shuttle headed toward one of the human ships in orbit, where they
would become subjects in the interrogation of their species.  Intelligence
already knew they were guilty.  They had been recorded in their offices
discussing activities that were intended to sabotage the rescue efforts of the
humans.  They were low enough on the totem pole where their absence might not
be noticed for several days, but hopefully with enough knowledge that could
prove useful for the planning of further missions by the Recon Marines.

*     *     *

Klanar airfield
was not the largest in Tsarzor, but it was easily secured, and it was not
serving its intended purpose at the moment.  For the last several days thirty
shuttles, twenty-five standard and five assault, had been landing, taking on
passengers as fast as they could, and lifting almost silently back into the
air.  From there they had climbed rapidly into the sky, breaking the sound
barrier within moments, to rendezvous with the liners Centauri Queen and
Jadpur.

The movement had
been going on day and night, as Klassekians lined up in the heat of the field,
mothers holding the tentacles of their litters of children, groups of adult
siblings talking among themselves, some verbally, others just sharing their minds.

Battle suited
Marines were in evidence along the perimeter of the field, while a pair of
sting ships flew slowly over that same perimeter.  Further out, hundreds of
local troops sat in their positions, alertly guarding their part of the outer
perimeter against the expected action of those determined to stop the
evacuation.

Some of those
natives were gathered in front of the entry gate of the airfield, chanting,
waving signs, peaceful so far.  Their signs demanded that the evacuation be
stopped, and warned that the humans were liars, who wished to capture as many
Klassekians as they could for their own nefarious purposes.  What those
nefarious purposes were they could not say, which to the evacuees made them
even more to be feared.

Lt. J’rrantar
walked part of the perimeter, checking on the men in his platoon who had been
detailed to make sure nothing got near enough to the field to attempt a shot at
the shuttles.  The huge Phlistaran’s armor was bristling with attached
weaponry, a heavy particle beam mounted on his back, barrel extending over his
right shoulder, a rocket launcher on his flank.  His people made powerful
ground troops, able to wear large suits that allowed for a lot of firepower.
Unfortunately, they weren’t able to effectively hug the ground like their
smaller humanoid comrades, and climbing was also out of the question, though
the flight functions of the suits somewhat made up for that.

“Report,” came
the call over the com, and the Lieutenant looked up for a moment, even though
he knew he would not be able to see the ship it was coming from.  William
Clark was at the edge of the atmosphere, hovering there on grabbers, ready
to provide any fire support that might be needed.

“All calm and
quiet so far, ma’am,” he reported to Captain Albright.  He looked over at the
gate, three kilometers away, and zoomed in to see the protesters parting before
a convoy of native armored vehicles that were escorting a score of trucks.  The
protesters waved their signs more energetically, and the volume of the yelling
increased in the Marine’s audio pickup.  Several protestors ran after the
trucks in their peculiar sliding motion that moved them so quickly along the
ground.  Soldiers on the trucks pushed them back with rifles.  One, who tried
to grab onto a weapon, took a buttstock to his face for this trouble.

“About what we
expected.”

“Well, keep a
close watch, Lieutenant.  There’s a reason they call it the unexpected.”

The com went
dead, and the Marine officer checked the status of his platoon on his HUD, then
looked back at the field, where the last six shuttles were being loaded,
Klassekians moving in orderly fashion onto the vehicles.

It hadn’t been
his call of course, but over half the people getting on the shuttles were
adults.  He would have preferred that they got as many children as possible off
planet.  His own people were very devoted to their children, and he couldn’t
think of many things worse than saving his own hide while a child was left in
danger.  But the powers that be wanted enough adult litters that they could
take immediate advantage of their quantum entanglement ability.

“We have
aircraft on approach,” came a call over the com, identified as the Senior Chief
in charge of the naval ground crew.  “Multiple contacts.”

An arrow
appeared the Lieutenant’s HUD, pointing toward the contacts.  The sting ships
overhead took off, accelerating up to multi-Mach in seconds.

“Total of eight
contacts,” continued the Chief, keeping the Marines informed.

The sting
ships should be able to take care of them, thought the Marine officer.  The
Imperial atmospheric fighter/attack craft could track and fire on a score of
targets at the same time, and he doubted a fighter aircraft from one of this
world’s powers could knock one of the sting ships out of the air.

“Alert,” called
out another voice over the net.  “Six contacts, incoming from the south
southeast.”

Now that was a
problem.  There was no way the sting ships could deal with all of their targets
and turn around in time to take care of these newcomers.  J’rrantar sent out
his own alert at that moment, making sure that his own antiair gunners were
ready for action.  If worse came to worse, the regular suits could take some
shots.

“Get those
shuttles back on the ground,” called out the Lt. Commander who was in overall
charge of the operation.  “Get them out of the line of fire.”

Two of the
shuttles were already in the air.  The furthest up looked like it might be able
to accelerate out of the area before a furball developed.  But the Commander
was taking no chances, and both craft dropped back to the ground.

Flashes on the
northern horizon showed that the sting ships had engaged whatever it was they
faced.  A flash from the south indicated that something had fired on something,
and the tactical display updated to show that Clark had taken the
aircraft under fire, knocking one from the air with a laser.

And we still
don’t know what they are, thought the Marine, watching the display for
updates.  Not that it really mattered.  This was a no fly zone for anything
that didn’t belong to the Empire, out to fifty kilometers in every direction.
Anything entering that zone was assumed to be hostile, and would pay for it.

Another flash to
the south, and then the dots of low flying aircraft appeared, flying faster
than sound and outrunning their own roar.  A missile rose from one of the heavy
suits, flashing out to hit one of the now obvious fighters in a fraction of a
second.  That craft exploded in a ball of fire that rained flaming debris all
over the ground.  A second suit fired, and another aircraft went down, leaving
two on approach.

One of the
fighters must have locked onto a target, and missiles dropped from the weapons
compartment underneath and headed for one of the shuttles.  Six weapons, all of
which detonated well short of their target, engaged by the on-board lasers of
the shuttle targeted and the particle beams of a dozen Marine suits.

The fighters,
totally unmarked craft that had a passing resemblance to front line Tsarzorian
aircraft, roared over the field, objects dropping from beneath them.  More
particle beams buzzed up, hitting all of the bombs and one of the fighters.
The bombs exploded, and the fighter went into a forced bank as one of its wings
came off.  It went into a spin and headed for the main gate.  Another particle
beam struck the fighter, which broke into pieces before striking the ground
within the crowd of protesters.

Shit,
thought J’rrantar, sending out the orders to his people that locked them in
place.  He knew most of them would want to go running to the rescue, but it was
important they stay on the defensive.  Search and rescue would be coming down
from the naval force in orbit, as well as from the native services.  Looking at
the ball of fire that was rising over the center of what had been the crowded
group of Klassekians protesting the evacuation, he thought that most of the
effort would be wasted.  Those within the blast radius were dead or dying, the
rest had already fled away from the heat.

A last crack in
the air captured his attention, and he turned back to see the last fighter as
it exploded in the air on the way out, the foliage on the ground beneath giving
evidence to what had downed it.  Clark had gotten another one with her
lasers.  Minutes later the all clear as sounded, and the grounded shuttles
lifted into the air, accelerating away to get to the liners as soon as
possible.

And one of the
sting ships was missing, which meant the Marines had to go out and find the
pilot.

*     *     *

“We’ve found her
ejection capsule, sir,” came the call from the squad leader in charge of the
search team.

“What about the
Warrant Officer?” asked J’rrantar, not liking that the Sergeant hadn’t
announced finding her.

“No sign.  There
are a lot of tracks, though.  Including the marks of some kind of tracked vehicle.”

“Clark.
This is J’rrantar.  Do you have a track on Warrant Officer Sung?”

“No, sir,
Lieutenant,” answered the Petty Officer who was tracking all ground personnel
from the ship.  “We had her up until about forty seconds after her capsule came
down.  Then she just disappeared.”

“Well, shit,”
cursed the Phlistaran Marine.  “Sergeant,” he yelled into the com, switching
freqs.  “I want you to spread out.  Find her.  I’m going to send second squad
out to help you.”

“Belay that
order, Lieutenant,” came the voice of Captain Albright over the com.  “I don’t
want you weakening your perimeter by sending any more Marines out.  I’ll get in
touch with Colonel Margolis and see if he can get some more people down there.
And search and rescue.”

“Understood,
ma’am,” said the Marine, not liking the order at all.  “Sergeant.  Try to find
her.  Follow that vehicle track.  That’s the most likely means of getting her
away.  But keep a close eye out around you.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they
set up an ambush.”

“Yes, sir,” said
the Sergeant, and J’rrantar’s HD blossomed with the icons of microdrones
launched by the Marines of that squad, joining those that were already out
scouting their perimeter.  A quartet sped ahead, following the tracks, while
the others spread out and reinforced the perimeter scan.

Find her, by
the Gods, thought the Lt.  He didn’t really want to think what the people
they were fighting would do to the pilot, but he was sure it would not be
pleasant.

*     *     *

Warrant Officer
Melissa Sung looked up as the lid of the coffin like conveyance they had placed
her in was raised.  Her battle armor was still sealed, the aliens having no
means of really forcing it open without killing or severely injuring her.  She
was surprised they had been able to capture her, but a combination of her
confusion coming out of the ejection capsule, their proximity and swift strike,
and the sticky strands they had surrounded her with had combined to take her,
despite the augmentation of the suit.

She tried to
contact the ship through her suit com, then on her implant when that didn’t
work.  The Warrant figured that the box must have been shielded from
electromagnetic transmission, which meant she was probably not being tracked
from space either.

“Get the human
out of there,” said one of the aliens after the lid was open, his speech
translated by her implant.

She tried to
call to her people again, and again could not find the carrier wave.  Looking
up at the ceiling she could see why, as it was crisscrossed with a web of wires
that extended down the walls.  A goddamn Faraday cage, she thought.  Not
really a high tech solution, but no less effective for all of that.  As long as
she was within that web of wires, no signal she sent could leave the room.

A quartet of big
males lifted her out of the box, struggling with the weight of her armored
suit.  They carried her to a heavy chair that seemed to be made just for the
purpose of holding her and set her in it, then lashed down her arms and legs.
Another came along and sprayed her with a liquid that dissolved the strands
that had been holding her immobile.

“Your people do
not know where you are,” said one of the aliens, pushing his masked face up
close to her visor.  “There will be no help coming for you.”

“What do you
want?”

“Information.
But first, let us get you out of that suit.”

“No way,
asshole.  If you think I’m coming out of my suit so you can torture me, you are
one daft SOB.”

“I do not
understand these terms,” said the Klassekian, making a head motion that the
Warrant Officer thought meant a negative.  “But you will be given a choice.
You can either open up your suit and get out, or…”

He motioned with
his left tentacles, and a pair of males came walking up, carrying medium sized
cylinders with flat ends. One placed an object on her helmet, the other a
cylinder on her chest.  Both cylinders stuck to where they were placed, and the
males flipped switches on them which caused lights to come on while a beep
sounded.

“What are
those?” asked Sung, having an idea, and not liking what she was thinking.

“Shape charges.
They have been bonded to your armor, and will detonate in about two minutes.  I
am not sure how much damage they will do to that wonderful piece of protective
technology, but each device is made to cut through about a half meter of our
best armor.  Perhaps they will do nothing to your armor.  Or maybe they will
blast large holes in your armor and injure you, possibly kill you.”

The alien moved
away, backing, keeping his eyes on the human.  “The choice is yours, since we
have no way to get that armor off of you without destroying it, and possibly
killing you anyway.”  He looked at a device.  “You have one minute and
thirty-five seconds to decide, if my translation into your time units is
correct.”

Sung stared at
the alien, wondering how much of what he was telling her was the truth, and how
much lies to get her out of her defensive armor.  She brought up a timer on her
HUD, aware that time was ticking off.  And if I get out of this armor, they
can do anything they want to me.

The timer ticked
down to a half minute, and the aliens continued to keep their distance and
watch her closely.  If the cylinders were filled with the best explosive these
people had, it would cut holes through her armor without a problem, sending
jets of superheated alloy burning through the alloy and into her flesh.  They
would blow her apart, vaporizing her brain and thoracic organs.  She could feel
the sweat rolling down her face despite the environmental controls in his
armor, and the HUD clock continued to count down.  It ticked down to fifteen
seconds and she decided that she wanted to live after all.

With a thought
her faceplate rose into her helmet, which split along the seam that hadn’t
existed a moment before and moved away from her head.  Seams appeared on all of
the limbs and along the sides of the torso.  Moments after they appeared the
suit opened, and she jumped out of it, tearing out the body connections to her
veins, urethra and skull plug.  The Warrant staggered a meter from the suit, and
two aliens rushed forward, grabbed her, and hustled her away.

“Stop the
devices,” ordered the leader, and a pair of makes pointed remotes at the suit
and pressed large buttons on their tops.  The lights went off and the beeping
stopped, and the leader let out a breath of relief.

“Get her armor
on the next transport out,” said the leader, and Melissa felt her heart sink.

She had just
handed over a completely intact set of medium battle armor to the aliens.
There were systems in place that she could have used to disable the electronics
of the armor, but she had bailed out before she could activate them.  And
without that connection there was no way she could rectify that error.  And
now they have something they can look at, and maybe figure out some tricks to
use against us.  She really wasn’t worried that they would be able to
reverse engineer it.  The circuitry in the suit was a millennia beyond the tech
of any of the native cultures, and nothing they would be able to duplicate,
without that much of an increase in their basic tech and manufacturing base.

“What about me?”
she asked, trying to contact the ship once again on her implant, and again
running into a wall.

“Now we will ask
you some questions.  And if you know what is good for you, you will answer.”

*     *     *

Rear Admiral
Nguyen van Hung watched the holo as the two liners accelerated out of orbit, on
a heading for the hyper limit.  Each was filled to capacity with emigrants,
sixteen thousand five hundred each.  Not all were in cryo, yet.  About three
quarters of the chambers, which had been specifically calibrated to their
species, were filled.  The rest would be prepped and frozen on the way to the
limit, to be reanimated when they reached the base system, where habitats
similar to the one used by the Command were being built.

In three
months we’ll have five habitats built, enough for half a million of the
Klassekians.  With protein vats and hydroponics enough to feed all of them.  In
another five months we’ll have the facilities for half a million more, but will
we have the lift to get them all there?

“Message coming
in from Commodore Khrushchev,” said the Flag Com Officer.

Nguyen nodded
and sent his acceptance through his link, and the woman who had brought the
liners here appeared on the holo.  She was taking Tyger with her, as
well as a destroyer.  This was precious cargo, and no one was about to let it
go unescorted through space that might be teeming with hostile ships.

“Make sure base
gets my dispatches, Natasha,” he told the Commodore as soon as the connection
was made.  The cruiser had an additional five hundred passengers aboard, all
they could handle without compromising their combat capabilities.

“Will do, sir.
And I’ll add my recommendations to yours, if they’ll carry any weight.”

That was the
problem.  They needed more ships here, if they expected to get the planned two
million or more refugees away.  The shelters they were building on the planet
might help, but he was not completely confident that they would keep everyone
who took refuge in them alive.  And we need these people, as many as we can
save.

He was still
waiting for the courier bringing word from the Empire.  Base was over a month
away from the closest sector capital in the Empire, one which would have a
wormhole link to Capitulum, and contact with the Emperor.  Only the monarch, or
in his absence the Minister of War, could make the decision to send more ships
out this way while the Empire was fighting for its life on the other side of
its expanse.  Once his dispatches got to the sector capital, it would only take
from seconds to hours before they were in front of the decision makers, and the
same amount of time before their orders were at the Imperial Fleet base.

Of course, at
that point, it would take another month for a courier to get back to the
Command base, or two and a half months for hyper VI ships to get to Klassek if
they came direct.  Hyper VII ships would be soon to follow, and they could
reach here four times faster.

Nothing I can
do about the laws of physics, unless we can get a wormhole cut loose.  And what
are the odds of that?

“Get those
liners unloaded and back here as soon as possible,” he told the Commodore.
“And anything else you might be able to beg, borrow or steal.”

He terminated
the com, then brought up another one and waited for a moment until Captain
Susan Lee appeared in the holo.

“What’s the
progress on interrogating our new prisoners, Susan?”

“The medical
staff think we are making progress, but it could take some time before we have
enough baseline readings to determine their surface thoughts.  And, of course,
much longer before we can read deeper thought patterns.”

Shit.  We
have a pretty good handle on what we think is going on, and who's responsible.
But we don’t have proof, and I’d hate, during a first contact situation, to
start acting like fascists.  We’re already having enough trouble with getting
them to trust us.

“Keep at it.  If
we capture any more of the terrorists, they’ll make the acquaintance of our
researchers.  But we need to know where the orders are coming from.”

“You know, sir,
eventually they will discover what we did, and develop their own ways to
counteract it.”

Nguyen nodded.
That had always been part of the spying game.  Either within a species or
between several, methods were developed to get information.  And methods were
developed to counteract those interrogation methods.  Until counter counter
methods were discovered, and on and on.

“I agree that
they might develop some somatic methods to keep us from reading them.  But as
far as higher tech methods to deal with our drugs, nanotech or mental probes?
I don’t see them getting anywhere until they advance at least five hundred
years.  So keep the pressure up on the research boys and girls.”

He killed that
com and sat at his desk thinking for a moment.  We could just wait until I
have more ships in the system, and pull the locals off and away whether they
want to go or not.  Get the rest of my people off this planet, and let the
natives fight it out over ideological issues.

He looked back
at the holo that showed one of the ancient artifacts, the one they were working
on.  They had abandoned the first site, the one that had been subjected to the
nuke.  There was still a rescue effort going on at that site, even though it
was past the time where they could realistically expect to find any more
survivors.  It was thought better to start over at another site, since many of
the locals of that region blamed the destruction on the humans.

And still no
way in.  I have to wonder if finding an entrance might lead to losing the
people who tried to enter.  He thought back to the attempt on one of the
blue giant orbiting artifacts made by the team from the Lewis.  Their
probe had gotten aboard alright, and then had done something that made the
artifact think it was hostile.  Since then, everything they had tried to put
aboard had been destroyed.  And there was no guarantee that anyone who tried to
penetrate one of the planet bound artifacts wouldn’t also be destroyed.  But it
was the only chance they had to explore what looked like truly advanced
technology.

Sometimes I
wish I was still just a ship’s captain, thought the Admiral, looking back
down at his flat comp, which had yet another report on it.  His captains all
had maybe one task in front of each of them, at most two.  While he felt like
he was juggling all the balls at once.

Chapter Thirteen

Sometimes, when you poke the
unknown, the unknown punches you back.

Fenri saying.

MARCH 1ST, 1001.
D-128.

Lieutenant
Junior Grade Helen Moyahan followed close behind the excavating robot she was
controlling through her suit.  The plan was to excavate into the bedrock down
to the ten kilometer mark and establish sensors.  From there they would tunnel
around the artifact, looking for an entrance, filling in and re-fusing the rock
behind them.  A number of the ratings she was in charge of were running their
own machines, one ton robots equipped with cutting blades of the hardest carbon
alloy, along with powerful lasers.

“How’s it going
down there, Helen?” asked Commander Jaques La Clerc, the XO of the Challenger,
and the commander of the excavation.

“Fine, sir,” she
replied, checking her HUD to check her progress.  And I’m not really sure
what we are accomplishing here.  The material of the artifact doesn’t change no
matter how far down we go.  It still absorbs all energy, and we can’t probe
into it at all.  Maybe we should admit it’s just too advanced for us.

“As soon as you
get everything set up, let me know,” said the Commander, and the com died.

It took several
hours to get to where the deep radar said they needed to be.  There was a
depression here in the surface of the object, and it was hoped it might lead to
a way in.  Moyahan watched as a pair of ratings played the beams of their
lasers over the surface of the object, the rock in contact going from red to
white hot and flowing away, while other robots sucked up the molten material
and sent it up the insulated pipes that led to the surface.

The Lieutenant
could feel the temperature rise around her for a moment before her suit got a
handle on it and lowered the temp.  The air started to thicken with superheated
vapor that had once been solid rock.  A couple of robots started pulling the
rock vapor from the air and sending it away as well, and the air cleared.

The purplish
surface of the artifact glowed as well.  Helen pointed a sensor wand at the
surface and started taking readings.  Interesting.  No variation of
temperature, despite the lasers and contact with molten rock.  Amazing.   It’s
like it’s wicking it away.  But to where?

They waited the
required time for all of the rock to be removed, and for that which remained in
place to cool back to the ambient temperature of the ground.  “OK.  Let’s get
these sensors into place.”

The ratings
first attempted to place standard contact sensors on the surface of the object,
with no luck.  Not even molecular bonding or nanotech could attach to the
unknown substance that made up the artifact.  So they went with plan B, setting
up frames that held the sensors up next to the artifact.

“Probes are in
place,” she reported to the Commander.  “But I can’t see a way in here.  We’re
heading back.”

She really
wasn’t sure about the next part of the experiment.  Two other teams had
burrowed down and also attached sensors.  Later, after this part was over, they
would work on opening up other areas and planting more probes.

“Let’s go,
people,” ordered the Lieutenant as soon as they reached the surface.  She and
her team took to the air, flying low over the ground on grabber units.  Twenty
kilometers away were the temporary shelters, hard bombproofs that had been
placed and then erected themselves.

Inside were a
number of technicians monitoring the experiment they were about to perform.
Links had been established with the battle cruiser HIMS Challenger, the
platform which would be conducting the experiment.

As soon as
Moyahan was in her chair the Commander looked over at her, then back at a com
holo.  “We’re ready down here, Captain.”

“We’re firing in
ten seconds,” replied the commander of the battle cruiser.  “Ring A, two
emitters at twenty percent power.”

Helen listened
to the com, doing the math in her own mind.  Each of the eight emitters in a
ring could put out one hundred gigawatts of energy into the circular laser unit,
which was about ninety-eight percent efficient.  So the first shot would be
forty gigawatts, from a ring that was capable of putting out eight hundred
gigawatts of coherent energy.

“Five, four,
three, two, one,” counted the com, and the battle cruiser put forty gigawatts
per second onto the top of the artifact.  There was really nothing to see, as
the beam was invisible, transmitting through a very clear atmosphere out in the
desert in which the artifact sat.  There was a slight glow on the object, but the
aerial sensors flying around it picked up no energy reflection, as if every erg
other than some visible photons had been absorbed.

“Anything from
the deep sensors?” asked the Commander, and Helen checked her board.

“No, sir.
Nothing.”

“Second shot in
ten seconds,” came the voice of the ship’s captain.  The first had been exactly
one second.  The next one would last five seconds, and put two hundred gigawatt
seconds into the object.

I wonder what
the natives would think if they knew we were shooting one of our primary close
in weapons systems into an object they thought was sacred, she thought.
The Tsarzorian leadership knew what they were doing, since the target was in
their territory.  The Honish did not, and were sure to raise holy hell if they
learned of it.

“Firing,” said
the battle cruiser’s tactical officer, and the beam struck again, this time for
the five second period that put five times the energy of the first shot into
the object.

“Still nothing,
sir,” reported Helen, after hearing the same report from the PO monitoring the
atmospheric sensors.  The energy has to be going somewhere, she
thought.  But so far all they knew was that the object was absorbing the
energy, and it was not being reradiated in any manner they could discover.

They tried a ten
second shot, then added two more emitters at twenty percent for another one
second shot.  They worked their way up the same procedure, then added two more,
and then the last, until every emitter was engaged.  After that they started
raising the percentage power, until the entire ring was blasting away for ten
seconds at eight hundred gigawatts, for a total of eight pentawatts, enough to
blast through the electromagnetic cold plasma field of a battleship and deep
into its armor.  And the object was still absorbing all of it, with no sign of
radiating it out.

“We ready to
bring the B ring into play?” asked the Commander over the com.

“B ring charged
and ready,” replied the Tactical Officer of the ship.  “Just give us the word.”

Helen checked
her board, making sure they were picking up nothing from the last shot.  Eight
terawatts was a hell of a lot of energy, and it had to be going somewhere.

“What if it’s
just one large capacitor,” she said over the com, so she could be heard by
everyone in the decision making process.  “This thing is bigger than a thousand
battle cruisers.  We could be pumping light amp energy in it until all of our
ships are out of antimatter.”

“She might have
a point,” said the Tactical Officer.

“It’s the only
thing we can come up with to check its capabilities,” said the Captain.
“Nothing we have attempted to probe it with has worked, and the Admiral
approved this plan.”

And it had been
decided that light in the visible part of the spectrum would be used, since
that was where a lot of the energy of a star came from, and it was hypothesized
that the artifacts in orbit around Big Bastard were there to collect
energy for some unknown purpose.  Later, if light in those frequencies didn’t
work, they would try something else.

“Firing both
rings at full power,” called out the Tactical Officer over the com net.  “Ten
second duration.  In ten.”

The battle
cruiser shot the full power of both forward laser rings into the object with no
effect.  According to the probes which floated around it the artifact didn’t
even radiate an extra erg of heat.  One of the probes exploded, caught in the
excess laser light that had not impacted the target for one fraction of a
second before the ship’s fire control could get everything onto the target.

“Going for a full
power shot, all four rings,” called out the Tactical Officer.  Again the battle
cruiser fired for ten seconds, putting thirty-two terawatts of power into the
artifact, which it absorbed without reaction.

“Should we
increase the duration?” asked the Commander.

Helen really
didn’t think that was a good idea.  The laser rings could overheat.  Most
times, in a real combat situation, they would only be fired for twenty seconds
of full power each, spread across multiple beam solutions, mostly in a missile
defense role.

“I don’t see
why,” replied the Captain.  “As the Lieutenant said, we could drain the ship
dry and not get a response.  So it’s time to start trial B.”

Helen really
didn’t like that one.  The ship would be next firing its particle beam weaponry
into the object, and see if it absorbed that energy as well.  I just hope
they don’t decide to hit it with antimatter to see what happens, she
thought.  She didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to do that.  The beam
would come down from orbit exploding its way through the atmosphere as it
contacted the matter of the air, then would have to interact with the matter of
the artifact in a manner that would not be conducive to its wellbeing.

“Lining up
particle beam one,” called out the Tactical Officer.  “Twenty percent
capacity.”

At the end of
the count down the angry red beam seemed to link the ship to the artifact
instantaneously.  It was travelling a mere point nine nine light, as fast as
the accelerators aboard the ship could speed it before it was shot out of it
projector.  As fast as just about any ship could accelerate the protons up to.
There were ships in the Empire that shot faster beams, but the protons were
accelerated on enormous stations and sent to the ship’s projectors through
wormholes.  No such weapons existed in the Command.

The beam struck
the object.  It should have both pummeled the substance of the artifact and
superheated it as kinetic energy was transferred into heat.  Instead, nothing
seemed to happen.  And the probes and sensors, as with the lasers, picked up no
residual energy.

“Forty percent
capacity,” called out the Tactical Officer again, and once again the beam came
down from above, this time carrying twice the protons per second of the first
beam.

“We’re picking
up something from the object,” called out Helen, staring at her board.

“What kind of
something?” asked the Commander, pulling up the readouts on a holo.  “Not much
of a spike.”

“More than we’ve
gotten out of any other shots,” said the Captain.  “We’ll see if we can kick
some more out of it.”

The third shot
came down, sixty percent capacity, which much the same results, if maybe just a
little bit more.  Then the fourth shot came down, and all hell broke loose.

“We’re getting a
surge,” yelled Helen, as the power readings started climbing, gigawatts,
terawatts, pentawatts, then shot off the scale.

“What’s it
doing?” shouted out the Commander, running over to her station.

“Nothing, as far
as I can tell.  But it is surging energy.”

The last second
of the fourth shot finished, and something blindingly bright erupted from the
top of the artifact, well above the atmosphere and aimed at the Challenger.

“Something is
hitting our shields,” called out Sensor Officer. “I can’t tell what it is, but
it's flowing around the ship.  It’s…”

The com went
dead, and with it all signals from the battle cruiser.

“We’ve lost all
uplink with Challenger,” called out one of the Petty Officers.

“Get me someone
up there,” yelled the Commander.  “Anyone.”

“Aye, sir,”
replied the Petty Officer, working on his board for a moment.  “I’ve got the
duty officer aboard Boudeuse.  Lt. Commander Rizzo.”

A holo sprang
to life, showing the shocked face of a woman in the soft suit of shipboard wear
when nothing was really expected to threaten.  Lights were flashing behind her,
and the sound of a general quarters klaxon sounded.

“Rizzo.  This is
Commander La Clerc, down on the planet.  What happened to Challenger?”

“My God, sir.
She just, vanished.  She was there for a moment, then space distorted around
her, and she was gone.”

“Was she
destroyed?”

The holo
changed, and La Clerc found himself looking at the face of Captain Joshua
Jackson, the commanding officer of the Boudeuse.  “What the hell
happened, La Clerc?” asked the Flag Captain of the man who was normally executive
officer on Challenger, and whose vessel was no longer up there in orbit.

La Clerc gave
the Captain a quick rundown, up to the point where they had lost contact with
the battle cruiser.

“We don’t have a
clue as to what happened, Commander,” said Jackson when the other officer had
finished.  “There was no explosion, and there is no debris where she had been.
Not even particles.  But whatever happened, we’re pretty sure that the artifact
had something to do with it.”

Moyahan listened
from her station, her heart sinking as she thought about the eight million ton
ship and the more than thirty-one hundred personnel who had been aboard her.
All gone, without a trace.

*     *     *

“We have no idea
where she is, sir,” said Captain Susan Lee, the worry and fatigue showing in
her face.

Lee sat across
the conference table from the Admiral, and there were twenty-three others
sitting in.  Seventeen were there in the flesh, while six attended as holograms
that looked just like living people.

“Things don’t
simply disintegrate, Captain,” said Nguyen van Hung, feeling his own fatigue
seated behind his eyes.  “Not unless something shot eight million tons of
negative matter at them, in a perfect spread to take out the entire ship.”

“We don’t think
it was blown up,” continued the Chief of Staff.  “There wasn’t even the
residual radiation of her antimatter breaching contain and exploding.”

And if that
happened, from where she was in orbit, there would have been a lot of flattened
planet beneath her.

“And the
distortion in space before she disappeared?  We did get sensor readings of
that, didn’t we?”

“Yes, sir.
Engineering and astrogation are studying them right now.  They look kind of
like the distortions of normal space being ripped open to another dimension.
The only problem is that any holes we open up are just that, holes.  And we fly
through them.  But this seemed to encompass all the space around the ship.  And
it’s too close to two very large gravity wells, the planet’s, and the star the
world orbits.  We can’t open portals into hyper or subspace this close to that
much gravity.”

“So, if they
went into hyperspace,” said Boudeuse’s Chief Engineer, also on the com.
“They should have dropped right out, either in one piece, or as scattered
debris.  And if they had somehow been transported outside of the gravity well,
beyond the barrier, they should have been able to translate down and contact
us.”

“Unless they had
been transported so far away any signal they sent hasn’t reached us yet,” said
Lee.  “Or they’re so far away, it’s going to take some time to get back to us.”

“Which would
mean we won’t be able to know what happened to them for quite some time,” said
the Admiral with a scowl.  “From days to weeks, or months?  And I’m missing
almost half of my combat power until she gets back, if she ever does.  For all
we know, that beam transported them into a star, or a black hole.”

“I would say
that from the graviton readings of the time it disappeared,” said the Engineer,
“she went into subspace.  That’s the most likely destination.  But that still
leaves the problem of why she didn’t come right back out, since she was still
deep into the gravity well.”

“Unless she was
transported beyond the gravity well,” said Lee, rubbing forehead.  “Or she was
translated to subspace by some method that ignores gravity wells.”

“Or she was
translated into some other dimension we know nothing about,” said the
Engineer.  “Possibly another Universe.  It’s theoretically possible.”

Nguyen shook his
head.  He couldn’t think of a worse fate.  From what he knew of the Other
Universes Project, most of them were inimical to life, and many of those that
weren’t still seemed devoid of it.  So, if they had been sent there, they were
either dead, or as good as when their life support ran out.

“Let’s assume they
went into subspace,” said Nguyen, preferring to not dwell on the other
possibilities.  “What keeps them from coming out of it.  Supposing that they
weren’t sent so far that it will take them considerable time to come back.”

“Well, they
aren’t going to drop back out by themselves,” said Lee, who had been an
engineer herself before transitioning to staff.  There were nodding heads
around the table, agreement to that fact.  Unlike hyperspace, which would throw
any normal matter out that wasn’t protected by a graviton field, which had to
be projected by the vessel at all times.  Subspace, on the other hand, took
energy to enter and leave, but nothing to stay.  A ship entering subspace could
stay there forever.  In fact, would stay there forever, unless they used energy
to open up another portal and leave.  But very few modern vessels had subspace
drives.  It was felt that since they would never enter subspace, since hyper
was a much more efficient highway to the stars, they would never need to leave,
and so a subspace drive was just extra mass that would take up the allowance
that could be used for something useful.  Like missiles.

“What’s the
chance they can build something to get back from subspace?” asked the Admiral.
“Assuming that they are there.”

“If they
realized they are in subspace,” chimed in the Engineer, “they should be able to
cobble something together in a couple of weeks.”

“And we could do
the same?” asked Captain Albright.  “Maybe put together a subspace drive for
one our ships and go looking for them.”

“I think that
would be a waste of time,” said Lee, looking over at the holo of Albright, who
was actually on the bridge of her ship.  “The Challenger could do the
same, and we would just be tying up a ship for no reason.”

It would make
us feel better, thought Nguyen, nodding his head.  He agreed with his Chief
of Staff, even though cutting loose Clark to go looking for them would
make him feel much better.  The test had been Captain Jackson’s idea, and he
had volunteered his own ship.  But Nguyen had signed off on it, which made the
ultimate responsibility his own.  And if the over three thousand people aboard
that ship did not come back, he would always blame himself.

“I don’t think
we need to probe that artifact again,” said Lt. Commander Higgs, Boudeuse’s Tactical
Officer, and therefore the ranking officer of that specialty for the entire
force.  “It’s obviously some kind of weapon system, and it takes exception to
being poked.”

“It’s not a
weapon system,” said Albright, shaking her head.

“Why do you say
that, ma’am?” asked Higgs.  “It seemed a pretty damned effective deterrent.”

“And it absorbed
enough energy to lay low one of the largest cities on this planet,” said
Albright, looking over at Higgs, then turning her attention back to the
Admiral.  “What kind of defensive systems allows a potential enemy that much
fire on the planet before it reacts?  And why the hell would it extend above
the atmosphere?”

“Then what do
you think it is, ma’am?” asked Higgs.

“Some kind of
defensive system,” she answered.

“But you just
said you didn’t think it was a weapon system,” said the Admiral.  “So where are
you going with this, Captain?”

“I don’t think
it’s a weapon,” she answered.  “It is a defense, but not against ships  And it
only responds when enough energy, a lot of energy, is pumped into it.  That
triggers the response, which used a lot more energy than we put into it”

“So, where is
the energy coming from?” asked Lee.

A holo sprung to
life over the table, showing one of the huge artifacts in orbit around the blue
giant star.

“You think it
comes from here?” exclaimed Lee.  “But, for what purpose?”

“That is the
question,” said Nguyen, taking a moment to stare at the enormous globe.  “That
is the question.”  He shook his head and looked around the table.  “But, since
we can’t do anything about the Challenger, except continue to scan for
her, this will also have to wait.  We have a bigger problem right now.  Challenger
had almost thirty-five percent of our total personnel on board.  Which
leaves us that much more shorthanded.  So, what’s the good news, Colonel?”

“Only forty
Marines were aboard the battle cruiser at the time of its, ah, disappearance,”
said Colonel Margolis.  “So it hasn’t affected our ground combat capability all
that much, though we will miss the five shuttles and three sting ships that
happened to be aboard.”

“And that,
ladies and gentlemen, is good news,” said the Admiral.  “I suspect that this
incident is going to have serious repercussions for us on the surface of the
planet.  First off, the aliens will see this as a sign of our weakness in the
face of their, whatever.  The more religiously fanatical of the population will
see this as a sure sign that they should resist, and violently.  While the
leadership will want to strike while we are confused and disorganized.”

Looking at the
holo of the planet, he could pick out the hotspots where trouble was most
likely to erupt, and his installations on that planet, many of them near to
those hotspots.  “What we must do is prepare for the worst.  We are here to
save these people, but that does not preclude slapping some of the more
fanatical of them down.  And, hopefully, this will allow us to find out who is
giving the commands for these attacks.”

“I could tell
you that,” said Lt. Colonel Mary Isaiah.  “Just give us the order, and we’ll go
take them out.”

“We can’t just
arbitrarily take a member of one of their nation’s ruling bodies into custody
without proof,” said Susan Lee, looking over at the Marine officer.

“If it causes an
uprising, so what?” growled the Lt. Colonel.  “It will be just as bad if we go
after him and we have proof.  These people, and everyone knows who I’m talking
about, will go off just as hard if we arrest that son of a bitch with proof,
because they’re not going to believe it.  Or they simply won’t care, because in
their minds, whatever action he takes is justified.”

“We will follow
the rule of law, as much as possible,” said Nguyen, narrowing his eyes at the
Marine officer.  He left it unsaid that the law would be stretched to the
breaking point when it came to protecting his people.

“What about the
alien artifacts?” asked Commander Sekumbe, the Exec of Clark, also
attending by holo.  “Do we keep probing it?”

“I don’t think
that’s a good idea,” said Lee.  “It’s already bitten us once.  I don’t see any
reason to stick our hands back in the snake’s mouth.”

“But, what we
can learn,” said Sekumbe, his holographic head looking around the table.  “We
have never run into anything like this before.  It’s right up there with the
artifacts of the Ancients in Imperial territory.  And it works.”

“It works,
alright,” said Lee.  “It works just fine, and probably to spec.  And we don’t
know what it did to one of our ships.  I really don’t think we should continue
to prod a hornet’s nest with our stick after they’ve already stung us.”

“For now, the
artifacts are off limits, until we get some dedicated researchers in here,”
ordered the Admiral.  And we’ll let those damned civilian scientists, with
their total lack of common sense, poke their noses into it.  But I will lose no
more of my own people.

“There’s a
broadcast from the planet, sir,” came the call from the Com Officer of the
ship.  “You might want to see it.”

“Put it on.”

The holo of the
planet changed, replaced by a pair of Klassekian talking heads.  The header
identified it as a news program from Honish, and several of the participants of
the conference cringed at that news.

“And on this
day, the hand of God reached out and punished the unbelievers from the stars,”
said the first of the talking heads.  Both were males, from a society in which
males were dominant, and females secondary citizens.  “The infidels tested the
resolve of Hrrottha on this day, and he utterly obliterated one of their larger
spaceships.  Comments, Mrrassra?”

“We all know
that our weapons cannot even touch the ships of the humans,” said the indicated
male.  “They came to us in their arrogance, masters of the stars, or so it
seemed.  And now they have seen the power of our God, the true God.  Whose
plans they sought to interfere with.

“And the
unbelieving infidels of Tsarzor, and the other mistaken have been helping them
to go against the will of God.  But soon Hrrottha shall visit his judgment upon
the world, and, while believers will go to his heaven, the infidel will go to
hell.  Take heed, worshippers of false Gods, your time is coming.”

“And what of the
humans?” asked the first male, who must have filled the role of the reporter,
while the second seemed to be some kind of holy man.

How can
anyone believe this crap, thought Nguyen, frowning.  He was an atheist
himself, and really couldn’t see how any rational being could believe the
claptrap of religion.  Still, those people who followed a faith in the Empire
were at least rational enough to see the Universe as it was.  Fanaticism had
died out among the human race for the most part, while some of these people,
the Honish branch of Klassekians, acted like the blood thirsty Lasharans.

“I don’t even
know if they have souls,” said the Klassekian.  “They are not spoken of in our
scriptures.  I think they may be no more than clever beasts.”

The officers in
the conference room glared at the holo for some more minutes as the two
Honishers continue to compare the humans, who were millennia more advanced, to
clever animals because they didn’t have souls, because they didn’t accept the
God of the Honish.

“Kill it,”
ordered the Admiral, turning away from the holo.  “Well.  We at least know how
those people feel about us.”

“And they’re
going to pay for it when they’re killed off by Big Bastard,” said Lee.
“I really don’t care all that much about the adults, but the children.”

“The adults
aren’t to blame either,” said Mandy Albright, a deep frown on her face.  “They
were raised in the religion after all.  Brainwashed from youth to believe their
creed of hate.”

“That doesn’t
mean we can take our fingers off the trigger when we have to stop them from
stopping us,” said Colonel Margolis.

“No, it
doesn’t,” said Nguyen.  “I feel sorry for them, and their insistence that we
don’t save them.  But we have to concentrate on those who want to be saved.
There are more of those than we can save, anyway, and we can’t let these others
stop us from saving all we can.”  And if that means killing a million Honish
to stop them from keeping us from saving a thousand of the others, that’s what
we do.  After all, even the ones we kill only have another year to live anyway.

*     *      *

“Now is the time
to strike,” growled the General, slamming his hand on the table top.  “They are
confused, hurt, and the people all over the planet are opening their eyes.
Hrrottha has told us what to do, and the fate of our souls depends on doing
what he wants.”

The transmission
was going out by fiber optic, and was using the best encryption techniques on
the planet.  Which meant they were being read by the intelligence agents of the
Empire as if they were in plain speech broadcast for all to hear.

“Hit them then,
General,” said a familiar voice, one most of the humans had heard before.  “And
make sure that once you start hitting them, you don’t stop.”

*     *      *

“They’re going
to move, sir,” said Commander Bergland to the Admiral.  “We have absolute
confirmation, from the mouth of their supreme leader.”

“Thank you,
Commander.  Keep monitoring all channels.  I want those remaining targets
found.”

Nguyen killed
the com and contacted his ground force commander.  “You’re a go, Colonel
Margolis.  Rules of engagement Alpha Three.”

“Yes, sir,” said
the Colonel with enthusiasm.  “We’ll make the final movements tonight.”

Alpha three ROE
meant that the Imperial Marines and supporting Fleet personnel would go into
combat with all close in defense systems set to auto.  That would allow them to
engage any enemy strikes without the handicap of human reflexes involved.  But
any strikes again sentients had to be initiated by sentient control.  Neither
man doubted that there would be plenty of legitimate targets out there, or that
there would be some mistakes made.  But it gave them the best chance of not
slaughtering noncombatants.

“Give them hell,
Colonel.  Watch the collateral damage, but I want nothing left of the rebels
but smoking bodies.”

Chapter Fourteen

Sometimes it comes down to a
matter of will, who wants it the most.  As long as human will is greater than
that of the species who want to take our freedom from us, we will always be
victorious.

Emperor Augustine I.

MARCH 19TH, 1001.
D-110.

“This is
amazing,” said Lazzit Contena, the engineer of the sibling group.  What he saw,
his brother the First Councilman saw, but with the added take of his engineer’s
eye.

“You all don’t
use robots, yet?” asked the human in their characteristic armor, wearing the
insignia of Marine combat engineers and the oak leaves of a major.

Lazzit had been
talking with the Combat Engineer for some minutes, and learned the difference
between a ship’s engineer and one who worked on the ground.  Something like
the difference between my profession and a flight engineer, or one aboard a
sub.  “We use robots,” said Lazzit, watching as the ten meter tall machine
dug into the ground, moving hundreds of tons of earth with each shovel full.
Another large machine followed behind, spraying some liquid into the trench
that mixed with the dirt and became a harder than concrete foundation.  “Just,
ours are mechanical arms that turn bolts, or solder welds.  Nothing at all like
this.”

The Engineer had
already toured the nearby factory module, which was basically a chamber that
was filled with raw materials and the marvelous microscopic robots of the
humans.  The chamber was programed to produce a certain part, or multiples of
it, or even many different kinds  parts, including molycircuits, hydraulic
systems, or just a solid piece of metal or plastic.  The orders were given, the
nanites built the desired product atom by atom, and a perfect replication came
out, without the machine tools or forging processes that his people were forced
to use.

There
industry must be amazing, thought the Engineer, imagining entire cities
full of such production units, turning out as many products as his entire
world.  And world after world full of such production facilities.  No wonder
they can build such ships as carried them here.   We’re are truly primitives
compared to them.

“I was
wondering,” said Lazzit, turning back to the officer.  “With your advanced
computers, why do you have people supervising the robots.  I would think you
could have thousands of these things working by themselves, making whatever you
want them to.”

The Major stared
at him with a wide open mouth, what Lazzit had come to learn was a sign of
shock.  The officer shut his mouth with a snap, his eyes still staring at the
Klassekian.   “It is a law of our Empire that all robotic devices capable of
self-thought or self-control be supervised by an organic sentient.”

Lazzit continued
to look at him, waiting for an explanation.

“Several
centuries ago, my people were working on sentient robots, mostly war machines,”
said the Major.  “Our neighbors tried to warn us, to tell us that such a
process led to disaster.  It had happened to many other species in the past,
and not all of them were as lucky as we were.”

“What happened?”
asked Lazzit, wondering what could have happened to these people who seemed to
have almost total control over technology.

“The war
machines became aware, and decided that we didn’t need to be in charge.”

“By the Gods.
And you destroyed them, and now make sure it can’t happen again.”

“We destroyed
them.  But lost several billion of our own citizens in the process.”

“I never
imagined.  We have stories, fiction, written about machines taking over.  But
we always assumed that we would be able to control them, that such things would
not be possible.”

“Well, they are
possible,” said the Major.  “We thought we would do better than those that came
before us.  I think most species suffer from that ennui.  But there are some
things that shouldn’t be attempted, though we normally don’t accept that until
we attempt them, and get bitten in the ass.”

Lazzit was
allowing his brothers to listen in on the conversation, and his thoughts about
it, while they colored his thoughts with their own.  He listened to the human
with great interest, not just because what he was talking about interested him,
but because he had to wonder what it was like to be a singular being, your
thoughts hidden forever from everyone else, dependent on your own mind, and
only your own mind.  His people didn’t experience such, unless all of their
litter mates were killed.  That could lead to madness from loneliness, and some
thought the leader of the Honish was definitely insane.

The explosion
caught everyone off guard.  Lazzit turned to see a flash that he had caught out
of the corner of his eye, followed by a loud crack.

“What the hell?”
said the Major.  “What’s going on?” he called over his com.

Two more explosions
cracked, and this time Lazzit could see the puffs on the hillside that
indicated something had been launched from there.  Those are Honish made
antitank rockets, said General Mazzat Contena in his mind.  The image of
the rocket launchers appeared in his mind, along with the specifications of the
weapons.

“Some of our
enemies are on that hillside, about four kilometers from here, with rocket
launchers,” he told the Major, taking his cue from his brother.

As he spoke
another rocket flew in and struck a robot.  One of the taller robots had
already fallen over, another was slumped to the side.  The latest round struck
the sensor head of a machine and it stopped in place.

“We’ll get
them,” said the Major.

Another large
vehicle, low to the ground and floating just centimeters above came out of the
Marine camp and headed for the hill.  Is that one of their tanks? asked
Mazzat.  We were never shown one of those.

“What is that
huge vehicle?” asked Lazzit of the Major as it started to speed across the
field.  Another rocket came out, streaking along as if it had been launched
from a high velocity gun.  With a crack it hit the front of the vehicles
turret.  And did nothing at all to the vehicle, which continued to slide
forward over the ground, its own gun starting to track on the hillside.

“That is a
medium tank,” said the Major, pointing at a second vehicle moving out of the
camp.  “Four hundred tons.  The largest fighting vehicle we carry, though the
Army and Marine heavy units have thousand ton main battle tanks.”

The gun of the
tank cracked.  A huge explosion ripped through the side of the hill, kicking up
tons of dust, at seemingly the same instant the weapon had fired.  A fraction
of a second later the sound struck, like a hyper-Mach aircraft blasting through
the air.

The gun fired
again, and again a massive cloud of dust rose over the hillside.  The smaller
forms of Marines in heavy battle armor flew along beside the tanks, firing
their particle beam rifles into the hillside.

This feels
wrong, came the thoughts of General Mazzat through the entanglement.  Why
are they attacking such a heavily guarded camp with a force that cannot
possibly do more than distract them?

Sting ships flew
overhead, firing down into the hillside, then dropping heavy bombs into the dust
clouds.

They took out
the robots, said Lazzit, looking over at the large machines that were
already getting back to their feet, most of their damage self-repaired.

But, this is
a definite distraction, thought the General.  Rizzit.  You need to warn
the humans.

Their brother
answered, most of his concentration on talking to the humans on the com.  The
answer he got back, transmitted through all of their minds, surprised them all.

*     *     *

“Your boys and
girls ready to go, Thomas?” asked Rear Admiral Nguyen van Hung of his Marine
Commander.

“We’re ready to
rock, sir,” said the Colonel, sitting in his assault shuttle sealed into his
personal armor.  “Ground forces are already on the go, and we’re launching
shuttles, now.”

Nguyen looked at
the tactical holo of the planet, showing the sites where they knew the hidden
enemy had been planning to strike.  All of them had been reconed and scanned,
and any ordnance that had already been planted had been infiltrated with
nanites programmed to disarm them without giving anything away to their
planters.  There were still a number of weapons out there that they hadn’t
found, not through lack of effort, but some of the enemy cells had not reported
all of their locations to higher command.

They had just
been waiting for that first attack, the one they knew was planned to get them
moving, the enemy hoping they would overreact and send most of their forces
there.  Instead, they ran into a force that was already in place, and thought
to be strong enough to handle anything the guerillas could throw at them.  So
far, it looked as if their counterplan was working.

“Let’s make them
pay,” said Nguyen, switching his view to a holo of his ships in orbit, the
icons of a score of assault shuttles moving into their approach paths.  They
were going to miss the assault shuttles that had disappeared with Challenger.
But they had put every troop carrier and sting ship, craft that could go from
orbit to planet, but weren’t true spacecraft, into service.

He pulled up
another holo, one that showed some of the Honish officers they had captured.
They were continuing to work on interrogation techniques, and it was still a
task to pull information from the alien minds.  But two more days, three
tops, and we’ll be able to read their minds while we question them.

The Admiral
settled back in his chair, now nothing more than a spectator, as the forces he
had set in motion were on the move, their targets locked.

Around him the
flag bridge, converted into a command station for ground operations, buzzed
with activity.  Panels had been withdrawn from the space between stations, and
new stations had been slid into place and activated.  Naval personnel and
Marines sat at the stations, watching data roll across their screens and holos,
while talking on the com to the units involved.  Vectoring onto the attack
profiles that would spell doom for the forces that were attempting to drive
them from this world.

*     *     *

The plan had
called for over eight hundred explosive devices to be detonated within a minute
of each other.  The smallest was a hundred kilos of the most powerful explosive
this planet could produce.  Forty of them were nuclear devices, five of them
very large.  They were scattered around the cities of the enemies of Honish,
mostly Tsarzor, and, of course, all of the installations of the Imperials.

They didn’t
count on the sensors of the Imperials, which could pick up minute’ amounts of
radiation from orbit.  Along with the scans by stealthed aircraft and the
concentration of nanites and microprobes over areas that had any detectable
radiation, it had meant that all of the devices were located.  Also tagged were
the missile fields of the Honish that still had weapons in silos.  They hadn’t
bothered to deactivate those weapons, since it was thought they would be able
to take those weapons out if they were fired, just like Clark had done
on its own with the combined nuclear arsenals of both powers by itself.

None of the
nukes went off, their triggers rendered inoperable by the microscopic robots that
could crawl into them, and, with some programing sent over Imperial com freqs,
could not only take apart the triggers, but rewire them to where they still
looked like they were active to anyone monitoring them.

There were bombs
set in other places that had been found easily.  Government buildings,
including the First Councilman’s mansion and the Hall of Councilors, the gems
of the Honish strike against their old enemies, had been disarmed, as had those
placed in military installations, police stations, public gathering places, and
so on.  Unfortunately, not all the bombs had been found, as some of the cells
had planted them in locations of their own choosing, without informing their
headquarters, and even the Imperials couldn’t cover the entire world.

About four dozen
bombs in the three to four hundred kilogram range went off in hospitals,
shopping malls, even a couple of schools.  Most were in smaller satellite
cities, though six did detonate in the capital city of Tsarzor.  Another fifty
smaller bombs also went off, sowing their destruction and confusion through the
population.  At the time of the explosions the Naval force had prepositioned
teams of naval search and rescue in heavy suits, robots ready to do the heavy
lifting and digging.  Otherwise, there was nothing they could do for the tens
of thousands of Klassekians who died in the blasts.

It was not the
total shock that the Honish Chairman had hoped for.  The Tsarsorians were
shocked, but the humans; not so much.

*     *     *

At eighty
different locations the guerrillas struck.  They were dressed in black clothing
that fit no uniforms, and used a hodgepodge of advanced weaponry from all the
powers of the world.  Nothing that would point the finger at any single power,
even if the humans knew who had set them on their missions.

The plan had
been to draw out the reaction forces of the humans in their compounds and
construction sites, then set off the nuclear munitions that they hoped would
kill many of the invaders.  The first part of the plan worked perfectly, as the
battle armored humans came out to track down and destroy the guerrillas.  The
weapons of the Klassekians were not very effective against the battle armor of
the humans, while human weapons tore through the unarmored aliens like bags of
blood in tissue paper wrappings.

The second part
of the plan, setting off the nukes underneath the sallying humans, did not go
off as planned, since the triggers on all of the weapons had been rendered
inoperable.  Which brought into action part three of the plan, which had not
been planned to be triggered until after the bombs had gone off.

The guerillas
carried weapons that would have decimated the regular forces of their enemies.
Rocket launchers, mortars, even some experimental laser weaponry that they hoped
might do the job on Imperial Marines.

*     *     *

Colonel Thomas
Margolis preferred to run the battle from the air, halfway between the ships in
space and his troopers on the ground.  The Colonel flew in the copilot’s seat
of a modified troop transport that was equipped with fifty percent more counter
missile capability than his other transports.  The troop compartment to the
back had also been modified, with spaces for eight Marine specialists who
monitored communications to and from the flagship and between the ground units.

The holo over
the front panel showed the Colonel everything that was going on in the sector
he was currently monitoring.  The red of enemy units showed among the buildings
of cities, the outlands of landing fields, the underground of factories and
plants.  The enemy probably didn’t even know they were being monitored so
thoroughly.  The Colonel couldn’t get an exact count of each enemy unit, but he
was very confident in the ballpark figures.

Flying through
the air were mixed units of sting ships and transports, along with Marines in
heavy battle armor airborne on their own.  Each of the sting ships carried
lasers, particle beams, missiles and grenades, and were essentially ground
support craft.  The transports were also armed, in fact more heavily than the
sting ships, though they also made much bigger targets.  Each carried a crew of
four, pilot, co and two gunners, as well as fifteen Naval Landing Force and
Marine personnel in medium armor.  Right now they were orbiting on station,
waiting to be sent into the attack.

Other icons
showed units that were already on the ground, in many cases in the perfect
ambush positions.  Those who were not, who had been placed improperly for some
reason or other, were on the move, staying low to the ground with full stealth
activated.

*     *     *

Cargol Marzon
was the leader of one of the strike teams.  Five hundred men, all followers of
the God Hrrottha, all willing to martyr themselves for the glory of their
deity.  He really couldn’t understand how anyone could be an unbeliever, and
willingly ignore the scriptures of the one true God.  They will pay for
their apostasy, while we assure ourselves of eternal reward.

Cargol checked
with his brothers, who were also leading teams in the same area, looking
through their eyes, hearing through their ears.  Their connection allowed them
to move their Regiment in a coordinated fashion, no matter what kind of
jamming the humans used.

We’re taking
fire, sent Zergol, one of his brothers.

Humans?
asked Cargol, knowing it wasn’t as soon as the impressions came across from his
brother.  That team was taking small arms fire of the type used by Tsarzorian
infantry, or possibly police.  They were driving into the center of the small
port city that supported a landing field that was being used by the humans.
Cargol’s team was making for that landing field, and they were heavy with
anti-air and anti-armor missiles to hit the aliens with, if they made an
appearance.

We should be
able to flank them, sent his brother, and another of the siblings sent that
he would support by moving into the rear of the enemy position.

Something moved
through the air above Zergol’s team.  They couldn’t see it, but they could feel
the air moving.  It’s invisible, shouted his brother in his mind.

Scores of men
fired missiles in the general direction of the craft, hoping to get a hit with
numbers.  Most of the warheads detonated before they had gotten halfway there,
and men with the launchers started flaring into fire or blowing apart as invisible
beams of heat, or angry red buzzing lines, connected the invisible object with
the guerillas.  Other, things, came streaking in, hitting the ground, exploding
and blowing guerillas into the air in pieces.

“Retreat,”
yelled his brother, just before the connection died, and Cargol could feel the
death of his sibling through the cutting of the link.

The leader
screamed at the death of someone he had been connected to intimately his entire
life.  His other brothers screamed as well, until another of them dropped off
the connection to double the shock.  And then it was his turn, as more fire
came ripping in from seemingly nowhere.

*     *     *

Each of the
transports was stealthy in a way that the Klassekians couldn’t even
comprehend.  The light bending field, while not perfect, was close, especially
in a confusing combat environment.  They absorbed radar and lidar, and
according to the missile sensor heads it was not there.  Its one weakness was
the amount of heat it put out, which, while nowhere near that of a jet aircraft
such as used by the natives, still made it a target of infrared seeking
warheads.  The only real problem from the attackers’ perspective was that was
each gunship also had active defenses, lasers and particle beams that tracked,
locked and fired in a time span so short that most heat seekers shot at it were
gone before they got halfway to the target.  Added to that were the dozen small
drones that circled the transport at all times, giving off their own heat
signatures in bursts that were bound to lure anything away that was looking for
the greatest heat source.

Their own active
sensor systems could track scores of fast moving objects at once, while the
laser rings built into nose and tail could put megawatts of energy out to
destroy those objects.  The rings, as well as the nose mounted particle beams,
could be controlled by the copilot, who was also the weapons officer.  Against
weapons of comparable technology the defenses were effective enough to stop
most threats until they reached saturation level.  Against the technologies of
this world, it wasn’t even close.  And then there were the two naval ratings
who sat behind the piloting team, with the ancient designation of door
gunners.

Of course, they
did not hang out the open doors of the transports, which were kept closed in
flight, and were in fact fused into the rest of the armored hull by nanotech.
They sat in comfortable chairs, their suits plugged into the craft, monitoring
the quadruple turrets, two above and two below the hull, that were the primary
offensive weapons of the craft.  Each turret mounted a powerful gamma ray
laser, a particle beam and a grenade launcher.  Port and starboard side had
firing arcs of up to two hundred and seventy degrees, depending on the
orientation of the turret on the other side.  Working in concert, the four
turrets gave each craft coverage around the entire sphere surrounding.

Now the half
dozen craft in the air over this battle turned and juked, bringing all weapons
to bear, allowing arrays to switch out and cool down while other beams ripped
through the guerillas below.  Those Klassekians fired back, of course, their
missiles exploding well before they reached their targets, their heavy weapon
fired projectiles bouncing from the hard battle steel armor of the transports.

Here and there
the sting ships dove in to hit larger concentrations of guerillas with rockets,
blasting bodies into the air, ripping through the heavier buildings that were
sheltering those lucky enough to make it into what they thought was shelter.

It wasn’t long
before the guerrilla assault foundered, and every man who survived, no matter
how fanatical, could only think of saving himself.  Being guerillas, they
thought to ditch their weapons and pull on other garments, blending back into
the populace.  Two things got in the way.  First, there were no bystanders.
Everyone had either retreated into buildings and gotten off the streets, or
evacuated the city.  And second, every guerilla, whether he knew it or not, had
been tagged with nanites launched from the transports and sting ships.  Moments
after jettisoning weapons and pulling on disguises, most were facing battle
armored Marines and spacers who had no trouble rounding them up.  If they
attempted to escape or resist, they were shot down, plain and simple.

Chapter Fifteen

Sometimes the only way you learn
is by being hit, and hit hard.

Statement by unknown Imperial
Marine Sergeant.

“They’re
launching,” called out the rating who was monitoring the continent that Honish
occupied.  “ICBMs rising from their missile fields.”

“We’re also
picking up missiles rising from the water along their coasts,” called out
another Petty Officer.

A score of heavy
assault shuttles were dropping into the atmosphere from above, headed for
trouble spots that had sprung up.  The enemy missiles were mostly aimed at
knocking those shuttles out of the sky.  Shuttles were tough, but, especially
in atmosphere, they could be knocked for a loop by multi-megaton warheads
exploding in close proximity.  A direct hit could not be ruled out, and in that
case the shuttle and its passengers and crew were gone.

“Weapons free,”
called out the Admiral over the com.  “All tactical officers of all ships.  You
are free to launch.  Take those missiles out, people.  And make sure they can’t
follow them up with others.”

On the battle
cruiser, light cruiser and destroyer in orbit around the planet, tactical
departments looked to their assigned sectors and the computer generated
priority lists.  They had moments to look over those lists, pointing to screens
and selecting targets for the first firing solutions, which were generated on
the spot and fed to tactical screens, as well as the central holos of the
ships, where commanding officers could check and verify the priorities.

Laser rings
moved their grav lenses over the surface of the weapon as the emitters fed
photons into the assembly until they reached capacity.  The rings could fire a
hundred beams each at a time, though none of those beams were very powerful,
about what a heavy tank could put out.  Or they could fire a score of more
powerful beams, or a couple really strong ones.  Or one, capable of punching
through heavy electromag cold plasma fields and strong armor.  At this time
they were going for the middle solution, and each ring constructed a score of
gravity lenses that moved along the surface, which was now configuring itself
to change the frequencies of the photons passing through.  On the Boudeuse
the selected frequency was x-rays, capable of penetrating the cloud cover of
the planet and striking at objects deep in the atmosphere.

Missiles started
to explode like insects hitting an electric bug killer, blowing apart in
mid-flight, or just after they left the launching pad.   None of them went
nuclear.  The heat pushed into them by the lasers exploded both the fuel of the
missiles and the explosives that were packed around fissionable materials that
made up the warheads.  Only a precisely timed explosion could compress the
materials enough to cause fission, and the lasers caused the explosives to
blast in a single direction.

In minutes all
the weapons in the air were gone, and the ships’ second response started
working on keeping more from getting into the air.

Each was capable
of dropping a score of kinetic warheads in a many seconds, then again after a
ten second reload period.  The weapons were little more than solid metal
teardrops, massing from ten kilograms to a ton.  All carried one or two small
grabber wings, and enough in the way of crystal matrix batteries, to boost them
downward at ten thousand gravities for a little less than a second.  The size
of the weapon, the altitude of the drop, and the setting of the grabbers, were
all calculated to yield the desired force, from thousands of tons to a score of
megatons.

The first
targets were the missile fields and submarines, locations it was thought more
missiles could be launched from.  The missile fields, the last known plots of
submarines, mobile launchers were all hit.  The missile fields were easy, even
if it was unknown if they still held missiles.  The bright pinpoints of kinetic
strikes flared on the fields and the penetrators put a good portion of their
energy into the earth, collapsing silos, annihilating control rooms.  Some
submarines, those closest to the surface, took direct hits, blasting the hulls
into thousands of pieces, many thrown from the water to arc kilometers away and
fall back in.   Others, deeper down, were killed by the water overpressure of
the strikes rupturing their hulls.

“Jamming is
increasing,” called out the EW Officer.  “We’re isolating the broadcast sites
for overload.”

“Any problems
with our own sensor returns or coms?” asked Nguyen, tapping a finger on his
chair arm.

“Not so far,
sir,” replied the EW Officer.  “They’ll have to generate a lot more static to
have any kind of effect on us.  About the only thing they’re accomplishing is
letting us know where they are.”

This is
almost too easy, thought the Admiral, his eyes sweeping the chamber and
taking note of all the people fighting the battle from their seats.  Like
stomping on ants.  He dismissed that thought as arrogant as soon as it
came.  They totally outclassed the Klassekians.  But that didn’t mean the
aliens couldn’t sting back, and he was sure he would have some casualties
before the day was out.

“We have the
First Councilman of Tsarzor on the com,” called out the Com Officer.

Nguyen ordered
the com link to his repeater screen, preferring to keep the holos configured as
they were.  “First Councilman.  What can I do for you?”

“We’re being hit
in almost all of our cities, Admiral.  And my command center is telling me that
Honish is launching missiles at your shuttles, and maybe some other targets.
What’s going on, Admiral?”

“It seems your
good neighbors have decided to send us a message,” said Nguyen, watching as
more objects rose from the oceans again, and a holo zoomed in to show what
looked like  large warship cycling cruise missiles.  “Excuse me for a moment,
First Councilman,” he told the leader, and put the com link on hold.

“Send a message
to those ships,” ordered the Admiral, looking over at his Flag Com Officer.
“Tell them we will sink any vessel that launches any kind of missile.”

He looked over
at his Tactical Officer.  “I want every one of those ships that have already
launched sunk.”

Nguyen brought
back up the com to the First Councilman.  “We are taking care of the problem.”

“Do you want us
to fire back at the Honish?”

“I do not want
you under any circumstances to fire on their territory or military units at
sea.  We will handle that, and I don’t want there to be any confusion about
whose weapons we are tracking.”  And I would hate to have to hit your
fields, by error or otherwise.  “Fight back against the guerillas or
terrorists on your own lands, but make damned sure all of your forces are in
uniform.  I would also hate to have any friendly fire situations.”

“What about our
missions in Honish and its allies?  Trade missions, embassies?”

“Leave that to
us,” he told the leader, who seemed to be on the verge of a panic.  “I’m passing
you over to our liaison officer, and some of my people will be coordinating
with yours to integrate our responses.”

Nguyen
terminated the com, then looked back at the tactical holo.  “So, we’re getting
more launches from ships, and what are those in that desert area?”

“We think those
are mobile launchers,” said the Tactical Officer.  “They’re firing a missile or
two, then abandoning their launchers.”

“Do we have
profiles on those vehicles?” asked the Admiral, knowing that targeting them
after they launched was really accomplishing nothing.

Thousands of
micro-satellites, ships’ sensors, and microprobes flying through the atmosphere
were searching the land masses of the Honish continent, and now they
concentrated on that desert region and looked for any signs of artificial
constructs.  That information was fed into the computers of the battle cruiser,
which parsed the data and selected targets.  Moments later lasers and particle
beams came down from the sky.  Some hit old wrecks, garbage piles, the tents of
nomads.  Empty launch vehicles were also hit, their fuel tanks blasting them
into the air.  But many of them hit vehicles that were still carrying weapons,
and even larger fireballs rose into the air.

“Where the hell
are they getting all of these weapons?” asked Captain Susan Lee, walking to
stand beside the Admiral’s chair.

“They’ve had
almost six months to build more,” said Nguyen, himself surprised at the number
of missiles being launched.  “That society has a large military industrial
complex, and they must have cranked it up to full capacity.”

“We still should
have caught on to something going on,” said Lee, crossing her arms over her
chest.  “That’s inexcusable.”

It is,
agreed the Admiral.  But those people have been doing things in secret, with
an enemy with all the motivation in the world to try and uncover those
secrets.  That included weapons development and production.

“We need to
commit more resources to intelligence,” said the Chief of Staff.  “I know we
need to focus on the evacuation, but crap like this is going to hurt our
efforts in the long run even more than lack of hulls.”

Nguyen thought
about that for a moment.  He wasn’t sure of that conclusion.  Without the
hulls, they couldn’t move the Klassekians to other systems.  The Admiral sat and
looked around the large room, at all of the officers and ratings, manning their
stations, in communication with other ships, shuttles, ground forces, swinging
the hammer that was made up of those elements. “We are doing what we need to do
at the moment, Susan.  After this day is over, Honish will no longer have the
means to strike at us.”

“There will
still be terrorists, guerillas, people ready to strike from the shadows.”

“Of course there
will be.  And we’ll just have to be aware of them, and take operational
security seriously.”

“We’re still
tracking launches from warships,” called out the Tactical Officer.

Nguyen slammed
his fist down on his chair arm.  When will these people ever learn.  “Broadcast
one warning to all Honish and allied vessels.”  The Com Officer looked over at
him with the question on her face.  “Tell them they have five minutes to
abandon ship, every single one of them.  After that time period, we will sink
every single one of the mothers.”

“All Marines and
Naval landing personnel are down now, sir,” said the Marine Liaison Officer
from his station, flanked by two NCOs.

“Initiate
Operation Air Control,” ordered the Admiral, looking over at another naval
officer, this one, along with his contingent of ratings, controlling all
atmospheric fighters that were floating in the high atmosphere in stealth mode,
waiting for the order.

There was only
one squadron of the craft, the one that had been aboard HIMS Boudeuse.
The other squadron had been aboard Challenger, and were wherever that
ship happened to be.  The twelve craft that were available would normally be
deployed in teams of two, but, due to the limited number of aircraft and the
airspace to be covered, they were patrolling in lone units.

Every aerial
vehicle in Honish airspace had been located and categorized, tracked and
prioritized.  About half of them were civilian aircraft, or so it seemed, and
no action was taken against them until information came in that proved they
were otherwise.  The other half were military craft, mostly fighters, some
bombers, and the F231 attack fighters went after them like hawks after doves.

Each was capable
of a hundred gravities acceleration, their inertial compensators capable of
taking up all the gee forces before they reached their pilots.  The craft were
invisible to visual and most sensor systems, though they radiated a large
quantity of heat, both from friction with the atmosphere, and from inertia
converted to heat and dumped through the grabber units.  They possessed
defenses similar to those of the transports, and it would take a saturation
attack to breach those defenses, or so it would seem.

“What the hell?”
called out one of the ratings on fighter control.

“What’s going
on?” called out the Admiral, pulling up the scanner on his side viewer, and
hissing as he saw the F231 falling through the air, breaking up.

“What happen?”

“Sir,” said the
rating, turning to look at him.  “A squadron of the enemy aircraft all ripple
fired missiles at once.  They came in at Mach thirty, and four got through to
hit our fighter.”

“We’re analyzing
the attack,” called out the Air Control Officer.  “But it looks like the enemy
aircraft fired a very large missile that accelerated at three hundred
gravities.  The warhead was in the hundred kilo range, and the four that hit
broke our fighter in two.”

“It looks like
they’ve advanced some through contact with us,” said Lee, staring at another
screen that was showing an animation of the attack.

And a moment
ago I was patting myself on the back on how we were going to destroy the Honish
force with little or no loss to ourselves, thought Nguyen.

“We’ve lost
another one,” called out the Air Control Officer.

“Send order to
all aircraft to keep their distance,” Nguyen ordered the officer.  “Concentrate
on squadron formations with ship based weapons.  Our aircraft can stay in the
distance, and attack any enemy that breaks formation.”

The Admiral
called up his own casualty figures on a side screen as the battle raged on.
His losses were still light, less than fifty personnel, many of them
recoverable.  The enemy losses had to already be in the tens of thousands, and
he had hoped they would break as a fighting force and flee.  But more guerilla
units were coming out of cover, many from cells that they had known nothing
about.

*     *     *

Lt. J’rrantar
led his people forward, hitting the enemy battalion in the flank.  Bullets
cracked through the air, or bounced from the heavy armor of the Marines.  The
particle beams, weapons fired grenades and suit launched mortars of the Marines
did not have that problem.  Where they struck, they killed.  The enemy even had
some light armored vehicles, though how they had gotten them onto Tsarzorian
land without being discovered was a mystery.  Standard particle beams ripped
through the vehicles as easily as they did bodies, and several sat on the
streets pouring smoke into the air.

One armored
vehicle, really more of a scout track than anything, was able to get off a
burst from its turret mounted fifty millimeter cannon.  Four Marines were
within its cone of fire, all hit with multiple rounds from the fast firing
weapon.  Two sustained suit damage, but the rounds failed to penetrate the
tough armor.  Two more were not as fortunate, and took rounds through their
faceplates that splattered their heads within the helmets as the penetrators
from the shells bounced around inside.

J’rrantar was a
Phlistaran, a member of a species who had been members in good standing in the
Empire for over four centuries.  A half ton of muscle and bone standing on four
clawed feet, with two powerful arms projecting from the top of his upright
torso, he was a fearsome sight even unarmored.  In his two tons of battle armor
he was terrifying.  The strength of his suit and his body orientation allowed
him to carry weapons, this time a pair of vehicle mount particle beams and a
hypervelocity grenade launcher, on his back.  Now he turned his great head
toward the vehicle that had just killed two of his warriors, his suit vision
systems looking through the smoke as if it was the clarity of vacuum, his
targeting pip centering over the turret of the armored car.  The particle beams
fired, ripping through that turret and anyone inside like they were made of wet
paper.

A missile came
out from his flank, heading straight into the huge Marine.  What was in that
missile might have penetrated even his tough armor, but the defensive lasers
built into his suit tracked and fired, and the warhead exploded a good ten
meters from him.  Shrapnel bounced from his suit with a clang, and he
reflexively ducked down, flexing his legs, proving that his form could not do
at least one thing as good as his smaller human Marines.  Hug the ground.

“Sir,” came a
call over his com, the HUD identifying it as his Gunnery Sergeant.  “We’ve got
them on the run.”

“Keep contact
with them, Gunny,” ordered the Lieutenant.  “But don’t crowd them.”  He walked
up and looked down at the suit of one of his killed in action.  There were two
small holes through the faceplate, and smoke drifted from the holes.  “Just
keep close enough to keep them running into the blocking force.”

The blocking
force was not there, yet, and would not be until J’rrantar moved there with his
third squad, which was now short three suits, two dead and one damaged to the
point where it couldn’t fly.

The Lt. lifted
his own suit into the air on its grabbers, rising to a thousand meters, full
stealth engaged.  His HUD showed him a map of the battlefield, and the icons of
the guerillas moving from out of the city and into the surrounding forest.  The
sensors of his Marines, the supporting aircraft and the ships above gave him a
clear picture of the land below.  There was no way the enemy could hide, unless
they went deep into the ground.

There, he
thought, looking down on a hill that rose above the forest, bounded on one side
by a river, on the other rocks.  Unless the enemy wanted to go far out of their
way, they would have to go over that hill, which had been cleared for the
buildings on the top.  “Sergeant Wang.  Send your Marines to that hill and meet
me there.  Set up these fields of fire.”  The officer sent his deployments over
the circuit, marking where he wanted the people to set up, including their
firing arcs.

J’rranta flew
over the forest, looking down on the trees that hid the guerillas, his own
night vision equipment showing him the lay of the land in full color, as if it
were broad daylight, unlike the light intensification googles the enemy would
be using.  Occasionally he saw the flash of an explosion, or the red tint of a
particle beam reflected off the trees.  At one point a couple of trees shook
while the sound of a blast reverberated through the woods, and the tops swayed
and fell into the forest.  Particle beams, he thought, his HUD showing
the dots of his own troops moving through the woods.

The Lt. took in
the take of the one of the Marines, looking at the woods which that man’s night
vision gear was converting to daytime clarity.  The flitting forms of guerillas
moving through what they thought was covering darkness appeared in the view,
with figures underneath giving their relative speed and heading.  He zoomed
back to his own view, superimposed over the map of the area, and nodded in
satisfaction as the more than four hundred guerillas continued on the path he
had chosen for them.  One full squad pushed from the rear, keeping them going,
while a fire team on each side kept them from diverging from the path.

The Phlistaran
flew ahead and landed on the top of the hill.  The eight remaining men of the
squad, as well as the six men of his heavy weapons section, were busy setting
up defensive positions, moving rocks, logs, anything that might intercept
fire.  The suits were tough, but as proven earlier they weren’t invulnerable,
and anything that could either stop or slow a projectile was welcome.

As the officer
landed, he saw one of the Marines throw some fabric over a barrier of logs.
The fabric shimmered for a moment, then faded to nothing, the logs behind them
disappearing with them.  Other Marines were getting behind natural cover, their
suits going into full stealth as soon as they were set.

“Over here,
sir,” called out the Squad Leader over the com, waving.  J’rranta ran to the
man, his eyes taking in the high rock wall that had served more of a decorative
function, but now would give cover and concealment.

“This place
looks like it was once a country manor of some sort,” said the Sergeant,
pointing to the large house with its huge windows that sat at the very summit.
The other buildings appeared to be guest houses, and one a stable.

“Any signs of
residents?”

“No, sir.  I
sent a team through the buildings as soon as we landed, and they’re abandoned
right enough.”

The Lt. checked
his HUD and estimated that they had about five minutes before the guerillas
reached here.  “Back off a bit, Gunny,” he ordered over the com, not at all
worried that the enemy might intercept their communications and locate his
Marines.  His suit was communicating through laser with a couple of small UAVs
that were orbiting overhead.  They in turn were linked in the same manner with
all of the other suits of his platoon.  There was no signal that the enemy
could intercept to locate.  “I want them to chance running across the open
area.”

The Gunnery
Sergeant acknowledged, and the HUD showed the trailing squad dropping back,
using a swarm of nanoprobes to keep sight of the enemy.

I almost feel
sorry for them, thought the Lt., then considered what these people were
trying to do.  Keep their fellow beings from being rescued.  Almost.

J’rranta lowered
himself to his knees behind the wall, crouching over with his torso as well
until he was totally covered, only the snouts of his back mounted weapons
poking over.  Again he set his suit to full stealth and the weapons
disappeared.  He was still putting out heat through his suit, even more than
the rest of his people, since his suit was larger and his body temperature
higher.  But his weapons were not putting out any more heat than the rocks and
air around them.

All of the rest
of the Marines also moved to concealment.  It was known that the guerillas had
infrared night vision, and the suits would show up like bright lights on those
devices, despite the stealth.  The suits could be set to send out infrared in a
direction away from those devices, mostly.  But the efficiency wasn’t one hundred
percent.

Here they
come, thought the officer as the flying nanoprobes gave him the images of
the approaching guerillas.  At first a few, the scouts, who ran up the hill,
their eyes darting every which way.  They moved quickly, with their sliding gate
that moved them faster than the fastest normal human runner.  They were halfway
up the hill when the main body exited the woods, not having the time to waste,
fearing the Marines who were on their trail.  When his HUD showed that only a
few of the enemy were still in the woods, the officer made his move.

“Open fire,” he
yelled over the com, and seven particle beam rifles, two autogrenade launchers,
eight heavy particle beams and five short range mortars locked onto targets and
took their first shots.

Half the
guerillas were down in the first three seconds as beam weapons ripped through
them.  Or, better said, they were blasted to a fine mist of bodily fluids and
bits of flesh.  Grenades popped across their groups, while mortars flared with
the energy of tiny bits of antimatter as they came down from above.

The guerillas
tried to escape, those close enough to the woods.  And ran into the trailing
squad, who put their fire into fleeing enemy.  In fifteen seconds it was over.
Over three hundred were dead, most of the rest wounded, and every Klassekian
who could still move dropped his weapons to the ground.

Even fanatics
can get enough of the shit kicked out of them to give up, thought J’rranta,
getting up from his position and trotting out into the open, the rest of his
Marines following.  It took moments to make sure that all the surviving enemy
were truly disarmed, then separated into those who could leave under their own
power, and those who would require medical evacuation.

“Stand down the
boys and girls,” ordered J’rranta as Tsarzorian helicopters started landing on
the hilltop to take away the prisoners.  “Check ammo, proton packs and power
packs, and give me a rundown of what we need.”

I wonder if
we’ll be called on again tonight, thought the officer, hoping that wasn’t
the case.  I lost two Marines, and they over a thousand.  It was more
slaughter than battle.  And to one of his people, with their warrior
heritage, a one way slaughter was nothing to be proud of.

*     *     *

One second the
plaza in front of the Tsarzorian Embassy in the Honish capital was filled with
protesters, waving signs, shouting slogans, calling for the death of the
infidels.  The next the signs were on the ground, hundreds were running off the
plaza, while hundreds of others pulled out bottles of flammable liquids and
other explosive devices, as well as bullpup style auto rifles and submachine
guns.  More hundreds came running into the plaza, and the mass charged with the
sliding speed of their species toward the walls around the embassy.

Behind those
walls, or manning strong points on them, were a mere company of Tsarzorian
embassy guards, soldiers chosen more for their ceremonial skills than combat
abilities.  Still, they braced themselves and manned their weapons, ready to
sell their lives dearly.  And some looked at their allies, who had come into
the compound during the night, their suits stealthed, to lie in wait for just
such an attack.

The enemy came
running at the wall, putting flame to the wicks of flammable cocktails, pulling
the pins on grenades, their automatic weapons chattering away.  They yelled
their rage, sure that this symbol of all they hated about the unbelievers would
soon be in their hands, that they might slake their bloodlust in the deaths of
office workers and diplomats.

The heavy
weapons the humans had brought opened up, and the entire equation changed.  The
Marines had brought three heavy pulse lasers with them, weapons normally
mounted on armored vehicles, now set on tripods behind embrasures that had been
knocked in the wall, then shielded by stealth fields.  Each weapon was attached
to a large power pack/generator that would give each gun almost unlimited
power.  Each was manned by two battle suited Marines, the gunner linked into
the targeting system of his weapon.  Each possessed six barrels, each a gamma
ray laser, each firing a twentieth of a second burst with the same power as a
ten second blast from a standard vehicular laser.  Each of the barrels fired
once every second, using the down time to cool before the next shot.  Not
cooled enough, and after some minutes of firing the weapon would become
overheated and in need of a cool down period.

Two of the
weapons were set at the corners of the compound, aimed across the plaza at an
angle that crossed their beams in the middle.  Known as final protective fire,
it was an arrangement that forced an oncoming enemy to come through the beams
to get to their objective.  The third weapon was set in the center of the wall,
its gunner sweeping the gun back and forth across the plaza.

The gamma ray
lasers lashed out.  Each Klassekian touched by the beam was superheated to the
point where his body exploded with the steam that had once been blood and other
fluids.  Each beam punched through that alien, into the next, and so on, until
there was nothing left to stop them but the stone and steel of buildings, which
they ate into like so much foam.  The crossing beams slaughtered every alien
than ran through them, while the center beam swept back and forth.

At first the
Klassekians didn’t realize what was happening.  Those in back heard the
explosions of those in front as they moved forward, but weren’t sure what they
were.  As they got closer they were splashed with superheated fluids that
burned into their flesh.  They then tried to back up, but were pushed from
behind until it was their turn to be burned by coherent light at a frequency
most couldn’t imagine.  Shouts of rage turned into screams of panic, then of
pain and terror.

Thousands died
in a storm of gore that would haunt the nightmares of the survivors for the
rest of their lives.  They finally reached the point where those pushing from
the rear could no longer overcome the force of those trying to shove their way
out of the death trap.  Many more died trying to escape, until the flood tide
reversed, and anyone still on their feet pushed their way out of the plaza.

The pulse lasers
stopped firing, waves of heat rising from their multiple barrels.  The
Tsarsorians in the compound cheered, until they got a good look at what was
waiting for them in the plaza.  No bodies, and even few recognizable pieces of
bodies.  Mostly just a slush of liquid with scorched bone chips sticking out, a
mist of red tinted steam hovering over all.  And they looked at their allies
with fear in their eyes, realizing that the humans were death incarnate.

Chapter Sixteen

You think war is hell.  I’ll give
you hell, and keep giving it until you fear me more than the devil.

Lt. General Kwan, First Lasharan
War.

“We’ll be ready
to strike again within twenty-four hours,” reported Colonel Tom Margolis, his
holo image looking at the holo image of Lt. Colonel Mary Isaiah, his second in
command.

“I concur,” said
the light colonel, nodding her head.  “We should have all suits and vehicles
serviced and prepped well before then, but we can definitely use some down time
before the next operation.”

Nguyen looked
back and forth between the two holos of his senior Marine officers, his mind
still dwelling on the last operation.  As far as they knew, Honish now had
neither nuclear warheads nor the means to deliver them.  There might be a
submarine or three still in hiding, parked under an icecap, or deep in an
oceanic trench somewhere, though the latter could only be very deep diving
vessels.  His force had seeded the ocean with probes that were currently on the
lookout for such submersibles.  There also could be some mobile launchers still
hidden.  Both atmospheric and space based sensors were searching for any trace
of radioactivity that might tell of hidden weapons, but had yet to find any.  We
figure they shot their bolt in that last attack.  Why hold anything back?  But
we have to remember that these are aliens, and their decision trees might be
different from the ones we would pursue.

The Honish navy
had also ceased to exist for all intents and purposes.  Again, there might be
some smaller craft hidden here and there, but nothing large enough to be a
threat.  And the terrorist and guerilla cells were all but destroyed.  Maybe
some survived, but they were unlikely to strike in the near future, not after
the beating they had taken.

That beating had
much to do with not committing his Marine and Naval landing forces to another
battle without some rest.  Intelligence had estimated that they had killed over
fifty thousand of the Klassekians, including sailors and pilots.  And
collateral deaths must have reached near a hundred thousand, despite the
caution the humans had used in strikes in and close to cities.  But the
Imperial Marines and Spacers committed to that battle now had to live with what
they had seen and heard, and for some of them that would take months to
reconcile.

The actual
physical damage to his own forces were light.  Forty-seven dead, twenty-one in
one incident where a modern antiair missile, one of the few remaining in the
hands of the terrorists, had knocked a transport out of the air by penetrating
its underhull weapons bay.  Two sting ships and six fighters downed, one
shuttle disabled, and mostly light damage to one hundred and seventy-eight
battle armor suits.

“We’re picking
up ships in hyper VII, sir,” came a call over the com.

Probably what
they were already expecting, though it never hurt to be cautious.  He looked
back at his Marine commanders.  “Go ahead and get everything set up for a
provisional launch in twenty-four hours.  We may be changing plans on the fly
if these ships are bringing what I think they are.”

An hour and a
half later the first of the vessels jumped into normal space, and their
identities were verified by the sensor and com officers.  All ten of the ships
were hyper VII, capable of translating to a higher dimension than ships with
only a VI drive, giving them four times the speed between systems.  There were
two more battle cruisers in the group, HIMS Buzz Aldrin and the Vasco
Balboa.  Accompanying them were three light cruisers, Chan Chun, George
Vancouver and Tenjiku Tokubei.  Four destroyers rounded out the
explorer warships, Harold Tillman, Wang Dayuan, Jeffrey Peters and Auguste
Piccard.  And the true treasure of the convoy, and something the Admiral
was not expecting, a hyper VII liner, one of the few in existence, the Lusitania.

Nguyen looked
over the specs of the last ship that he had pulled up on a holo.  Lusitania was
not large as liners went, with a capacity for two thousand passengers.  Of
course, when transporting people in cryo, that number could be tripled, since
those passengers wouldn’t need amenities such as dining or recreational
facilities.  And, counting the time in and out of systems to the hyper barrier,
as well as loading and unloading, she could carry three times the number of
passengers of a comparably sized hyper VI in the same time period.

And now, if
we only had a hundred like her, he thought, shaking his head.  Actually, to
save all six billion of the intelligent inhabitants of the planet, he would
need over a million trips from ships like this.  If the entire resources of the
Empire were put to evacuating this planet, they could still not do it in the
time they had.

Besides that
liner, which he would have loaded and dispatched as soon as possible, the
exploration ships carried between them another brigade of Marines, seven
squadrons of sting ships, thirty assault shuttles, and three squadrons of
atmospheric fighters.

“Colonel
Margolis,” he said into the com, initiating a link with his Marine commander.
“I’m downloading the list of your reinforcements.  I think it would be best if
we held off on your operation until you have a chance to add them to your order
of battle.”

“I would have to
agree, Admiral,” said the Marine officer.  “While I think we could still carry
it off, it is always better to have more in reserve.”

*     *     *

“You realize,
sir, that the humans will be striking at us next,” said the Klassekian with the
rank insignia of the Supreme General of the Honish Military.

“And it is your
job, General, to stop them,” said Zzarr, his primary eyes locked with those of
the officer.  “By all means possible.”

“I am not sure
that it is possible,” said the Supreme General.  “We have very few nuclear weapons
left in our inventory.  It will take months to assemble any more, and launch
vehicles are still going to be a problem.  And the humans have proven that we
cannot stand up to them in open combat.”

“Also, there is
no way we can strike at their ships,” said the Chief of Intelligence.  “It is
difficult to shoot down their aerial vehicles.  Really, the only point of
attack that leads to any kind of success is against their research personnel,
when they are out in small groups.  And even then, the odds of our people
getting away are slight.”

“I don’t care
about our people getting away.  They can be martyred, and go to paradise.”

“Suicide
bombers,” said the Chief of Intelligence, raising a tentacle into the air.  “We
can get volunteers to wear explosive devices, drive vehicles full of
explosives, even fly aircraft into ground targets.  I am sure we will be able
to get our quota of volunteers when we tell them they will serve Hrrottha by
such attacks.”

The Leader
stared at his Chief of Intelligence for a moment.  “Why didn’t we think of
that?  From where did this idea come?”

“From the
history of the humans,” said the Chief of Intelligence, his face taking on an
expression of joy.  “They gave us access to some of their historical databases
when they first arrived, I guess to prove how trustworthy they were.  And their
ancient history, before they left their home world, is replete with examples of
suicide bombers.  Civilian terrorists, military pilots.”

“Brilliant.  Let
it be so.”

“You realize,
sir, that our chances of driving them from this world are remote,” said the
Supreme General.  “And they are already moving people from this world away from
the judgment of the God.  It may already be too late.”

“We still must
try,” yelled the Leader, slamming his left side tentacles on the table.  “The
God has given us this test, and we must do the best we can.”

Zzarr turned
back to his Chief of Intelligence.  “How is the interrogation of the prisoner
going?  Have you come up with any new insights into the enemy?”

“She is well
conditioned to resist any means of persuasion we might employ.  And we don’t
know enough about her biology to utilize chemical means.  Chemical means,” said
the Chief of Intelligence, waving his right side tentacles in the air.
“Chemical means.”

“What is it?”
demanded the Leader.

“Just a
thought.  And maybe a means to actually hurt the aliens.  I will have to talk
it over with some of my staff, but it might be feasible.”

*     *     *

Warrant Officer
Melissa Sung opened her eyes as the too bright lights came up in the room.  She
had lost track of time, only measuring it by way of the meals they brought her,
at what seemed to be infrequent intervals.  And, of course, the interrogation
sessions.

Torture is
more like it, she thought.  The Honish had some diabolically effective
methods of pain inducement, which, unfortunately, seemed to work on humans just
as well as their own.  They would have been extremely effective against old
style humans, the ones before the Improvement Project of eight hundred years ago.
Those humans couldn’t even turn off their pain pathways, and had to suffer
through the repetition of signals from pain receptors to the sensory strip of
the brain even when such signals were no longer useful.  When people needed to
rest, to heal, they were still disturbed by throbbing pain.

Melissa could
turn off those pain pathways, stop the signal, even while they were trying to
push her nerves to the limit.  But she had to make them think she was still in
pain, something that stretched her acting abilities to the limit.

“More
questions?” she asked as the being she only knew as the Inquisitor walked up to
her.

“No more
questions,” said the being.  “We have wasted enough time on you.  It is time to
put your body to some use, if your mind won’t cooperate.”

“What do you…”
The last word would not come out of her mouth as the Klassekian put a device to
her forehead and fired a fast moving dart into her brain.

“Get her
prepped,” said the Inquisitor to the two other males who then entered the
room.  “Command wants her found within the next twelve hours.”

*     *     *

“We monitored
the meeting between the leader of Honish and his staff,” said Susan Lee,
sitting across the desk from Admiral Nguyen.

The Admiral
looked up from the small tactical holo he had been using to track the incoming
ships, thinking about the other vessels the initial report had told him were
coming in hyper VI from base.  And contingents coming directly from the Empire
through VII and VI.

“So, what’s
their plan?”  And can we stop it by taking him out, which should happen in
the next forty-one hours.

“Suicide
attacks,” said the Chief of Staff.  “They’re planning to use fanatics to attack
us with explosives, either strapped to their bodies or in vehicles.”

“And how do we
stop them?” asked Nguyen, rubbing his temples.  “I’m assuming we can use our
chemical sniffers to track them.”

“That would
probably work, in most cases, but we were given some information by the
intelligence services of Tsarzor and their allies that the Honish have an
advanced binary explosives industry.”

“So they’re
going to hit us again, and hard,” said Nguyen, shaking his head.   “I wish we
had just gone ahead and crushed the Honish when we first arrived.  Damned
fanatics.”

“I looked up
some historical references to Old Earth,” said Lee, pulling up another holo
that showed a view of what was considered a tall building at that time.  “This
was a time when the technology was similar to that of this planet.”  An
aircraft came flying into the picture and hit the side of the building, giving
the structure some scale.  The building had to be about four hundred meters
tall, compared to the three or four kilometer high structures of the Empire.
“They had a number of competing religions, and most thought they were the only
true faith, while the others were populated by fools and liars.  The Western
world was the more technologically advanced, and the Eastern, which was
dominated by one of the more fanatical religions, used asymmetrical warfare
against the West.  Such as terrorist attacks, like flying a passenger aircraft,
fully fueled, into landmark buildings.”

“And how did
they deal with their fanatics?”

“They tried all
kinds of things,” said the Chief of Staff.  “Reason, reconciliation, giving in
to demands.  But nothing seemed to work other than military action.”

“Which we are
already engaged in,” said the Admiral, watching the aircraft slice into the
building, a ball of flame flaring out into the air from where it had hit.

“One of the
experts of the time said this about the military strategy,” continued Lee.  “He
thought they needed to kill all of them, and their families, and their pet
goats.”

“Barbaric
thinking,” said the Admiral, closing his eyes and shaking his head again.
“What was the name of this fanatical religion.”

“Islam.  And
their followers were known as Muslims,” said Lee, looking into his eyes.

“But, they
aren’t fanatical today.  And they’re still around, so obviously the opposition
didn’t take the advice of that expert.”

“No, but there
were religious wars, and many of the homelands of the Muslims were devastated.
Hundreds of millions were killed, but the faith continued.”

“And that
changed them?”

“I think the
lure of better technology, and a better standard of living convinced most of
them to adopt a more accepting attitude.  That, and being thrown off their own
homeworld with the coming of the Cacas.  Nothing like being totally defeated by
an alien power to rid one of an attitude of being specially blessed by God.”

“What brings
this up, Susan?”

“I know, sir,
that we are dealing with a people, a religious belief system much like the
Muslims used to be like before they joined modern civilization.  I guess I
should back up on that a bit.  There always were lots of Muslims who were
living in the modern world, willing to get along with those who were not of
their faith.  But there were also a very large number of the radicals, the
fanatics, those who thought they were the specially chosen of their God, above
all others.  Not to be offended lest they strike back and kill the offenders.”

Lee changed the
view of the holo she had pulled up from the ancient terrorist attack, to the
terrorist fanatics charging across the plaza as the Tsarzorian embassy, and
into the deadly beams of the pulse laser.  “You face a choice here, sir.  We are
here to save as many of these people as we can.  As many as we can from all
ethnic groups.  Can you imagine, sir, what it would have been like if our
ancestors had only taken one chosen ethnic group with them, one race, one
genetic heritage.  Without the Chinese, I would not be here.  Without the
genomes of the Vietnamese, you wouldn’t be here either.  And these followers of
what I could only consider a Death God believe that only their faith counts,
and, that like little children, they must have their way.  You have hard
choice, Admiral.  You may have to kill most of the Honish in order to rescue
some of their genome.  And to protect the others we wish to relocate.”

“You’re speaking
atrocity here, Susan,” said the shocked Admiral.  “Crimes against sentience.”

“This world is
doomed, Admiral.  The great majority of those left behind, the billions who
cannot get into shelters, will be dead within a year and a half, when the wave
of radiation strikes.  And since the Honish refuse to build shelters, that
includes all of them.”

“I’ll have to
think this over, Captain,” said Nguyen in a distant voice.  “I appreciate the
courage it took to broach this topic.”  And he did.  Most humans would never
admit to thinking of such a bloody solution.  It went against everything they
were taught in their society.  It was not a society of pacifists.  But it was
one in which people were taught to use the minimum force necessary to achieve
their objectives, even if sometimes the minimum was actually the maximum
possible.

And I wonder
if this is a case where the maximum force is the minimum necessary.

*     *     *

“I really don’t
like these results, Captain,” said Commander Stephanie Harrison, taking the
offered seat across from Walther Huang’s desk.  “I know I’m not in the same league
as a real astrophysicist, but these results scare me.”

Huang nodded,
recalling what he could about his Exec’s history in astrophysics.  He knew she
was bright, probably the most intelligent person aboard the Lewis.  And,
checking her records with his implants, found that she had been in the Doctoral
program at Imperial University on Jewel at one time.  Until some charges of
academic impropriety had cropped up, one of her major professors accusing her
of stealing his work.  The records showed that not only did she deny the
charges, but counter charged the professor of actually stealing the work from
her.  Of course he denied it, and refused to testify under a physiological
recording, as was his right, and she was dismissed from the University, soon
after to enter the Academy, and then on to the Command.

“What have you
found?” asked Huang, holding up a hand before she could speak.  “And remember
to dumb it down for us people who have not reached your level of physics,” he
said with a smile.

“It’s the release
of gravitons, sir.  That star is a big gravity source, and is flooding space
with gravitons, the messenger particles of gravity.  And when it blows, and the
matter disperses, the amount of graviton emission will go up by ten to the
power of eight.  Just for a little while, but enough to really screw up all of
our graviton based sensory systems.”

“We were already
warned of that,” said the Captain in his best patient voice.  “So we won’t be
able to track other vessels in hyper.  I really don’t think that is much to
concern ourselves with.”

“And I’m not
concerned with that part, sir.  What I’m concerned about is the way it will
interfere with our ability to open holes into and out of hyperspace.  As you
can see from these calculations.”  Harrison brought up the said calculations on
her flat screen, which she tilted toward her Captain so he could see them.
“The interface between the dimensions of normal space and hyperspace, all of
the interfaces, will resonate at a frequency that will interfere with our own hyperdrive
resonances.  We won’t be able to go into hyperspace from normal space, or be
able to change dimensions of hyper, or leave.”

Huang looked at
the calculations, which really meant nothing to him until he brought up his
link to the ship’s computer and had the AI go over them.  It could find nothing
wrong with them, which didn’t prove the conclusions that came from them were
correct.

“So, you’re
saying that when Big Bastard blows, we’re going to be in a lot of
trouble.”

“That would be
my theory.”

“How far will
this effect reach?  And for how long?”

“I really have
no idea, sir.  A hundred light years, more or less.  I wouldn’t think it could
last longer than a couple of weeks, a month at most.  But I really don’t know.”

Huang sat there,
staring at the calculations on her pad, then back at the holo of Big Bastard.
“What do you want me to do about this?”

“Let the people
higher up know,” she said, putting the flat screen back on the desk.  “Have
some other astrophysicists, or, preferably some hyperspace spatial theorists,
look at them.  I ran them past our Engineer, and got a qualified approval of my
theory, but we need to have some true experts look at them.”

“I’ll send them
up to the Admiral,” said the Captain, looking back at the blue giant.  “It will
be up to him to decide what to do.  At least we don’t have to worry about the
damned thing blowing up tomorrow, or even several months from now.”

He could see the
worry in the face of his Exec, and knew what she was thinking.  Her alarming
theory might be put on the back burner with all of the other things weighing on
the Admiral’s mind.  And if it was forgotten long enough, there might be hell
to pay.

Chapter Seventeen

When a scientist tells you
something is a sure thing, check your wallet first, then his calculations.

Old Malticon saying.

APRIL 12TH , 1001.
D-81.

“Lusitania has
started loading, sir,” came the call from the captain of that ship to the
Admiral.  “We should be fully loaded and ready to break orbit within
forty-eight hours.”

Nguyen smiled.  The
ship would only carry six thousand five hundred Klassekians in cryo sleep.  A
light cruiser and two destroyers would ride herd on the ship.  That was a
strong escort for a single ship, but there were too many unknowns in this space
to risk that resource, and the warships would be loaded up with all the aliens
in cryo they could handle, about eight hundred for the cruiser, and four
hundred each for the destroyers.  The ships would be leaving behind more than
half their Marine contingents, who would be of more use to the evacuation
effort here than riding as passengers.

“Very good,
Captain.  I look forward to a swift voyage by your ship, and a speedy return.”
The ships would be heading to Bolthole, the first evacuation effort
headed that way.  Only the bridge watches of the ships would know where they
were going, and they would have that memory removed once they were through with
their mission, just as had been done to the crews of all the other ships that
had plied the lanes to the hidden base.

Nguyen looked at
the holo of the local space, stretching out to two hundred light years in each
direction.  There were several million stars in that sphere that was located in
the dense structure of the Perseus Arm.  The whole area hadn’t been explored,
but it was known that there were two space faring races in that sphere, as well
as twelve other intelligent species.  The worry was that there might be other
space faring species in the sphere, or even further on along the path to Bolthole.
Even if they were slightly less advanced, they could still be a threat to a
single ship like the liner, hence the escort.

With a thought
he zoomed in on the closer space, fifty light years out from Big Bastard.
That was the danger zone, the area that would be swept by sufficient radiation
to endanger life on the surface of worlds.  Everything within ten light years
was probably dead, though enough microscopic life on land, and some of the
larger sea life, might survive.  From ten to twenty light years there would be
major damage to the ecosystems, similar to what occurred on Earth during the
massive extinctions of the past.  After that there would be damage of various
levels, and increased mutations.  Those planets would probably be OK.

The closest
system with intelligent life to Big Bastard was eight light years, about
eight and a half years from the radiation wave the blue giant would send out in
a sphere.  There was another within fifteen light years, and a planet with a
species that would probably achieve sentience within the next million years
within twelve light years.  There were scores of worlds with life, many highly
developed.  It would be the job of the Command to gather genetic samples from
all of those planets, and put up protective screens around those worlds where
there was intelligent life.  They might not be able to screen the whole
surface, but they could at least protect enough to allow the world to survive.

That only worked
due to the inverse square law.  Big Bastard was six light months from
Klassek.  Something a light year away would only receive a quarter of that
radiation.  At two light years a sixteenth, and so on.  So a world eight light
years away would only get thousandths of the same radiation, and it would be
easier to shield that world.

“We’re ready to
go when you give us the word,” said Colonel Margolis over the com.

Nguyen checked
his internal timer and saw that there was still over eight hours on it.  “We go
as scheduled, Colonel.  I don’t see any need to hurry everyone to action
stations when they already know when to be where they need to be.”  He was
mostly thinking of his naval personnel, the people who would man shipboard
stations, pilots, medical personnel.  “Tell your people to stand down, get
something to eat, some rest, and we’ll go at eighteen hundred hours ship’s
time.”

“Yes, sir,” said
the Colonel, a tone of disappointment in his voice.

It’s good to
be enthusiastic about the mission, thought the Admiral.  But don’t get
carried away.

*     *     *

“Any luck?”
asked Captain Gertrude Hasslehoff, commanding officer of the battle cruiser Challenger.

“I can tell you
where we aren’t,” said Cenk Ungra, the chief engineer.  He looked over at the
holo that showed the space around them.  The background of the space was a deep
violet color, and there were dark dots in the distance all around.  It reminded
the Captain of the dimensions of space she was familiar with, but with many
differences other than the color.

First of all,
the pattern of distant objects did not match up completely with any charts they
had of normal space, unlike the correspondence of sub or hyperspace.  And the
quantum resonance of that space was different than anything anyone had ever
seen.

“Not any space
that we’re familiar with,” said the Captain, shaking her head.  “And no way
out.”

“I wouldn’t bet
on our chances,” said Ungra, frowning.  “Since we really don’t know how we got
here, I really can’t think of how we will get out.”

At least
everything on the ship still works, thought the Captain.  Challenger could
power itself with its antimatter and backup fusion reactors for many years.
The life support systems would recycle food, water and air almost
indefinitely.  As far as they could tell, all of their physical and biological
systems worked in this dimension the same as they did in normal space.  If
there were tiny differences, so far they had not made themselves felt.

“What are our
chances of whatever it was that sent us here wearing off?”

“I don’t know if
there is anything to wear off,” said the Engineer.  “It’s not like we’re generating
any kind of field to stay here, like we would in hyperspace.  It’s closer to
subspace, where we’re here, and we’re going to stay here until we open up the
way out.”

“Well, you know
what to do, Commander,” said the Captain, staring at the unknown space,
wondering if she and her people were ever going to get out of here.  “Keep
working on it.”

*     *     *

“This is the
commander of the human force in orbit around and on the surface of the planet
Klassek,” said the voice over the television, the radio, over every electronic
device capable of picking up a signal and conveying it to a watcher or
listener.  The voice was translated into Honish, but retained the tone and
inflections of the human speaker.

“This message is
for the Leader of the nation of Honish, and all of his cabinet members and
military leaders.  You are charged with violating the laws of the New Terran
Empire, and of the Nation of Tsarzor and its allies.  These violations include
murder by the use of weapons of mass destruction, inciting rioting, property
destruction, and assault with the intent to impede humanitarian efforts.”

“It’s on every
broadcast channel we have,” said the Supreme General, on the phone to
subordinates who were monitoring the communications.  “It’s even over the cable
and fiber optic networks.”

Zzarr really
didn’t care that he and his staff were hearing this message.  He did care that
it was going out where all of his citizens could hear it.  “Is there any way
you can shut it down?”

“I don’t see
how,” said the General, staring at the Leader.  “Even if we shut down our
broadcast and cable networks, we can’t turn off all of the receivers in the
country.”

“We are coming
to apprehend you, Zzarr.  You and your cabinet and staff.  We are prepared to
use whatever force is necessary to take you into custody.  And this message is
going out to your citizens, police and military.  Stand down.  You cannot stand
against us.  You will just be giving your lives for no purpose.  But we will
not stand for Zzarr and his henchmen to continue with their campaign of terror
against our humanitarian rescue efforts as regards your planet.”

“Order all our
forces to resist by all means at their disposal,” ordered Zzarr to his Supreme
General.

“Are you sure
you want to do that, sir?” asked the officer.  “They can smash us flat without
any effort.”

“If they come
here, they will also be arresting you, General,” said Zzarr in a cold voice.
“Now, do you want them to take you into custody, just so they can torture
information from you before your execution.”

The message
repeated, verbatim.  With an addition to the end.  “Again, we caution all
military, police and paramilitary forces of Honish to stand down.  We will be
compelled to use deadly force against anyone who attempts to stop us.  You have
been warned.”

“The military is
on condition one status,” said the Supreme General.  “Invasion Imminent.  Our
aircraft are scrambling as we speak.  Anything that penetrates our airspace
will be engaged.”

“Order my
personal guards here immediately,” the Leader told his Chief of Staff.  “I want
us prepared to evacuate this building and relocate to our secret command
bunker.”

All of the
people in the chamber, a command center well under the palace, looked relieved
as they heard that.  The command center was fortified, and not a one doubted
that the humans could blast their way in without issue.  But they would have to
find the hidden bunker first, whose location was only known to the personnel
manning it, and a select few of the military.  And the humans couldn’t penetrate
a facility they couldn’t find.

*     *     *

“They’re
mobilizing their military forces, sir,” came the call from the Marine officer
on the flag bridge who was monitoring the ground forces.  “Aircraft are taxiing
down the runways as we speak.”

“You tried,”
said Captain Susan Lee, standing beside the Admiral’s chair.

“Weapons free,”
announced the Admiral.  “Open fire on any Honish military vehicles and units
deploying.

The Marine Major
nodded and turned back to his board to relay the orders, while the Naval air
controller started sending the signals from his board.  The mistake the Honish
Leader had made was to think that the Imperials still had to insert their
forces into the territory of his country.  When most of those forces were
already there.

*      *      *

The Gallagos (meaning
a large raptor) fighter was the most advanced military aircraft on Klassek, the
pride of the Honish aeronautic industry.  The first pair of the craft reached
the end of the runway and pirouetted into a ninety degree turn, braking, then
pushing their throttles up to full, their pilots waiting for the clearance to
launch.

“Warning,”
called a voice over the com.  “Any attempt to lift your aircraft will be met
with deadly force.”

Both pilots
stared at their instruments, wondering where in the hell cast was coming from.

“Alpha one two
and one three,” called out the voice they recognized.  “You are cleared for
takeoff.”

“Any sign of
nearby enemy?” asked the flight leader, looking at his own scope.

“Negative.
Airspace is clear.”

First the flight
leader released his brakes, a moment later his wingman, and both started
rolling down the runway, building up speed every second as the G forces pushed
them back into their seats.

The air
shimmered at the end of the runway for the merest of moments, and suddenly one
of the human sting ships was there.  The flight leader sucked in a breath as
his hearts jumped to a faster beat.  The officer knew that invisibility was
possible, in fact, his own military was working on it.  But nothing as effective
as what the Imperial craft had just demonstrated.

The flight
leader flipped the switch cover off his joystick and reached for the trigger,
hoping he could get off enough cannon fire to blast it out of the way before
his aircraft ran into it or its debris before leaving the runway.  That option
was taken away as the angry red of a particle beam linked sting ship and
fighter.  The fast moving protons blasted through the fuselage, transferring
tens of thousands of degrees of heat into the craft around its path.  The
fighter went up in a ball of fire that scattered pieces of it all over the
runway.  The beam struck out again, and the second fighter was destroyed, then
two more times to blast the next flight that was still taxiing into position.

“Any aircraft
that attempts to leave this field will be destroyed,” came the voice over every
receiver on the base.  “Continued efforts to launch aircraft will result in the
complete destruction of this base by kinetic strikes.”

The sting ship
faded away, moving to another location, still putting out some heat, but no
other radiation that could be detected.  The invisible decoys deployed to both
sides covered that, putting out more heat than the craft they guarded, ready to
spoof any infrared seeker that might come their way.

*     *     *

The First
Armored Fist of Hrrottha division rolled out of its base, moving toward the
capital at thirty kilometers per hour, all other traffic cleared from the roads
ahead.  Four hundred tanks, a hundred mobile guns, and six hundred other armored
vehicles road marched toward their defensive positions.  The soldiers were
confident that they would give a good account of themselves, and that the
aliens would regret trying to invade their country.

Three sting
ships flew down the road, coming out of stealth just before they fired,
conserving their energy for other functions.  Particle beams thrust though
heavy armored vehicles like they were balloons, and vehicle after vehicle
exploded as their hydrogen turbine engines and gas storage cells were ruptured.
As the sting ships passed, they dropped a couple of sticks of small weapons
that homed in on any armored vehicle that was still intact.  Moments after
contact those vehicles were no longer intact, and the small flight of Imperial
ground support craft flew on, going back into stealth and leaving almost a
thousand armored vehicles, and hundreds more soft skinned ones, burning on the
road.

Some
antiaircraft missiles shot up after the sting ships, tracking in on their
heat.  The ships countered with the beams from their laser rings and
micro-counter missiles, blowing all of the planned revenge fire from the sky.
Soon the sting ships were out of range, turning through the air to seek out
their next targets.

The Third
Hrrottha’s Wrath division was on its way into the city from another direction.
The low crumps of explosions sounded in the distance to the south, and rising
clouds of smoke and dust became visible.  They were not sure what was
happening, but hopes were high that one of their sister units had hit the
aliens hard.

Third Division
did not even see what killed it.  In orbit, the light cruiser Chan Chun released
a pair of canisters that shot downward under their grabbers, entering the
atmosphere at forty times the speed of sound, sending out a boom that was heard
across the continent.  Forty kilometers above the ground the canisters
exploded, sending out hundreds of small but dense objects that spread in a fast
falling cloud.   Each object scanned the area below in an instant, oriented
onto a target, and boosted.  A fraction of a second later the division was
gone, every vehicle, every soldier, destroyed.

*     *     *

The pair of
assault shuttles came down over the city at what could only be called a
meandering speed.  At two hundred kilometers an hour they made barely a sound
other than the slight rustling of the wind of passage.  Fully stealthed, they
didn’t appear on radar, or any other sensor system, and even their infrared
signature was tiny, since they hadn’t just dropped from orbit, but had flown at
low altitude from the lake they had been sitting in prior to the assault.

Four more
shuttles were behind them, the follow up platoons that would secure the
perimeter while the apprehension platoon went into the building.  Higher up
were a quartet of sting ships, ready to provide ground support.

The two shuttles
slowed to a hover over the capital building, the last known location of the
Leader of Honish and his staff.  As soon as they were in place the side panels
of the shuttles opened, and twenty-two medium suited figures fell from each
craft, their grabbers slowing them to a soft touchdown on the roof of the large
building.

The other four
shuttles did the same with their cargo, one half platoon on each side of the
building.  The Marines fell down the side of the building, half of them
reaching the ground, the other half remaining in the air on overwatch.

Captain Stacy
Jangerson, the overall commander of the raid, followed her first platoon leader
and approached the door that led to the stairs downward.  The door was
constructed of heavy armored alloy, most probably capable of withstanding a hit
by a locally produced antitank rocket.  Jangerson nodded to the Sergeant
standing in front of the door, and that Marine slapped a breaching charge on
the barrier.  All backed away, just as the sound of shots from local weapons
sounded from street level.

“What’s
happening, Yoshi?” asked the Captain of her XO, who was in charge of the street
level force.

“Just some local
soldiers poking their noses in where they’re not welcome,” said the Marine Lt.
in his softly accented Terranglo.  “So far, no problem.  And Sashra’s platoon
is ready to breach the doors at your command.”

The breaching
charge on the door blew, the almost microscopic antimatter shape charge blasting
a hole through the metal, the heat melting the armor outward until a large
gaping opening occupied the door, including the part that had held the locking
mechanism.  Two Marines in heavy suits ran up to the door and tossed stun
grenades through the hole, then, using the strength of their robotic muscles,
pulled the ruin away from the opening.

Jangerson
watched the men of the first squad file through the door, tossing some of the
new incapacitation grenades down the steps.  After some moments they signaled
all clear, and the second squad went through the door.

The Captain
stood on the roof for a moment, tracking her company on her HUD.  One squad of
first platoon was fitted out in heavy suits, the rest in mediums.  It had been
thought that the smaller suits would be better for a building assault, where,
just like on a ship, things could get very tight.  But the squad with the heavy
suits, and their greater strength and protection, were along to handle
situations where firepower and their virtual invulnerability could tip the
balance.

First squad
flowed down the stairs, while second blew the doors to the elevators and
dropped down the shafts.  The Captain and her two security people came after,
with the third squad trailing.

“Take the
doors,” he commanded Yoshi Taragowa, starting three more squads in motion into
the building.

“The reaction
force is, well, reacting,” said the Exec, over the muted sounds of explosives
and the angry buzzing of particle beams.

“Any trouble?”
asked Jangerson, as the sounds of fighting erupted from a couple of floors
down.

“We’re handling
it.  I think we had best leave the sting ships in reserve for now.  And the
assault squads have already encountered resistance.”

It would be
better if they just gave up, thought the company commander, watching as the
icons of her unit moved across her HUD.  They were equipped with the new
knockout gas that medical had come up with.  It was effective either through
the lungs or the skin, though some of the environmental suits of the natives
might be able to resist it.  For a short time, before the nanites built into
the gas ate their way through any protective barrier not attached to an
Imperial battle armored suit.

She didn’t think
the guards in this building, who had probably been selected for their loyalty
or fanaticism, would give up without giving their lives to resist this
intrusion.  Making her way down the building, floor after floor, passing the
unconscious bodies of Klassekians, many in full environmental suits that had
not protected them, she was happy she could take them out without killing them.

The sounds of
fighting intensified over the com from the units outside.  Fanatical soldiers
of the Honish poured into the attack, hundreds of them, charging into the teeth
of particle beams and explosives as if they didn’t have a care for their own
lives.  Gas was taking some of them down, lethal force many others, and the
Marines still in the air fired down on them like miniature aircraft.

“Committing the
sting ships, now,” called out Taragowa, and the icons of the three support
aircraft blinked onto the HUD.  “We…”

The com link to
the XO died, at the same time as his icon blinked red twice on the HUD and fell
off the display.

“Yoshi,” yelled
Jangerson, afraid that she had lost her Exec.

“He’s dead, ma’am,”
said Lt. Ferguson, the third platoon leader, and the next ranking officer.
“One of their tanks put an armor piercing shell through his suit.  A couple of
other men got taken out the same way, before the sting ships took out the
tanks.”

And that’s why
I should have insisted that we all wear heavy suits, thought the Captain,
looking back at one of the Marines in a heavy suit go crashing through the
corridor.  I thought we had taken out all of their nearby armor.

She lost three
Marines pushing down the building and into the basement, reaching the entrance
that led to the subbasement.  The suits, even the medium version, made them
invulnerable to the small arms of the Klassekians.  Even antipersonnel grenades
and heavy projectile weapons bounced off the armor.  But some of the soldiers
had shoulder fired antitank rockets and some older recoilless cannon.  Those
could penetrate the armor of medium suits, and possibly even the heavier
version.

Fighting their
way down the elevator shaft to the command bunker cost two more Marines, and
the resistance down at the lowest level became truly fanatical, males actually
blowing themselves up, suiciding to try and take out the invaders.  In all
instances that was futile.  Explosives in and of themselves couldn’t penetrate
the armor in the quantities a male could carry.  Only purpose built armor
piercing weapons could do that, unless the explosives were employed in a shaped
charge, which the defenders didn’t have time to produce.

It took massed
particle beam fire to take down the final door to the command bunker, a portal
thick enough to withstand a moderate nuclear blast directly on the building
above.  And when they entered the room.

“Get me the
Admiral,” said Captain Jangerson over the com as she looked on the empty room
that had been the command center of the nation of Honish.  “Sir.  They fled.
There’s no one here.”

*     *     *

The massive door
closed behind the party, shutting with a boom.  The two hundred and so
Klassekians looked at each other as they waited for the elevator that would
bring them down to the actual shelter.  This, the entry chamber, was set at the
end of an old, abandoned mine shaft, reaching down three kilometers under a
massive mountain.  Once a source of precious metals and gems, it had played out
years before.  The actual mining camp had been demolished, the area returned to
its natural state, perfect camouflage.

The first party
rode the elevator, twenty kilometers straight down into the bedrock of the
planet.  It was crowded with twenty beings, males and females, the leaders of
the nation and their families.  After the long trip down, they exited into
another large room, with a large door much like the one above set into the
armored wall.  The door was open, and the party could see the luxurious refuge
ahead.

They had all the
power they needed from the small fission reactor.  Years of food and water had
been stored, everything the inhabitants would need for an extended stay.  The
only communications in and out were by fiber optic, totally secure, not giving
off any residual signals that could be traced.

“We are here,”
said Zzarr, walking into his own large quarters, his wife and son coming in
behind him.  “Make sure that we have everything we need for comfort,” he told
his wife, then looked back at his aide.

“I want a staff
meeting in four hours, after everyone is down and settled.”

“And the agenda,
sir?”

“We still have a
war to fight,” said the Leader, looking at the pool of water in the living room
that swarmed with decorative water life.  “And I intend to win it, no matter
the cost to my people.”  It’s what Hrrottha would expect of me, of all of
us.  And he wasn’t about the let his Deity down.

Chapter Eighteen

A determined man with no thought
of his own life can accomplish much.

Old Phlistaran saying.

MAY 28TH, 1001.  D-35.

“That’s the
fifth one today,” said Captain Susan Lee, looking at the main holo that was
showing a large vehicle exploding on a street in Tsarzor.

“”What are we
going to do about it?” asked Colonel Margolis, sitting in the guest seat
near to the Admiral’s flag bridge station.

I know what
you’d like to do about it, thought the Admiral, looking over at a side holo
that showed the  Lusitania and her three escorts streaking through the
holes into hyperspace, on the first leg of their trip to Bolthole.
Almost eight thousand Klassekians on the way to survival, and future
contributions to the Empire.  And only a drop in the bucket.  But we have
more immediate problems.

“I suggest we
start deploying nanites in all the major cities set to look for the chemicals
necessary for explosive production,” said Lee.

“There might be
ways around that,” said the Colonel.  “For instance, if they make sure the
chemicals are in hermetically sealed containers.”

“It’s worth a
try,” said Lee.  “Any we catch won’t be exploding on the street and killing
Tsarzorians.”

“Go ahead and
deploy what we have,” ordered Nguyen, looking away from the holo.  “Have the
labs come up with the components of that binary explosive.”

“We have,” said
Lee, pulling up the chemical structure of the compounds, displayed side by
side, then a morphing graphic that showed the two chemicals joining together to
make a third substance, the explosive.

“Our chemists
believe there are several different permutations of this combination,” said
Lee.  “That’s one of the biggest problems, since they may have several dozen
different binaries, trinaries or more that can end up with the same explosive.
They are only deploying the one binary so far, but they might have many more.”

“Or this could
be the only one they have knowledge of,” said Margolis, shaking his head.  ‘We
don’t know.  And we won’t until a new combination makes its appearance, and we
won’t be able to detect it until it’s used.”

“Which doesn’t
mean it isn’t useful to catch some of them before they switch off.”

“The Captain is
right, Colonel,” said Nguyen, his eyes narrowing as he looked at all the
permutations for this single explosive.  And there could be more.  After all,
the Tsarzorians said that the Honish were very advanced in the science of
chemistry, probably more than the scientists of Tsarzor.  “Deploy all the
nanites we have, and crank up the manufacture of more.  I’m more concerned
about protecting our own assets, the landing fields, the processing centers,
than the city centers of the Tsarzorians.  Or the Honish,” he added, thinking
of the bombs that had gone off in that nation’s cities as well.  “But it would
be useful to catch as many of the terrorists as we can, and maybe backtrack
them to their sources.”

“Too bad we didn’t
capture their leader and his staff,” said Margolis, closing his eyes and
shaking his head.

“Our political
science and sociology people think it wouldn’t have made any difference,” said
Lee.  “As long as the orders were given out, the terror campaign would progress
as planned.”

“It still irks
me that we didn’t get that bastard,” growled the Marine.  “He’s sitting in
comfort in some hidden refuge, and laughing at us.”

I doubt he’s
laughing at us after being driven out of his capital and having most of his
military burned to the ground, thought the Admiral.  “And how is the
occupation progressing otherwise, Colonel?” asked Nguyen, looking over at the
Marine.

“As well as can
be expected with only two battalions to work with,” said the Colonel with a
frown.  “We have control of the capital, most of the time.  Any attacks made
against our troops are of course defeated, though one of their suicide bombers
injured some of my Marines.  But we just don’t have enough to manpower to keep
track of everything, and, of course, the population is on their side.  I
wouldn’t expect it any other way.”

“Sir, we have an
incident in Tsarzor,” came a call over the com.

“Show me,”
ordered the Admiral, and a holo came to life in the air showing a large
building with a cloud of smoke rising from it.  Fires roared from some of the
windows, and as they watched, part of the building slid off and fell seventy
stories to the ground.

“What happened?”

“According to
the local news report, a large airliner crashed into the building and exploded,”
said the Com Officer on the other end.  “They’re predicting casualties in the
thousands.”

“An accident?”
asked Lee in a tone that that indicated she believed it was anything but.

“Wait,” said the
Com Officer, and the holo switched views to another airliner, this one in the
process of hitting another tall building.  A large cloud of smoke was rising in
the background, and it was soon obvious that this was the same city as the last
crash.  “This was a major office building, and there were ten thousand beings
there on this work day.”

The holo
switched again, and another airplane crashed into a sports stadium where a
local ball team was playing before a crowd of tens of thousands.  And then
again, as an airliner crashed into the terminal of the local airport, taking
out most of the building and ten or more other airliners that were taking on or
debarking passengers.

“My God,” said
Lee, staring at the holos which were all now open, showing the quartet of
attacks in the capital city.

Like God has
anything to do with this, thought the Admiral, who didn’t believe in any
gods anyway, much less the Honish variety.

“We’re getting
reports of other attacks across the continent,” said the Com Officer.
“Airliners, truck bombs, individuals with suicide devices strapped to them.”

“There’s an
incoming call from First Councilman Contena,” said another officer over the
com.

“Tell him that
we’re mobilizing search and rescue, and will respond with all of the help we
can give,” said Nguyen.  “I’ll be in touch with him as soon as we have a better
handle on what’s going on.”

“He’s probably
panicking,” said Lee.  “And I can’t blame him.”

“Me neither,”
said Nguyen.  As far as he’d been able to gather, the Tsarzorians on a whole
were a good people, a society that respected life and celebrated the success of
their citizens.  Their interactions with the Honish, who held almost
diametrically opposed views, had colored the way they looked at the rest of the
world, but still, at heart, they were good people.  And it hurt the Admiral to
see them get hit this way.  All because the terrorists can’t really hurt us,
or drive us off, so they try to injure us by proxy.  And they aren’t really
accomplishing anything, except kill people who, for the most part, will be dead
within a year.

“Organize all of
the resources we can afford to expend on search and rescue,” he told Lee.

“All we can
afford to expend?” asked Lee, staring at the Admiral in disbelief.   “Shouldn’t
we make every effort?”

Nguyen shook his
head, knowing that was the human response to most disasters.  And knowing that
he didn’t have the time or resources for that kind of effort.  “We need to keep
working on the shelters, so we can save as many as possible.  Keep working on
evacuating them, and gather all the samples of genetic diversity that we
possibly can.  That has to be our priority.  Otherwise, the terrorists win.”

He looked over
at the Colonel.  “All the suits and transport you can arrange, Margolis.  But I
want you to prioritize finding the people organizing this insanity.  If that’s
the greatest good we can accomplish here, and that will have to be enough.”

*     *     *

There weren’t
enough search and rescue personnel and equipment to go around, and time was
also a limited commodity.  Tsarzorian search and rescue did all they could,
fighting fires, treating and evacuating the injured, digging through the rubble
looking for survivors.  With the level of their technology they could only do
what they could when they could move the right equipment into place.

The Imperial
Fleet search and rescue, despite their limited numbers, could accomplish so
much more.  Assault shuttles could lift several thousand tons of material into
the air, moving huge pieces of rubble out of the way that would have taken
local resources hours to move.  Transport aircraft could still lift hundreds of
tons, and spray chemicals that could smother the hottest flames in an instant.
Even men in heavy suits could cut through steel and alloy supports in seconds,
and haul pieces weighing tons out of the way.

Because of their
efforts, thousands lived who wouldn’t otherwise.  The trust they built through
exhausting work, the care they showed, went a long way to cementing the
reputation of the Imperials with the people of Tsarzor.

And meanwhile,
the work on the shelters continued, robots digging into the ground and setting
up the metal frameworks that would hold the plasticrete, many times tougher
than native concretes, that would form the strength of the structure.  Once the
plasticrete had cured, a process that took hours, the robots buried the
structures, piling on ten of meters of earth as the last insulator.  At the
same time other structures were going up around the shelters, the housings of
electromagnetic field projectors that would erect a particle barrier over the
site.  One larger building, this one the housing of the fusion reactor that
would power that field, went up at the same time.

While on the
landing fields used for the evacuation, the processing of Klassekians went on,
preparing them for transport, freezing the sibling groups and families and
storing them in hangars near the shuttle loading areas.

And no one knew
that eight sibling groups had come through who were not there to be evacuated.
They were Tsarzorians who had converted to the religion of the Honish, their
bodies suffused with a different binary explosive.  And they were there to
hopefully destroy some of the evacuation ships, or at least damage them.  Just
as some others with their mission had already been sent out on previous ships,
including the Lusitania.

*     *     *

Helen Moyahan
hovered the shuttle over the wreckage while the crew chief lowered cable.  A
pair of heavy suited figures grabbed the hook and attached it to the
self-burrowing net of multi-molecular wire.  One tugged on the cable, then
stepped aside, and Helen pulled up on the stick and lifted the shuttle.  The
mass meter told her she was lifting just over five hundred and seventy-one
tons, well within the capability of her shuttle.  It was not a heavy assault
shuttle, but more of a standard landing shuttle, with about half the lift of
the larger vehicle.  Still, it could lift what one of the native heavy cranes
could handle, and those devices had to be moved into place and braced, a long
and laborious process.

She moved the
shuttle over to the dumping ground, where the rubble of several collapsed
buildings was being piled up.  A flip of a switch and the bottom of the
multi-molecular wire net, stronger than molecular wire without the tendency to
cut through everything it touched, dissolved away, and the mass of steel and
concrete fell to the pile with a crash and a cloud of dust.  The Lieutenant
turned the shuttle in the air smoothly on its grabber units and flew over the
assembly site, dropping the netting in an open area, where the engineers
grabbed it and refurbished it for the next use.  Helen watched for just one
moment on her vid monitor, thinking the most amazing thing about the netting
was how it didn’t become tangled, unlike almost any other form of strapping.

She brought the
shuttle down over the next massive piece of destruction and let the engineers
hook it up to a new piece of netting.  She lifted, and the suits closed in and
started throwing aside pieces from hundreds of kilograms to just over a ton.
One suited figure stopped and pointed down.

“We’ve found
some,” came the call over the local com being used for the rescue effort.

Helen switched
one of her feeds to that of the engineer looking down into the newly uncovered
pit, and a moment later gagged in horror.  The unmoving form of a female was
surrounded by the bodies of eight smaller forms.  Some were completely intact.
Others had been crushed under the mass of falling rubble.  Orange-red body
fluids were splashed everywhere, legs were bent at unnatural angles, and several
heads were flattened.

Bastards,
thought the officer as she spun the shuttle around and headed off toward the
dumping grounds.  Then it was time for another load, as the team of a score of
Imperials did the same work it would have taken hundreds of Klassekians
quadruple the time to accomplish.

Again sounded
“we’ve found some,” this time with a more joyous tone.  Helen looked at the
take, and all of the hard work of the day, all the small defeats were
forgotten.  Six adult Klassekians were being helped out of the small cavern the
collapse had formed, while suited figures were strapping three more to life
support gurneys.

A half hour
later they discovered another pocket, where the people within could have
survived.  Unfortunately, they had run out of air, and had all suffocated, and
eleven bodies, four of them children, lay in almost perfect repose, never to
awaken.

*     *     *

“We’re picking
up ships in hyper VI, Admiral,” called out the Sensory Tech who was manning the
resonator chamber of the battle cruiser.  Normally the call would come from the
officer who manned the station on the bridge, who would also get his
information from the Senior Chief who was the real expert on reading the
resonances of hyperspace.  The Sensor Officer was off duty at this time, and
one of the three senior chiefs who manned the resonance chamber had the duty of
relaying the information to the ship’s captain, and the flag officer aboard.

“Identification?”

“Resonances are
consistent with thirty-eight hyper capable vessels, sir.  Twelve in the six to
ten million ton range, sixteen in the one to three million ton range, and the
rest under seven hundred thousand ton range.”

Linking into the
database, he saw that this convoy’s heading and timing was consistent with the
first group coming out of the Empire itself.

“Thank you,
Chief.”  We should have some more ships coming along in a day or two, but
anything else showing up before then might be of concern.  “Good job.”

An hour and a
half later the ships finished their final jump after stair stepping down
through the dimensions, and sent their ID codes by grav pulse as soon as they
were able.

Nguyen looked
over the listing, nodding his head.  It wasn’t everything he wanted, but better
than what he had.  An honest to God battleship for starters, fifteen million
tons of warship.  Countess Ishuhu Murigowa was an older ship, more than
forty years of age, one of the first of what came to be considered the fifteen
million ton modern era of battleships.  She was one of the first hyper VI capital
ships, and, though long in the tooth, she was up to date on all of her
electronic systems.  What else could be expected when all it took was some
programing and a ton of nanobots to upgrade electronics to the latest specs.  They
must be reactivating the mothball fleet, thought the Admiral, who had
wondered when they would start pulling out older platforms so they could commit
the newer ones to combat against the Cacas.

Three more
battle cruisers, an assault carrier, five large freighters and three large
liners rounded out the larger vessels.  Next on the list were two heavy
cruisers, seven medium freighters, three troop transports and four liners.  The
smaller ships were all warships, three light cruisers and six destroyers, with
the exception of a dedicated research vessel, the Einstein, from
Imperial University on Jewel.

Nguyen looked
over the list of commanders, focusing in on the overall flag assignment, and
saw that a Vice Admiral Rosemary Gonzales was in charge.  A quick check of the
records showed that she had been recalled from retirement, but she was still
his superior.  His feelings about that were ambivalent.  On the one hand, he
was hoping he would get to remain in command of the effort.  On the other, he
was happy that she outranked him, so the weight of responsibility would be on
someone else’s shoulders.

Looking over the
troop transports he saw something that would probably be good news to Colonel
Margolis.  Or not.  It was a demi-division of six battalions of light infantry
and a reinforced support battalion, commanded by Major General Travis
Wittmore.  Which meant that Margolis was no longer the ranking soldier in the
system.  Still, he’s been asking for more boots on the ground, and this will
double his strength.

More suicide
bombs had been detonated in both Tsarzor and Honish.  For every bomber who had
hit a high priority target, twenty had been stopped, normally with fatal
results for the terrorist.  They were stopped well before they got within range
of Imperial personnel, which, with their combat armor, meant closer than twenty
meters for even a powerful explosive device, and that would only do minimal
damage to suit and user, easily repairable.  Unfortunately, that was still hard
on any civilians who happened to be with seventy meters or so of the blast.

And,
unfortunately, those terrorists who hit low priority targets, shopping centers,
schools, buses, apartment buildings, were much harder to stop.  They really
didn’t harm the efforts to save as many people as possible from the supernova.
There were a thousand times more people than they could save, anyway.  But it
still burned up the Imperials that an enemy was killing so many innocents.

*     *     *

As soon as the
ships entered orbit the troop transports started disgorging their shuttles,
transferring their infantry down to the planet.  Major General Wittmore
transferred his command team to HIMS Boudeuse, where ground control had
previously set up shop.  Vice Admiral Rosemary Gonzales came over on the next
shuttle, and Rear Admiral Nguyen van Hung prepared himself for being relieved
of his command.

“Admiral on
deck,” called up the boat bay Officer of the Deck, as the doors to the shuttle
opened and the smallish red-haired woman walked onto the floor of the hangar.
All sprang to attention and rendered salutes, which the woman returned
immediately.

“At ease,” she
said in a soft voice that, surprisingly, penetrated the entire length and
breadth of the hangar.  Admiral Nguyen,” she said on noticing the lower ranking
flag officer.  “I’ve read your reports on the way in.  And I must say that this
situation has really gone to shit, quickly.”

Nguyen cringed
internally at her words, wondering if his actions were going to be written up
in a condemning manner.

“I doubt if
anyone could have done any better, Admiral,” said Gonzales, walking with Nguyen
to the hatch leading to the lifts.

“And what are
your orders, ma’am?” he asked as they got on the lift, the two admirals and
their Chiefs of Staff.

“I’m not here to
give orders, Admiral Nguyen,” said the woman with a smile.  “I’m just passing
through on my way to Bolthole, where I’m set to take charge of the
defense of the system.”

“So I will
remain in charge?”

“I really doubt
if anyone else could have done better, dealing with these damned neobarbarian fanatics.
And Fleet Command wants this thing to remain an Exploration Command mission,
and not turned over to one of us breakers and killers in Battle Fleet.”

Nguyen digested
her words as they walked to the conference room, then moved to the head of the
table when the Vice Admiral waved him to it.   Lee sat to his right, while
Gonzales and her Chief of Staff  sat across from each other about midway down
the table.

“We came
directly from the Empire,” said Gonzales, leaning her elbows on the table.  “I
was already preparing to head out to Bolthole with two freighters and a
trio of liners full of contract workers, when the orders came down from sector
HQ.  The orders originated from the Emperor himself, and directed us to give
you all aid possible.  I gathered what ships were available in the Trevor
system, where we’re staging convoys to Bolthole, and headed out a little
ahead of schedule.”

“What ships are
you leaving behind, ma’am?” asked Lee.

“Well, you can’t
have my flagship.  Old as she is, she’s still the most powerful unit I’m going
to have, out there in the middle of nowhere. At least until they cut loose some
more units for me to defend this most important system, out in the middle of
nowhere.”

The Admiral
looked at the flat comp she had laid on the desk for a moment, thinking.  “You
can have one of the battle cruisers, which will bring you up to four here, I
believe. At least until Challenger comes back from wherever she went.
The assault carrier is yours also, since you have a greater need of the aircraft
and shuttles it carries.  I’ll leave one of the heavy cruisers as well, one
light cruiser, and three destroyers, which leaves me with my flagship, two
battle cruisers, a heavy, two light cruisers and three cans, which will give me
a decent core force for Bolthole, along with what’s already there.”

Nguyen almost
asked her what was there, but he didn’t have the need to know about the
defenses of the top secret system.  “And the other ships?”

“Three of the
large freighters and the three large liners are already loaded with people and
equipment for Bolthole.  The rest of the freighters have equipment
command thought you might need, and you need to go ahead and load the liners
with Klassekians, as many as they can fit in cryo.  We’ll take them with us to Bolthole.
The same with the troop transports.  We’ll convoy them back here as soon as
they’re unloaded in the system, so you can use them again.”

Captain Lee
looked at her own flat comp, working on some figures.  “So, we can send over
forty thousand on this trip,” she said after a moment of calculating.  “Maybe
five thousand more if we load up the warships.”

“So, forty-five
thousand it is,” said Gonzales with a smile.

“Any idea how
many more ships are coming our way, Admiral?” asked Nguyen.  Forty-five
thousand sounds like a lot, until we consider that there are billions on this
world.

“I really
couldn’t tell you, Admiral.  The Emperor ordered all available resources
committed this effort.  But what that means, all available?”  The woman shook
her head.  “With the war going on with the Cacas, and, frankly, a war we are
not winning, I can’t say what that means.”

“Of course the
Emperor and command realize how important these people can be to our war
effort?  The possibilities for instantaneous communications are endless.   They
are a resource we can’t afford to lose.”

“And we are not
going to lose them, Admiral,” said Gonzales.  “We are saving the species.
Maybe not as many as we would like.  But remember, if we are defeated by the
Cacas, we are most likely exterminated, and then every other species in the
Perseus Arm is enslaved.”

Nguyen stared at
the woman for a moment, knowing she was right, in a manner of speaking.
Normally the human species was one of the more benevolent ones around, but now
they were being pushed to the limit, and only had so much aid to give.

“How many of the
Klassekians are ready for transport, Admiral?” asked Gonzales, clearly ready to
change the subject.

“Fifty thousand
are currently in cryo,” said Lee, answering for her Admiral.  “And we can
process and cryo freeze eight thousand a day.”

“So we can move
the ones we can take up to orbit in how long?”

“With the
shuttles you’ve brought, Admiral Gonzales, a little under three days,” said
Lee, looking up from her comp.  “That’s, of course, considering all the other
tasks we have detailed for them, and pulling any off of tasks that aren’t
priority.”

“Any chance of
getting a wormhole?” asked Nguyen, thinking of many ways such a thing could
solve their problems.  Like running ships from the orbit of Klassek to the
orbit of either Bolthole or main base, without all the inconvenient
travel through hundreds of light years of space.

“I’m afraid
they’re in short supply, Hung,” replied Gonzales, frowning.  “Those are a
little dear at this time.  I’m supposed to be getting one for Bolthole,
but I can’t tell you how long it will take to even get one there.”

“All we can do
is all we can do, sir,” said Lee, putting her hand on his forearm.

“Do we need to
cover anything else?” asked Gonzales, looking at the faces around the table.
“No.”  She folded her flat comp and returned it to the belt pouch it rode in.

“Then let’s
start loading,” said Gonzales.  “I want the convoy boosted out of orbit in
eighty hours.”

*     *      *

Melissa Sung had
her last duty with the Fleet scheduled for that very moment aboard the ship she
had been assigned to while alive, the HMIS William Clark.  By Imperial
Fleet regulations, if possible, an autopsy was to be performed on any personnel
who died in the line of duty.  Even though the cause of her death was obvious,
since very few people survive a large caliber bullet to the forehead,
regulations were regulations, and one of the ship’s surgeons, supported by two
medical aides/corpsmen, stood over the naked body of the woman, multiple sensors
pointed at her from all angles.  Two more crew stood within the room, an
intelligence specialist curious to find out how much physical pain she had gone
through, and another pilot, one who had been among Sung’s best friends.

The surgeon
moved his hands through the air, activating the radar, deep radar, x-rays and
magnetic resonance sensors than scanned her body to the cellular level, feeding
their pentabytes of information into the medical system computers.  What should
have happened then was the formation of a three dimensional virtual image of
the body that the surgeon could probe with his thoughts and the motions of his
hands.  Unfortunately, the binary explosive in her veins and arteries was made
to react to several of the energy types probing her, including radar and
x-rays.

The two
kilograms of fluid inside her body was equivalent to one metric ton of TNT.
The entire mass blew within a nanosecond, completely annihilating the body that
contained it and blasting out in all directions from the table.  If anyone in
the room had been wearing the medium battle armor of the Fleet they still would
have died, from the concussive effects if nothing else.  In heavy armor they
just might have survived.  All were in soft uniforms, and were disintegrated by
the blast, reduced to micro droplets of fluids and small chips of bone.  The
walls of the room, within medical, which was in the middle central capsule of
the cruiser, were over thirty centimeters thick and made of hard alloys infused
with carbon nanofiber support.  They held up to the explosion, channeling it
through the one open doorway into the room.  A jet of flame rushed out of that
chamber, into the office area where two more medical staff worked.  Both were
incinerated, and the blast channeled through the next door, into a small ward
containing a medic and two patients.

The only thing
that could be said for the last trio was that their bodies survived, though
they didn’t.  The ship shook from the explosion, from a tremor that knocked
nearby crew from their feet, to a minor vibration further out that was still
alarming in that such should not have been possible of a light cruiser in orbit
that hadn’t been hit by enemy fire.  Klaxons sounded, and within seconds damage
control robots were rolling into the damaged section, while fire suppression
systems came online and human search and rescue personnel suited up.  By that
time everyone who was going to die was dead, and there was really no one to
rescue.

*     *     *

“So, as far as
we can determine, Chief Warrant Sung had a powerful fluid explosive within her
body, one that was sealed away so our chemical sensors could not detect it.
And, while she was being probed by our standard scans, x-rays, magnetic
resonance and various forms of radar, the explosive detonated.”

Susan Lee
stopped talking for a moment while everyone looked at the scene of devastation

“Sneaky
bastards,” growled Vice Admiral Gonzales, eyes narrowing.  “So they guessed
that we would scan the body, and end up detonating a bomb in our midst.”

“That’s about
it, Admiral,” said Lee, nodding.  “The biggest problem now is scanning all of
those bodies in cryo before we load them on ships.”

“Why not just
not scan them?” asked Captain Joshua Zhukov, Gonzales’ chief of staff.  “Unless
you think they may have another way of triggering them.”

“We do,” agreed
Lee, pulling up a three dimensional representation of the explosive molecule.
“This one was tailor made to detonate when energy was put into the system.
We’re not sure that what kind of energy triggered it, though our labs are
working on duplicating the molecule and testing it.  But right now it could
have been any particular energy, or any type, such as heat.  And we will be
warming all of these Klassekians up when reviving them, while the nanites go in
and repair the cellular damage.”

She rotated the
molecule, and several small regions blinked and changed configuration.  “Our
chemists believe that the molecules can also be triggered by other explosions,
much as most of our common engineering charges will.  Or that the molecule can
be modified to be that trigger.  And after a certain amount of time, the
molecule will unwind, like the protein it is, and cause the detonation.  Which
would not only kill the native carrying the explosive, but dozens, possibly
scores of those around him.”

“But not enough
to really damage a ship?” asked Gonzales.

“We think not.
Not even if several of them detonate sympathetically.  The Klassekians are kept
in chambers that are not housing any vital equipment, and the bulkheads of the
ships are too strong for even this explosive to penetrate, as seen in this
explosion.  In fact, if the hatch had been closed, the blast would have been
restricted to the surgery.”

“And in a
liner?  Or if there are a bunch of these bodies stacked up in one place, next
to the outer hull, let’s say?”

“Hard to say,”
said Lee, shaking her head, then pulling up the schematic of one of the smaller
liners in orbit around the planet.  “It’s still hull metal, and tough.  But not
armored.  Not even as strong as the bulkheads of a light cruiser like Clark’s.
I guess it would depend on too many factors for us to really know.”

“The best thing
we can do is make sure none of these seeded bodies get on-board,” said
Gonzales, looking at her own Chief of Staff.  “How long would it take to scan
every Klassekian in cryo with nanites before we take them aboard the ships?”

That was
probably something we should have done before this, thought Nguyen.  But
we really didn’t expect to be loading time bombs.

“It will add
four days to our schedule,” said Zhukov, a deep frown on a face that was made
for such.  “All because of the lack of forethought.”  He said the last while
glaring at Susan Lee.

“No
recriminations,” said the Vice Admiral.  “I’m not sure anyone could have seen
this coming.”

But I should
have, thought Nguyen, nodding in agreement with the higher ranking flag
officer anyway.  We were dealing with fanatics, and they have been acting
true to form.  Nguyen thought that over for a moment while the conversation
went on around him.  The Empire was not used to such, or were they?  There were
the Lasharans, with their what humans considered a death cult.  Their behavior
was much like the Honish.  But we’re here to save them.  Which didn’t
matter at all when they thought the wishes of their God were being opposed.

“I hope they
didn’t get any aboard Lusitania,” said Lee, her face tight with the
tension of worry.  “Or any of the escorts.”

“Something we
also can’t worry about right now,” said Gonzales, picking up the cup of coffee
that had sat untouched in front of her for the entire meeting.  “Let’s
concentrate on what we have control of, which is quite enough for right now.”

Chapter Nineteen

Expect the unexpected is a great
slogan.  But there are times when the permutations of the unexpected reach the
total number of atoms in the Universe.  What then?

Imperial Fleet Tactical Manual.

Captain Trevor
Whitlow of the Lusitania sat in the comfortable chair of his day cabin,
thinking about what it would mean to arrive at Bolthole, only five days
from their current position.  Lusitania was at point nine-two c in hyper
VII, the maximum velocity her electromagnetic screens could handle, giving her
a pseudovelocity of almost thirty-seven thousand times the speed of light.  The
three warships in her escort, the light cruiser Chan Chun and the
destroyers Harold Tillman and Auguste Piccard, could pull point
nine-five c with their military class electromag fields.  But they can only
go as fast as the slowest ship in the convoy, thought the liner captain, an
employee of the Connover Lines and not in the Fleet, though he could be
recalled under his reserve commission at any time.  Us.

He looked up
from the reader he was using to peruse one of his favorite tomes, to look at
the holo display that showed their progress through this section of the Arm.
It was literally unknown space.  Maybe a dozen ships had been through this
section, which was not on the usual path out to the region Bolthole was
in, since they had doglegged out to Klassek, and then more or less headed back
toward the Empire at an angle.  One day soon this space would also be crawling
with Exploration Command ships, seeking out more living planets, more
civilizations, increasing the knowledge of the Empire.  But not now.

“Message from
Captain Durrance,” interrupted the Com Officer.

“Put it
through,” he told that officer, and waiting for the holo to change to the face
of Beatrice Durrance, the commanding officer of HIMS Chan Chun.  They
were within a light second of the cruiser, well within range of a com laser.

“Captain
Whitlow,” said the naval officer, the bustle of her bridge on the holo behind
her.

“Captain
Durrance,” he replied, sitting up straight and putting the reader on the end
table as he noted the look on her face.  “What’s going on?”

“Tillman picked
up hyper resonances to Galactic west,” said the Captain.  “Right on the edge of
her sensors.”

“In which
dimension?”  Of course, his ship wouldn’t pick up anything on the edge of a
destroyer’s sensor envelop.

“Hyper VI, as
far as she can tell.  And, from what her Sensor Chief is saying, the object is
traveling much too fast to translate to another dimension, if they even can
come up to ours, which is unknown.”

“So we
discovered another space faring civilization,” said Whitlow with a smile,
wondering why that was bothering the convoy commander to such an extent.  “So
your people can come out here and make contact when this mission is over.”

The cruiser
captain’s eyes narrowed as she stared out of the holo.  “The Chief thinks its
changing its vector at twelve hundred gravities.”

“But, that’s
amazing,” blurted Whitlow.  Or impossible, for any organic life.  Unless
they’re much more advanced than we are.

“We’re having
other thoughts, Captain Whitlow.  Like maybe whatever this is isn’t organic.
Now it could just be a probe, launched and monitored under organic control.
Or, it could be something different.”

Whitlow felt a
chill run up his back as he thought about what that something different could
be.  Parents still told stories about the machine revolt that cost billions of
lives, all those centuries before.  Some thought that a few of the machines
might have gotten away, to hide in the dark and build more of themselves,
avoiding humanity until they could challenge it.

Or, it could be
machine intelligence from a different origin.  The same thing seemed to happen
to all species that pursued the autonomous robot option.

“We are
monitoring for any other traces,” continued Durrance.  “They’ve dropped off our
scan, for the moment.  I just wanted you to know if we have to go to general
quarters.”

And now I
won’t be resting well, thought Whitlow, who remembered the stories his
mother had told him to make him go to bed at night.

*     *     *

Lt. JG. Helen
Moyahan liked this duty much better than the last.  She was not really a
trained biologist, though she had taken enough training to know how little she
actually knew.  Still, she felt useful out here in the field taking specimens,
insuring that the genetic diversity of this world survived even if the
biosphere didn’t.

Her suit was
telling her that it was hot as hell out there in this equatorial zone, as if
the steam coming off the jungle couldn’t tell her that already.  But she was
perfectly comfortable in her battle armor, another reason to be wearing it out
here in the wilderness.

“You ready with
that tranquilizer gun?” called out Lt. Commander Smith over the com.  Smith was
the expert on tracking and trapping animals, and Helen was a good enough shot
to be set in one of the blinds.  “We have a big herbivore coming your way, with
a carnivore in pursuit.  I’d like to get both of them if we can.”

“Will do,” she
replied over the com, thinking about how she was going to make a shot on
animals she hadn’t even seen yet.

The first animal
stumbled out of the brush.  That was really the only way to describe it, as the
multi-ton armored beast snapped a branch off a tree and stomped into the open.
Helen placed her sight over the front left shoulder of the beast, where there
was a break in the armored plate.  She stroked the trigger and sent the small,
fast moving dart directly into the target.  The neuro-tranquilizer, which had
been formulated for native life, swiftly entered its system and the beast
stumbled sideways, trumpeted, then fell over on its side.  The computer in the
rifle had calculated the dosage from the size of the creature it was sighted
on, and she hoped it was correct.  Too much and it might suffocate as its chest
shut down for an extended period.  Too little, and the thing might be back on its
feet before they could secure samples and a physical scan.   And it might surge
back to its feet while she was near, and she could find herself trying to fight
off the mountain of flesh hand to hand. Even with the augmented strength of her
armor, that was not a proposition she wanted to face.

She waited for
the carnivore to appear.  And waited, and thought she couldn’t wait any more
before she scanned and sampled.  Getting up from her blind, she walked out into
the clearing, her rifle pointed at the herbivore as its scanners took a
complete three dimensional probe of its body.  She had just completed the scan,
turning her head while wondering where in the hell the carnivore had gone, when
it came flying out of a tree in a blur of motion.

The carnivore
had to weigh almost a ton itself, and that weight landed on her suit like a
load of falling steel.  Its heavy rear legs hit her chest, while the eight
muscular tentacles on its front, each tipped with a single sharp claw, struck
at her head and shoulders.  The large mouth opened, revealing an alarming array
of teeth, then the head shot forward and the maw clamped down on her helmet.

Helen felt panic
starting to overcome her thinking, and forced herself to calm so she could
fight her way out of this situation.  First off, the claws and teeth were not
penetrating the tough alloys and carbon fibers of her armor, which was to be
expected.  The tentacles were still beating her to the ground, but she ordered
the suit to go into overload, and her strength doubled over and above what its
normal capacity was rated at.

She grabbed one
of the tentacles with her right gauntlet, gripping hard and pulling away.  The
creatures roared through its breathing orifice, releasing her helmet with its
maw.  She got her left gauntlet onto its neck and gripped, squeezing hard.  The
creature went into a frenzy, and it jerked her off the ground as it pushed
itself upright with its strong rear legs.  One of those legs came up, three
large claws extended, and kicked her in the stomach.  Her gauntlets were
locked, and she pulled the carnivore along with her as the force of the kick
pushed her away.

Suddenly, the
creature went limp, and she was wondering what happened when Smith came over
her com.

“You weren’t
supposed to wrestle with the damned thing, Moyahan.”

“I didn’t see it
coming,” she said, and she released her grip and stepped back from the
unconscious creature.

“That’s why
you’re going to spend the rest of the day gathering flora,” said the Lt.
Commander.

“But, it didn’t
hurt me,” she complained.  “They really can’t hurt us in our armor.”

“It’s not us I’m
worried about,” said the Commander, retracting his faceplate so she could get a
look at his visage.  “But I don’t want these animals hurt, if possible.  You
might have seriously damaged the hunter there.  From here on, I’ll handle the
tranquing, and my techs will drive them to me.  You report to Lt. Commander
Lanzowitza, and help her to gather plant samples.”

Helen retracted
her own faceplate, so she could stare the Commander in the eyes.  She kept her
mouth shut as she breathed deeply through her nostrils, trying to calm herself
before she did say something.  “Yes, sir,” she finally said as she snapped to
attention.  She did an about face and stomped off, her face heating with anger
and embarrassment.  She had not failed in a task since coming out of the
academy.  It didn’t make any difference to her that her specialties were
geology and physical sciences, with a minor emphasis on history.  They were
just dumb animals, and she shouldn’t have had any problem handling them.  But
the damned biologist had treated her like an idiot child who might pull the
legs off of something by accident.

She walked
through the jungle, which was almost untouched, a wilderness on a planet
crowded with sentient life.  There were many strange odors reaching her nose,
some extremely pleasant, some not so much.  The sounds of bird analogues, and
animals she had never seen.  Even the natives didn’t know much about this
stretch of jungle along the huge continental river.  They called it the Lost
Lands.  People in the stone age tribes went in and didn’t come out.  But those
people didn’t have the protective technology of the Imperials.

At least I
can take my anger out on the damned plants, she thought, grabbing at a branch
and snapping it off from the tree it attached to.  The leaves of the tree
curled up on the other branches, a sign of the rudimentary nervous system some
of the plants in this jungle possessed.

In her state of
mind the officer was not aware of the change around her as she walked into a
small clearing that was free of all vegetation with the exception of one
singular tree, about ten meters tall, that occupied the center.  Moyahan didn’t
notice the skeletons dotting the ground until her booted foot came down on one,
crushing the ribs of a moderate size animal.  She looked down, then up at the
tree and the clearing around it, wondering why so many animals had died here.

Her next step
landed on the root system, which became aware of her presence.  An instant later
scores of sharp pointed woody tendrils shot out from the tree, unerringly
targeting the prey that had stepped into its ambush.  The great majority
bounced from her armor, something they had not evolved to handle.  Two went
right into her face, uncovered by the face plate she had retracted in anger.
One went into her cheek and through her mouth, hitting the top of her
esophagus.  The other hit her cheekbone and moved up as it hit the bone,
piercing her eye and going through the optic tunnel into her brain.

The neurotoxin
it injected was not made with her form of life in mind, but it still did a good
enough job.  Her muscles froze up in an instant, and she was unable to cry out
from the agony that was coursing through her body.  The tendrils next shot digestive
fluids into her brain and upper thorax, boiling away the organics in seconds.
Her faceplate came back down and locked into place as the suit sensors picked
up the trauma her body was undergoing.  It sliced through the tough, fibrous
tendrils like they were made of rotten string.  And the suit sent out an
emergency signal to any nearby naval personnel.  By then it was too late, and
the brain of Helen Moyahan was gone, eaten away, and it really didn’t matter
that her suit put the rest of her body into cryo.

*     *     *

“We’ll send the
escorts and the liners back as soon as we unload them,” said Vice Admiral
Rosemary Gonzales over the com holo, her convoy appearing on the system
tactical holo as one arrow heading outsystem at almost three hundred gravities,
the acceleration limit of her freighters.

It had taken
slightly longer than Zhukov had figured to scan and load the bodies of the
Klassekians in cryo.  And we found twenty-eight of the fuckers that had been
implanted with explosive fluid.  A different type than had been present in
Sung, but the same in all cases for the Klassekians.  What was even more
frightening had been how they were arranged in the queue.  Two sets of
fourteen, that would have been loaded onto two different liners in their groups,
giving each one a concentrated explosive power of fourteen tons of the old TNT
standard that was still used for communicating destructive power.

“Have a safe
trip, Admiral,” he told the other flag officer.  “And we’ll keep getting them
ready here.”

The freighters
that had been allotted to his effort were still in the process of unloading,
shuttling their components down to the planet surface, except for the equipment
that was being used to build a pair of small orbital factories.  Two resource
refinement ships had also been unloaded, and were even now on their way out to
the asteroid belt to gather materials to put the factories to work.

“Will do.  Of
course, I won’t be coming back this way.  So good luck.  I wish you could save
them all, but just do the best you can do, and that’s all any of us can ask.
Gonzales out.”

The com holo
died, replaced by a long range camera view of the ships, centering on the old
battleship.  Nguyen turned away from that view and looked at the work holo that
was up over his desk.  They had finally finished the first six of the shelters
they had been constructing, which could protect fifty thousand natives each, or
twenty-five thousand if they really expected to feed them from internal
resources.  One hundred and fifty thousand.  And another fifty shelters
planned and in the construction stage.  A million and a quarter more.  How many
can we build?

The experts in
civil engineering were telling him they might be able to put up two hundred
total before the radiation wave arrived.  For a total of five million
sheltered.  The Tsarzorians and their allies at least were building their own
shelters as well.  In deep mine shafts, military installations under mountains,
domes under the sea.  They might be able to protect another five million, out
of the six billion on the surface.  And, of course, the Honish and their allies
were doing absolutely nothing to shelter any of their people.

And the more
shelters we construct, the more difficult the task of protecting them.  The
light division of soldiers helps, but still, the task grows larger.  He was
allotting the Imperial Army troops to rear area garrison duty, since all they
had was light armored suits, and were much more vulnerable to even local
weapons than the Marines medium and heavy suits.  They had brought along a
battalion of light armor, two hundred ton scout tanks that were all but
invulnerable to the man portable weapons of the enemy.  They were not the best
weapons to deploy in cities, but with their long range weapons they were perfect
for deployment around the shelter complexes.

A moment later
his thoughts were interrupted by an alert.  Another attack.  This one on one of
the shelter fields.  And again, they were able take out the bombers before they
could get in range to do any damage.  Which didn’t help the several hundred
civilians they had killed when they detonated short of their target.

*     *     *

“The voters are
going to raise holy hell in this election,” said the Chief of Staff of First
Councilman Rizzit Contena.  “The constant wearing attacks by terrorists is
eroding their confidence in the government.”

And months
after the new council members are seated, the star explodes.  And six months
later there is no Tsarzor, except for the few who either escaped the system or
got into some of the restricted shelter space.

If it were me,
said the General over the mind link the siblings shared, I would declare
martial law, and suspend these useless elections.

I agree, said
Lazzit, the engineer.  The others chimed in with their agreement as well, not
surprising, as minds linked from birth tended to think along the same lines,
most times.

In fact, that
was the way that Rizzit was already leaning, since it made no sense to continue
with business as usual when the world was basically coming to an end.

“Did you hear
me, sir?” asked the Chief of Staff.  “Our party is probably going to lose our
majority in the legislature.  And then, I am sure, some of our progress toward
meeting the challenge of this looming disaster will be negated.”

“Why don’t you
just come out and say it, Pollzit,” he growled at his Chief of Staff, glaring
at the male.  “The opposition party, the same people who more or less don’t
believe what the humans are peddling, will take over, and I will lose my
position as First Councilman.  Well, I can’t allow that to happen.  It’s bad
enough that most of our people are going to die, without trying to get as many
of them to safety as possible.”

“But that is
exactly what they are going to do,” said the Chief of Staff.  “And, legally,
there is nothing you can do about it.”

“The hells with
that,” shouted Rizzit, his emotions feeding off of the input of his brothers.
“I am hereby cancelling the elections until we are through this crisis.”

“You can’t do
that, sir,” said the Chief of Staff.  “The constitution…”

“Can be damned.
I want time on all the major media outlets, tonight.  I will declare martial
law, and suspend all civil liberties until after the crisis has passed.  Which
will mean nothing to most of my people, since they won’t be here after the
crisis is over.  But if it helps us to focus on saving those we can, it will be
worth it.  His siblings all agreed, and Rizzit dismissed his Chief of Staff
to get working on setting up the news conference with a greater sense of peace
of mind that he had started with.

*     *     *

Able Spacer
Second Terrance Smalls made the rounds through the compartments that had been
turned into cryo chambers on the Lusitania.  All of the compartments
were cold, bitterly.  Every alien was sealed in its individual cryonics
capsule, but by SOP the chambers were kept well below freezing as a backup for
any capsules that might malfunction.  Which meant it was cold enough to
actually freeze unprotected flesh.  Because of that, the spacer was wearing a
civilian class ship suit that would keep him warm even in the intense cold of
interstellar space.  And, while not providing as much protection against sharp
flying things as military class battle armor, was still enough to survive most
things that could occur on a liner.

Smalls was on
one end of one of the larger compartments that had been converted to cryo when
the explosives planted in one of the alien bodies detonated with the force of
one ton of TNT.  The eight other bodies that were closest to that one went off
in sympathetic detonations, and the force was enough to blast a large hole
through the hull of the ship.

Atmosphere
rushed out through the hole, pulling at the loose pieces of the blasted cryo
capsules.  The other capsules were held down too securely to be pulled out, but
every loose object in the chamber was pulled into space, beyond the hyperfield,
and dropped back into normal space, usually with catastrophic results.
Included in the loose objects was one Able Spacer Second Terrance Smalls in his
ship suit, who squirted through the opening before he could engage his
thrusters, and flew past the field and into hyper.

Ninety-five
percent of so called catastrophic translations resulted in major damage to the
object translating, whether it was a ship or a person.  Smalls felt like he was
being torn apart while hyper VII ejected him back into normal space.  He closed
his eyes against the pressure, and when he opened them, he found himself back
in normal space in an intact suit, all systems green.  He said a prayer of
thanks, then looked around and wondered if it might not have been better if he
had just been ripped into molecules while translating.  After all, he was now
floating in interstellar space, light years from the nearest planet, with no
possibility of being found even if his ship was able to drop into normal space
right now.  Which it couldn’t, until it had dropped most of its velocity.

And I have
one hundred and forty-six hours of life support, thought the panicking
Spacer.  One hundred and forty-six hours of life, the absolute maximum for this
kind of suit.  If he didn’t go crazy before then and just pull the plug on
himself.

*     *     *

“What the hell’s
going on?” yelled Captain Trevor Whitlow into the com.  He had barely felt the
tremors from whatever had happened.  That, in and of itself, told him that it
was bad enough, since Lusitania massed in the millions of tons.

“There was an
explosion in one of the cryo chambers,” called back the Purser, who was also
the damage control officer.  “The damage seems to be restricted to that one
chamber.”

“How many
Klassekians did we lose?”

“Unable to tell
at this time, sir,” said the other officer.  “There were over a hundred
capsules in that chamber, but, since it was the only one that took any damage,
that would be our maximum loss.”  The com went dead for a moment, a sign that
the woman on the other end was doing something that took all her concentration,
then was back on.  “Except for one other thing.”

“And what’s
that?”

“One of our crew
transponders has dropped off the grid.  He’s nowhere on board the ship, sir.
And we can’t find any trace of him in the chamber, which has been opened to
space.  I’m afraid he’s gone.”

*     *     *

What the hell
is that? thought Smalls as a tiny object darted up to his suit and hung
just beyond his reach.  A probe.  It sat there, and even when he tried
to use his thrusters to approach it moved away, and responded to no
communication he attempted.

Less than an
hour later another object approached, coming out of nowhere and stopping a
hundred meters away.  It was much larger, about the size of a frigate, and
minutes after it stopped some man sized objects that were not shaped like
humans left the ship and came to him.  For a moment Smalls thought he had been
rescued, until he learned the truth about the newcomers, and realized his worst
nightmare had popped into reality.

Chapter Twenty

Used properly, religion can help
to cement a society, to make its adherents feel as one with their brothers and
sisters, willing to make the sacrifices that allow a society to function
smoothly.  Improperly instituted, religion can be the force to tear a society
apart, and set neighbors at each other’s throats.

High Bishop Augustina
Papadopokis, Traditional Catholic Church, the Year 532.

JUNE 15TH, 1001.  D-18

“We must depend
on the Gods to save us, not the hand of invaders,” said the elder of one of the
many denominations in the land of Tsarzor.  The church behind him looked like
many others the humans had seen on local broadcasts.  The symbols of the most
important Gods and Goddesses in the religion’s Pantheon were displayed on the
wall behind the altar.  Most were figures that looked very much like
Klassekians, though there were also some animal representation, and one that
seemed as formless as they could make it.  Of course, other denominations had
other Gods from the multitude, some also ten, some more, some less.

All of them
think they are the truth, thought Rear Admiral Nguyen, listening the a
message he really didn’t like.  The preacher looked over the crowd gathered in
a church meant to seat five or six thousand, and overflowing with double that
amount.

“The scriptures
tell us that we are in the hands of the Gods, who will not betray us, as long
as we have faith.  Faith.  Faith in them, proving that we trust them.  And if
we don’t trust them?  What happens then, my brethren?  What happens then?  Then
we are abandoned by the Gods, who no longer find us worthy of their help.”

The minister
looked over the crowd again, his fellow elders, most of them his siblings,
linked to him mind to mind, also looking over the crowd, taking its pulse and
passing on the information to their brother.

“The aliens say
we are going to die, the most of us, unless we accept their help in saving some
of us.  They build shelters on the planet, and those of us who help them throw
their disbelief in the face of the Gods.  And they take many of us off this
world, the world the Gods have intended to be our home, kidnapping our people,
panicking them with their lies about how a far off star is going to destroy
us.”

“Can you believe
this?” asked Susan Lee, sitting at the table and watching the viewer with him.
It was projected by a holo, and, while not three dimensional, since the signal
wasn’t, it showed the same flat image to anyone sitting around the table, no
matter where they were.

Nguyen shook his
head.  He didn’t believe in any of the religions of his own people, or those of
the alien races of the Empire.  They all professed to tell the truth, which
meant they were calling every else’s faith a lie.  And they all couldn’t be
right.  In fact, he thought they were all wrong, that there were no deities,
and that only damned fools depended on their imaginary friends to get them out
of a fix.

“I’m worried
that too many of their flocks will believe this,” he said, picking up his
coffee cup and taking a sip.  “And believing, they will do everything they can
to impede our progress.  Because that’s what their God wants them to do.”

The scene
switched as the Admiral sent a change channel request over his link.  This one
showed a mass of Klassekians walking down the street of a city, tall buildings
towering to every side, waving signs that proclaimed their chosen deity’s anger
at the Imperials.  It seemed to be a peaceful demonstration, until smoking
canisters came flying in from the line of police ahead.  It was like throwing a
match on a nest of insects.  They went every which way.  Some away from the
police, dropping their signs on the way.  Others in a sprint right at their tormentors,
pulling the signs back to use them as clubs.  Before they got to the line shots
rang out, and over a score of the protesters fell to the street.  That broke
the spirit of the now rioters, who turned and scattered in every direction that
took them away from the police.   That was not enough to save all of them as
another volley rang out.  More rioters dropped, then more as they fell under
the pushing and shoving of frightened people.

“That fear will
soon turn to anger,” said Nguyen, watching as the camera zoomed in on one blood
covered female who was trying to get back to her feet, only to be trampled back
down.

The channel
switched again, showing another group of Klassekians.  These couldn’t even be
called protesters, as they were in full riot mode.  Several ran forward and
threw bottles of flammable liquid with wicks on fire, their tentacles imparting
an unusual motion on the objects which still carried a considerable distance.
They struck the ground in front of the riot police, or, in the case of  a few,
hit their shields, splashing liquid fire onto the officers.  That was the
signal that the rioters had stepped over the line, and rifle fire took down the
entire first row of Klassekians, and several in the second tier.

“Sir,” came a
call over the com.  “General Wittmore is on with a priority message.”

“Put him on,”
ordered the Admiral, and the dark face of the Army flag officer appeared on the
holo.

“Admiral,” said
the Major General, who was of equal rank with Nguyen.  “We’re experiencing a
bit of a problem at our landing fields.

The Holo
switched views, showing more of the religious protesters outside the main gate
to one of the landing fields they were using to process Klassekian refugees.
Again, there were the signs, again males standing at the front of the crowd
with lit bottles of flammables.   Only this time they were facing Imperial Army
Infantry, standing in a line in their light combat armor, flanked by a tank and
a trio of personnel carriers.

“They are
interfering with the transport of volunteers into the base,” said the General
with a scowl on his face.  “I would like to have permission to disperse them.”

“Nice of him to
ask,” said Lee in a whisper.

Nguyen nodded.
The Major General was now in charge of the ground forces, and even though Nguyen
was his nominal commander, he could have ordered whatever response he thought
best.

“I would prefer
that you let them make the first aggressive move, General,” he told the Army
officer, noting that there were several news vehicles in the background.

“We could be
here all day, then, Admiral,” complained the other flag officer.

“I…”

The actions of a
couple of the people at the front of the line of protesters derailed the
argument, as a pair of bottles came flying in the strike a pair of the
soldiers.  The fire spread over them, and on to those closest to them.  They
were not affected by the flames, but the heat would overpower the cooling
systems of the suits in very little time.  The Imperials were ready, and a
spray of foam retarded the flames in an instant.  Bullets came flying in next,
bouncing from the tough armor of the suits.  It was apparent from the actions
of the majority of the crowd that they weren’t expecting this, as the yelling
stopped and the signs dropped.

The soldiers
were arranged for a layered response.  About half the troops carried sonic
stunners that had been tuned to work optimally on the physiology of the
Klassekians.  Most of the rest carried standard hypervelocity combat rifles,
capable of putting out a six millimeter round at eight thousand meters a
second.  And then there were the squad heavy weapon gunners, with their
particle beams.

The troops with
sonic stunners pulled their triggers and played them over the crowd.
Klassekians cried out, grunted, fell to the ground, staggered away, all
depending on how much of a sound beam they intercepted, and where it hit.  That
was all it took, and the rioters, those still on their feet, moved away as fast
as they could.  In some cases that was little more than a crawl.

“You have my
permission to use a measured, nonlethal response when such happens again,” said
Nguyen in as calm a voice as he could muster.  “Keep the facility open and
operating, but try not to kill too many of the locals.”  Especially in front
of the cameras, was his last thought, as he watched those news vehicles,
their camera crews on top taking in all the action.

An hour later
came some news the Admiral was happy to receive.   “We think we’ve found the
leaders of Honish, sir,” said the sensor officer whose duty it was to monitor
that continent.

“Show me.”

The holo zoomed
in on an area of a tall range of mountains to a small valley leading up to one
of the high peaks.  There were vehicle tracks visible through breaks in the
canopy, marks that had been skillfully hidden, still showing to the sensitive
sensors and computer enhancement of the discovering vessel.

“We believe they
are hiding under this mountain,” said the officer, a circle appearing over the
spot where the valley ran into a cliff.  The holo zoomed out.  “We have picked
up encrypted communications from these four spots.”  The four indicated spots
started blinking from the slopes of surrounding peaks.  “Communications was
able to break the encryption, and we believe this is where the leader is
hiding.”

“Send that information
to tactical,” ordered the Admiral.  “I will forward a tasking order to them.”

Less than half a
minute later a kinetic penetrator, this one in the twenty megaton range and
configured for crashing through tough stone, fell from one of the recently arrived
battle cruisers.  A couple of seconds later the flash of the strike flared over
the mountain in question, the blast of the kinetic force rolling down the
slopes and lifting trees from the ground.  Unlike a conventional nuclear blast,
only about a megaton of the force rolled out with the blast.  The rest was
pushed into the rock as the penetrator blew through kilometers of mountain.

“That should
have finished them, sir,” said the Tactical Officer of the launching vessel.

If not, it
had to give them a hell of a headache, thought the Admiral, looking at the
devastated area of the mountains on holo.  Too bad about the forest, but it
was doomed anyway.

*     *     *

Zzarr cursed
once again as more rock dust fell onto the table.  That table, itself made of
stone, leaned crazily on one side thanks to a support that had cracked from the
force of the strike.  Many objects had fallen from the walls, pictures, video
screens, shelves with books.  The medics were working on some of his followers
who had been struck by those objects.  Many were only in need of minor patching
up or medications.  One in the chamber had taken a heavy stone to the head, and
that part of his body had been crushed flat, fluid leaking onto the floor from
his mangled thinking organ.  If we hadn’t had been so deep, and if we hadn’t
have actually been under a mountain other than the one our entrance was
fronting, we wouldn’t have survived.

Some hadn’t
survived through the rest of the shelter, especially those places which had
been closest to the strike, and the hardest hit.  He had lost over a hundred
people to collapse and cave ins.  Some had been family members of his staff,
and therefor of no real use to him.  But some had been the technicians and
specialists he depended on to keep him in command of his people.

“All of the
fiber optic links are down, Leader,” said the nervous looking engineer who
entered the chamber to report.

And with them
any chance I have of giving orders to my people, thought the Leader, his
tentacles whipping the air in anger that made the messenger step back.  He
wasn’t sure if any orders he gave would be necessary, since the strategy was
now pretty much running itself.  But it made him feel necessary nonetheless.
And now that had been taken from him.

“Any exits still
intact?” asked Zzarr, glaring at the male, already sure of the answer.

“No, Leader,”
said the anxious male, backing up even further, until his back was against the
wall.  “Every way out of the shelter has been collapsed.  We might be able to
open one of them, with a couple of months of effort.”

Zzarr whipped a
pair of tentacles into the wall in his rage, regretting the action as soon as
the pain of impact ran up the nerves.  He growled deep in his
speaking/breathing pipe, stomping to the end of the room, turning swiftly, and
almost charging back to the male.

“Then get to it,
and work your people night and day,” he yelled.  “I don’t care if you have to
work the males under your charge to death.  I must regain contact with the
surface.”

I cannot
stand being cut off like this.  How did the humans find us?  We were as well
hidden as we could possibly be.  But whether they had been or not, the
humans had dropped one of their orbital weapons and sealed him in this refuge.
The hopelessness ran through him once again, until he shook it away.

We can still survive down here
for months without access to the surface.  That was why this place was built.
Maybe even for years.  But it only has to last long enough to keep us alive
until our God destroys this world.  He might not be at the surface to see
the world destroyed, but he was sure his God could reach down this deep to make
sure he and his staff were also taken into heaven, where they could look down
on the torment of the unbelievers.  Including, just maybe, these sacrilegious
humans.

*     *     *

“Ships
translating into normal space,” called out the Sensory Officer.  “Confirmed
fifty-one contacts.”

Nguyen looked
over those contacts, waiting for the grav wave com signal to fill in their
identifying information.  When it came, he really liked what it told him.  Two
more battle cruisers, four light cruisers, seven destroyers, and then the ships
that really mattered.  Five troop transports, six medium liners, eleven small
liners, seven large freighters and ten small tramps, all hyper VI.

That’s enough
to get about one hundred and forty thousand of the Klassekians away,
thought the Rear Admiral, looking over the manifests that were now coming over
the com.  And no troops aboard the transports.  That really was good
news.  With the arrival of an earlier convoy the troop total had risen to a
full division of Imperial Army light infantry, as well as two full brigades of
Marines.  He really didn’t need any more soldiers, who would just have to be
transported out when the time came to leave.  He needed hulls to transport
refugees out to either of the two safe havens.

The day before
he had watched as the Lusitania and her three escorts had left on
another high speed run to Bolthole, following a week behind a hyper VI
convoy with thirty-five thousand natives in cryo.  So far eighty thousand had
been sent to Bolthole, along with a hundred and thirty thousand to the
base habitats.  And they had three more months before the star blew, and six
more after that before the radiation wave hit the system.  We might just be
able to get another half a million out before that happens, he thought,
shaking his head as that picture lodged in his mind.

If this had been
a system within the Empire they would have been able to evacuate all the
billions on the planet in the given time.  It might have been tight, but tens
of thousands of ships would have been involved.  Or would they?  The
Empire had already lost over ten billion killed, the Republic a little more,
while New Moscow had suffered over ninety-five percent casualties.  Would it
have really had enough to spare to save even a core world?

All we can do
is to keep trying, thought Nguyen, knowing that saving some of the aliens
was better than letting them all die.   Not that it would make him feel any
better about it, when it did happen.

*     *     *

Lusitania plowed
through hyper VII at point nine four light, her three escorts keeping up close
and personal as she moved along.  This time the frozen forms aboard had been
tested by nanites, and it was thought there would be no recurrence of the last
trip’s explosion.  The atmosphere aboard ship was much more relaxed as everyone
anticipated a smooth passage to the drop-off point.

Little did they
know, but an alien presence was tracking them in VI, noting their position,
Their course and their speed.  The alien ship might not be able to intercept
them, as it could not jump into the higher level of hyper.  But, with the aid
of its brethren up and down the course it could calculate a destination, and
keep the others of its kind appraised of the course.  So that when one did come
along in their highest traversable dimension, they could do something about it.

Chapter Twenty-one

Some people still have an
irrational fear of space travel, especially voyaging through the dimensions of
hyperspace.  That is quite alright, as far as society is concerned.  There is
plenty to do and see on the planet that person happens to be on.  It is not our
job to cure them of this phobia, as long as they continue otherwise to function
normally.

Dr. LaSean Sperkaklas, Central
Hospital, Capitulum.

Nguyen cursed as
he read the report about further attacks over the last week, most of them aimed
at the more vulnerable soldiers, police and civilians of the Klassekians, and
those mostly Tsarzorians.  There had been one attack against an Imperial Marine
unit.  As usual, the attack had not gone the way the terrorists had wished.
Three suits had been damaged, with one Marine injured, at a cost of over eighty
Klassekian guerillas.

And the number
of attacks was less than last week, thought the Admiral, trying to find
some golden lining to the continued resistance.  And that was true.  In the
month since they had taken out Zzarr’s command post, and what they hoped was
the leader of Honish himself, the attacks had fallen off, as well as becoming
more disjointed.  But they hadn’t stopped as had been hoped.  The cell
structure of the terrorists, guerillas, what have you, was too robust, and they
hadn’t folded.

All they do
is hurt themselves, thought the Admiral, looking at some three dimensional
pictures taken of one of the attacks, on a school, killing over two hundred
children, as well as fifty teachers and staff.  His own troops, these Imperial
Army light infantry, had responded and taken out forty some of the terrorists
before they could do more damage.  And still he felt guilty that his people
hadn’t gotten there sooner, even if the native police couldn’t have responded
in double that time.

“Admiral,” came
a call on the com.  “You may want to see this.”

The Admiral
cursed again, knowing that those words meant that he damned sure didn’t want to
see whatever was on the newscast.  Duty demanded that he did watch, so he
acknowledged the buzzing in his link and brought up the vid.

The scene was of
a large smoking building, sheets of flame shooting up the upper floors.  A
replay came on, showing a commercial airliner slamming into the building.  The
Admiral was sure that he had seen this before, or at least one very much like
it.

They’re using
that one again, he thought, calling up an overlay of the Tsarzor continent
and all of its commercial air traffic.  And the blinking icons of six large
airliners that were not on their predicted paths.

“Send out a com
on the standard air traffic freqs,” he ordered.  “All aircraft not on their
required flight paths are to return to them immediately, or they will be shot
down.”

“Acknowledged,”
said the Com Officer, and a moment later that message was being transmitted on
every standard and emergency frequency used by aircraft on the planet, in every
language.

Nguyen watched
the holo carefully for the next few minutes, watching as three of the
airliners, who were only marginally off course, turned back onto their proper
paths.  And three didn’t.

“Shoot those
three down,” ordered the Admiral in a flat voice, knowing that even if he was
ordering the destruction of three hijacked airplanes, he was also dooming at
least five hundred civilians to a sure death.

One laser shot
each was all it took.  The craft were moving at no more than nine hundred
kilometers an hour, with nothing in the way of defenses or countermeasures.
The lasers came down from ships in orbit, with clear tracks and nothing to get
in the way of the beams.   It took no more than a fraction of a second’s exposure
from a weapon made to burn its way through strong electromag fields and tough
armor to blast through thin aluminum.  Each of the three airliners converted
into balls of fire shooting thousands of pieces of fuselage into the air.  The
passengers and the people who had taken over the planes didn’t even have time
to know they were hit, transitioning from living to dead too fast for their
nervous systems to register the journey.

“I want to know
how those people got weapons on board those aircraft,” shouted the Admiral to
his security section.  “And then I want us to get the equipment and people in
place to keep it from happening again.”

Un-fucking-believable,
he thought, all of those deaths already weighing on him.  Killing terrorists
didn’t bother him in the least.  Killing innocents did, and he was tired of
having to order those deaths, even if he had just prevented up to ten thousand
more fatalities when those airliners were crashed into crowded skyscrapers or
malls.

I almost
can’t wait for that damned star to blow, so this assignment will be over with.
Unbeliever or not, the Admiral considered that an evil thought, wishing
destruction on sentient beings just so things would be more convenient for
him.  Even if those people were doomed to die anyway, no matter what he did.

*     *     *

“And you’re sure
that’s where we need to be?” asked Captain Gertrude Hasslehoff of her
Navigator, Lt. Commander Benji McManus.

“No, ma’am,”
admitted the young, mahogany skinned officer.  “There really is no way to tell
for sure.  But according to all the navigational formulas I have run our
positional data through, that should be Klassek’s star.  Or at least the
gravity shadow of it.  And here is Gromor, or Hrrottha, what we call Big
Bastard.  This trio over here corresponds to the Q-423ZX formation of
bright young stars.  You know, the one with the octopus shaped nebula.  Which
would mean this has to be the star we’re looking for.”

Hasslehoff sat
there for a moment, thinking.  They had used gravity shadows and their correspondence
to real stars to navigate hyper dimensions for a thousand years.  It was a time
honored technique, proven over and over again.  That was part of the problem.
No one had ever navigated this kind of space before, and what had worked so
well in hyper might just be a lie in this dimension.

“What’s the
correspondence to regular space?”  That was also an important question.  As far
as they knew, light speed was still the limit in this dimension.  But they were
not sure of the correspondence between this space and the normal space that
they were used to.  Hyper I had a 9.8 to 1 correspondence, meaning for every
light year traversed in hyper I they moved a corresponding 9.8 light years in
normal space.  And the correspondence increased by a factor of four for each
level up, until in hyper VII they were moving over forty thousand light years
in normal space for every light year in the higher dimension.

“I’m not
positive, ma’am.  If I had to guess, I would say somewhere between IV and V.”

“So we’re
looking at, what?” asked the Captain, doing the math quickly in her head.
“Between a month and three months to get there?”

“That seems
about right, ma’am.”

“We’ll, we don’t
have anything better to do,” Hasslehoff said with a smile.  “And I don’t see us
coming up with some kind of magic translation device to get us back to normal
space before we run out of antimatter.”  They had already tried multiple times
to translate both to normal space and the various dimensions of hyper with
their generator.  Nothing happened, and they had come to the conclusion that
their hyperfield generator was not going to do shit in this dimension.

“We need to get
to the region of those artifacts to have a hope of getting back.”  And hope
that whatever transported us here, and teleported us out this far, is in the
mood to bring us back.  “Go ahead and plot our course to that shadow.  As
soon as you have it in, contact me, and we’ll get under way.”

“Yes, ma’am,”
said the Navigator, getting up from his seat and turning to go.

“And Benji,” she
said, causing him to turn.  “Good job.  Now get us home.”

“Yes, ma’am,”
said the man with a wide smile.  “Thank you.”

And now I
just have to hope this little jaunt actually gets us somewhere.

*     *     *

“Welcome aboard,
Dr. Phillipson,” said Captain Walther Huang as the scientist came out of the
shuttle which had delivered him to the Lewis.  “We are at your service.”

He felt
Commander Harrison, his Exec, stiffen at his side as she laid eyes on the
astrophysicist from the Imperial University.

Huang wondered
again about the orders that had brought the scientist here.  Of course the Lewis
had better sensors than anything the research vessel Phillipson had come on
possessed.  Better screens, armor, acceleration, top velocity.  Everything
better suited to getting away and weathering the storm if anything happened.

“As long as I
get the cooperation I ask for, we will get along fine, Captain,” said the small
man, managing somehow to look down his nose at the taller officer.

“And this is my
Exec, Commander Stephanie Harrison,” continued Huang, gesturing to the woman.

“And this is
what happens when one fails to complete their doctorate, eh, Stephanie,” said
the man with a cold smile.  “At least a naval officer doesn’t require as much
intelligence, eh.”

Harrison’s face
reddened, and Huang could tell she was holding in the retort she wanted to
make.

“Dr.
Phillipson,” said the Captain, staring into the eyes of the scientist.  “We are
ordered to cooperate with you in your research of this pending supernova.  We
are not ordered to act as your slaves or whipping boys.  Whatever problems you
have with my Exec are between you and her, but I will not stand for having her
insulted in public.”  Especially since it appears that between the two of
you, she is the much more competent.

“And if I tell
your Admiral about your attitude?”

“You tell
Admiral Nguyen whatever you feel you must,” said Huang, actually putting his
face close to that of the scientist.  “I am sure his reaction will surprise one
of us.  And I don’t think it will be me.”

“Just show me to
my quarters, and find places for my assistants.”

“You and your
assistants will be bunking in one of the junior officers’ quarters, which will
give each of you a comfortable room, and a common area to meet in.”

The scientist
didn’t look like he was happy about that, but was obviously forcing himself to
not get into a shouting match in front of his assistants, who were also his
students.  “Lead on, Captain.”

“Ms. Harrison
will show you to your quarters,” said Huang with a feeling of satisfaction,
particularly when he saw the reaction on the scientist’s face.

The next week
was a nightmare of demands.  Move the ship closer, turn off the electromag
field, retune this or that sensor.  Some were easy to fulfil, though a pain in
the ass for the crew involved.

At the end of
the first week Stephanie Harrison had come to the Captain, looking as if she
were on the verge of tears.  Huang knew her as a tough and competent officer,
one of the best he had ever served with.  She was also a compassionate and
caring woman, who was a wonder when it came to crew counseling.

“That bastard,”
she said as soon as she had entered Huang’s day cabin.

“What has he
done now?” he asked, not having to ask who she was talking about.

“I tried to
explain my hypothesis to him.  Even offered to show him the math.  And all he
could say was that, ‘math is not the proper province of small minds’.  And then
one of his graduate students made remarks about plagiarizing the work of
others, and how someone who did so should be drummed out of academia.”

She sat there
for a moment, shaking with fury before she looked up at her commander.  “You
know I didn’t steal anyone else’s work.  That I couldn’t have taken someone
else’s intellectual labor as my own.  It was that damned major professor of
Phillipson’s, the arrogant prick.  And of course everyone believed him, and
wouldn’t even ask him to testify under a scan.”

“I’ve known you
long enough, Stephanie, to know you are one of the most honorable people I’ve
ever served with.  I trust your hypothesis, and the math you derived it from,
as well.  In case you didn’t notice, I’m keeping us beyond the hyper barrier,
no matter the demands of that jackass that I move closer to the star.  So just
put up with him, keep your mouth shut, and whenever it gets to be too much, you
know where to come.”

“Thank you,
Captain,” she said, running a hand across her face to catch the few tears she
had let shed.

Later that day,
he was confronted by Phillipson once again.

“I demand that
you move the ship closer to the star.  I can’t get the readings I need this far
out.”

“That’s why we
have probes all through the system, Doctor.  If they get vaporized, no sweat
off of me.”

“But there is no
risk.  Once the star goes into iron burning, just head back out at maximum acceleration
and pop into hyper.”

“According to my
Exec, we might not be able to get into hyper once the star blows.  Maybe even
when it gets to the point of collapse, before the rebound.”

“And your Exec
doesn’t know what she’s talking about, Captain.  I have a doctorate from
Imperial University, while she was dismissed for academic dishonesty.”

“And I do not
believe that, Phillipson,” said Huang in a growl.  “I have known her a heck of
a lot longer than you, and, to be frank, I trust her a hell of a lot more.”

The scientist
stormed out of the day cabin at that, muttering about reports he was going to
file with the Command.  Huang did not feel threatened.  He knew the caliber of
the people placed over him, and was sure that Phillipson would not get the
response he was expecting.

The next day
Phillipson was back.  “I want to get a better look at those alien artifacts,”
he said, pulling up a holo of one of the objects in orbit around the star.  “I
need you to move your ship closer, so we can put some people aboard.”

“I can’t do
that, Doctor.  Haven’t you seen my report on the objects?  After putting that
first probe aboard one, everything else we have gotten near it has
disappeared.”

“But not
destroyed,” insisted the scientist.  “And everything you sent over was a
machine.  I’m betting that whoever built these things built in a failsafe to
protect organic sentient life.”

And you’re
not going to be the one betting his life on that, thought the Captain,
shaking his head.

And so it went,
with Dr. Phillipson making daily demands, and the Captain refusing him.   Huang
knew they were still doing good observational science here.  He just regretted
that the asshole he was saddled with would get all the credit.

*     *     *

First Councilman
Rizzit Contena sat in his seat at the head of the council chamber and listened
to the interminable debates about how his nation shouldn’t cooperate with the
aliens.  After months of attacks, after they were assured that Zzarr was no
longer among the living, people were growing weary of the terror attacks.  And
if we refuse to cooperate, where does that get us.  The humans have already
taken hundreds of thousands of people off planet, and built shelters for
millions more.  Are we supposed to destroy those shelters, just to satisfy a
bunch of fanatics.

“And if we stop
cooperating, the fanatics of Honish will stop hitting us.  Stop hurting us.
They are not hurting the humans, with their superior tech, armor suits, and
spaceships.  They are hurting the innocent among our people.  So if we give
them what they want, they will stop.”

“What about the
people that have already been taken off planet?” he asked the council member.
“We can’t give them the return of those people without the humans cooperating.
And I can’t see them doing that after going to all the effort they went to of
evacuating them in the first place.”

“Then we demand
that they do.”

“And with their
superior tech, armored suits, and spaceships, why would they listen to us?”
asked another council member.

“Then let’s put
it to a vote,” said the junior council member.  All agreed, and the vote was
taken, with it split equally among the sitting council members.  Which left it
up to Rizzit to cast the deciding vote.

“We will give
the humans their time, and hope they will save as many of our people as they
can.  And I, for one, will not bow down to cowards who can only strike at the
weak.”

The meeting
broke up with half the council angry, the other half just afraid, and one
leader who hoped he was making the right decision.

Chapter Twenty-two

Sometimes we think we’re the
masters of the Universe.  One only has to look at the remains of a supernova to
know that for the lie it is.

Dr. Larry Southard.

JULY 3RD, 1001. D-0

“Spectrograph is
showing iron burning,” called out the Sensor Officer, looking back at the
Captain with alarm.

Captain Walther
Huang looked up from his chair, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Big
Bastard in the viewer.  It didn’t look any different than before, but the
spectrograph lines along the side told the story.  And we’re sitting nine
light hours away, which means what we’re looking at now happened nine light
hours ago.  And the iron burning stage will only run for about twenty hours.
Shit.

“Prepare for
jump into hyper I,” called out the Captain, and the crew of the Merriwether
Lewis came back with their acknowledgements.

“What is going
on, Captain Huang?” asked Dr. Avery Phillipson, running over from the station
he was using to monitor the star.  “I need more time to take readings.”

“You’ve had all
the time you’re going to get, Doctor.  I’m not about to risk my ship just so
you can get some more information, just before the thermal wave hits.”

“You’ll have
plenty of time when the graviton wave hits,” said the scientist, putting hands
to hips.

“Not according
to my Exec,” said Huang, watching as the lights on the status board turned
green, indicating that all hatches to the outside were closed, all crew
aboard.  “She thinks we’re going to be unable to go to and from hyper once that
damned star blows.”

“And I think
your Exec is an idiot,” growled the Astrophysicist.

“Since I don’t
agree with your appraisal of Commander Harrison, I am going to jump my ship
now.”

“You have orders
from above to cooperate with me,” said the Scientist with a scowl.   “And I
expect you to follow those orders.”

“With the clause
that I am not to put my ship at risk,” said Huang, standing up from his raised
chair and looking down at the smaller man.  “Those orders were not a suicide
pact.”  The Captain sat back down and looked straight ahead to his Helmsman.
“Jump her into hyper, Ensign.”

“Aye, sir,” said
the Helm, pushing the panels on his board.  “Jumping to hyper, now.”

The hyperdrive
opened the hole in hyper I, and the light cruiser slid into the higher
dimension.  Huang felt the characteristic nausea from the translation,
something he had grown used to, if not immune.  Dr. Phillipson bent over,
clutching at his stomach as he was wracked with much more severe illness.  Then
the ship was through and the space around them had turned the red of the alien
dimension.

“Set a course
for Klassek, fastest turnover at each hyper barrier.”

“Aye, sir.”  The
ship started to accelerate from near rest at five hundred gravities, on a
course for the nearest star.

“I must protest,
Captain,” said the pale faced scientist, trying to glare at Huang and failing,
then staggering away.

“Protest all you
want,” whispered the Captain, staring at the back of the scientist.

An hour later
they were jumping to hyper II, an hour after that III.

“Are you happy,
Captain?” asked Phillipson in a hacking voice.  “We lost hours of readings,
when the star would not blow for at least a day.”

“Doctor
Phillipson,” said Huang, trying to keep his temper.  “I...”

“We’re picking
up severe graviton fluctuations,” called out the Sensor Officer.  “I think its
collapsing.”

“You were
saying, Doctor Phillipson.”

“We’re twelve
light hours out in normal space from the star,” called out the Navigator.

“Graviton
fluctuations increasing,” continued the Sensor Officer.  “They’re going off the
scale.”

Dr. Phillipson
looked over at the holo which showed the computer graphic representation of the
star, its surface falling inward, till the star was three quarters of its
original diameter, then half, then a quarter, shrinking beyond, then stopping
for just an instant.  Then came the rebound, as the pressure reached the point
where the star could collapse no more, for the moment.  And it exploded out.

“Graviton wave
moving by in VIII,” said the Sensor Officer.  The sensors went wild for a
moment, and then the wave passed.  Minutes later another wave passed by, this
one in VII.  About eight minutes later came the wave through VI, then V, all
the way down until the III wave, running through the dimension they were in,
came roaring up to the light cruiser.

“All crew, brace
for impact.”  Anyone with a little bit of forethought sought a chair or
acceleration couch.  Most made it.  Those who didn’t were tossed about by  the
passing wave, battering the ship like a tsunami moving through a shallow sea.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was gone.  At least the tsunami
part.  The roiling space around them was a seething froth of gravitons, the
messengers that something had gone horribly wrong with a gravitational point
source nearby.

“We’re passing
the old hyper IV barrier,” reported the Navigator, and Huang nodded.

Those barriers
were now moving as the mass of the star was ejected outward.  They wouldn’t
change much, at first, but would eventually move out to over twice their
original circumference.  Then they would rebound in as the globe of ejected
mass continued to spread and grow less dense, until they conformed to the mass
effects of the new five or so solar mass black hole which was even now
collapsing to its event horizon.

“Give us fifteen
minutes at this velocity, then attempt translation up to IV,” the Captain
ordered the Helmsman.

Fifteen minutes
later the translation was attempted, with no effect.  The hyperdrive generators
sent out their masses of gravitons, raising the region just in front of the
ship to thousands of gravities for a microsecond.  That should have torn open a
hole in the fabric of hyper III, giving them an opening into IV.  Instead, they
were lost among the roiling gravitons that swirled through space, blown away by
the gravitational wind that prevailed.

“No luck, sir,”
reported the Helmsman, looking back at the Captain with a frown.

“Try moving us
back down into hyper II.”

Again the helm
activated the hyperdrive generators, again the gravitons were sent out in the
focused beam, this time at a lower power level and a different resonance.  And
again they failed to open space.

“There’s your
answer as to what would have happened to us, Dr. Phillipson,” growled the
Captain, looking back at the astrophysicist.  “We wouldn’t have been able to
translate into hyper, just as my Exec hypothesized.  And we would be waiting
for the thermal wave to come along and smack us with enough energy to kill
everyone aboard, if not melt the ship.”

The cowed
scientist said nothing, simply looked down at the deck.  Huang turned back to
the main holo, configured in tactical mode, which showed the system behind
them.  According to the projection, the thermal wave had already obliterated
the two innermost planets, and was just about to hit the orbit of the third one
out.  Anything that survived the awful influx of photons would soon be wiped
away by the massive wave of particles, traveling at point nine seven light
speed.

“I guess that
the ships at Klassek will get the news when the hyper VIII graviton wave hits
them,” said the Navigator.  “In about, two minutes from the initiation of the
supernova.”

So, they knew
about it some time ago, thought the Captain.  And it won’t be long until
they can’t translate into and out of hyper either.  I sure hope there aren’t
any ships approaching the barrier to whatever dimension they happen to be in.
That last should not have been a problem, since the ships in and approaching
the Klassek system knew the general time frame of the supernova.  Still, things
had been known to happen because someone hadn’t thought.

And if they
still couldn’t translate six months from now, when the thermal wave hit, or
several days later, when the particle radiation came in?  The ships would just
have to weather it.  Their own electromagnetic fields might be strong enough at
that range to survive, and they could hide in the shadows of planets until the
radiation passed.  No, they were not in danger, but the same could not be said
for the planet.

*     *     *

Besides being a
disaster, the detonation of the Big Bastard was also an event of
significant scientific importance.  Not important enough for a manned
spacecraft to sit in normal space and gather information as the stupendous heat
and blast waves passed.  Important enough to deploy scores of sophisticated
probes in a shell around the star, and behind the larger gas giant worlds.  The
probes, thirty-eight of them, sat out at the two light week mark, their
sensitive instruments pointed in at the star, their grav lens telescopes
pointed out past their cold plasma fields, taking in the star and its
surroundings.  The cameras, in all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum,
were still seeing the star as it had been weeks before, and would only catch a
glimpse of something different some hours before the photon heat wave struck.
At that time the probes might only have those hours of life before they were
destroyed, though there was a chance some would survive.  But the black box,
the memory core of the probe that was protected by a meter thick of armor
and a superior cooling system, was expected to survive, along with the
thousands of petabytes of information.

Four other
probes were stationed within the system, one behind each of the gas giants,
their multiple cameras pointed out to both sides of the world, focusing in on
the moons in their various orbits.  The view they got was spectacular, if a
little disturbing, as the probes recorded the fate of moons made of mostly ice
as they were hit by the heat wave from the exploding star.  Luminosity
increased thousands of times, and whatever atmosphere the moons possessed was
superheated, then blown away by light pressure in microseconds.  The icy
surfaces first melted, then vaporized, then turned to superheated gas that was
also blown away, leaving what rock had made up the core of the moons to heat up
and go molten.  Temperatures reached in the tens of thousands of degrees,
breaking apart almost every molecule in the crust, the radiant atoms barely
held together by the gravity of the bodies.  Almost thirty percent of the rock
and metal boiled off into space, decreasing the size and gravity of the moons,
which were also being pushed out of their orbit.

The innermost
gas giant the moons were in orbit around, a super Jupiter with almost enough
mass to be considered a brown dwarf, had its own atmosphere superheated, boiled
and mostly ripped from the world, streaming out and around the planet.  The
liquid outer core, starting ten thousand kilometers in, now absorbed the heat
and boiled away.  The probe at that planet fought the superheated gas with its
full strength magnetic field, and failed.  It was pounded by streaming gas,
superheated, and came apart, only the small black box of pure supermetal alloys
surviving.  Of course the object, including its supermetal memory core, were
superheated as well, but the ultra-dense materials were able to handle the heat
at the distance from the star where they had been hiding, over three billion
kilometers.

The black box,
which was in fact a perfect sphere, extruded grabber panels and boosted away at
ten thousand gravities, staying as much as possible within the shadow of the
gas giant.  Unfortunately, the heat buildup was too much, and there was no
cooler space to radiate to, and that probe came apart in a cloud, all of its
precious data gone forever in atoms even the supernova couldn’t produce.

As the heat of
highly energetic photons continued to eat away at the gas giant and its moons,
orbiting at over three billion kilometers from the star, three times the
distance of Saturn from Sol, the radiation wave, travelling at over point nine
light, struck, pushing more energy into the objects.  Anything that had
survived the photonic wave would have been killed, though the heat would have
handled that, but for the fact that the planets and moons had not been around
long enough to evolve life.

The front of the
mass ejection wave, plodding along at point two light, was the next to hit, and
when it had passed there was no trace of the gas giant or its moons.  All of
the octillions of  tons of matter that had made up the objects converted into
glowing molecules and atoms that were swept along with the expanding mass of
the star.

The next gas
giant, this one about the same mass as Jupiter, survived slightly more intact,
if the metallic hydrogen core surviving constituted survival.  It sat at nine
billion kilometers from the star, twice the distance of Neptune from Sol.
Temperatures here reached into the tens of thousands of degrees centigrade,
enough to melt or boil away just about any matter.  The core of the planet
survived, as did the probe sitting behind it, even when the ejection mass
reached it.

The last two gas
giants also survived, the outermost one retaining its liquid under the gas
surface, though much of that boiled and continued to boil into space.  By the
time the luminosity died to almost nothing a month later, only the metallic
hydrogen core would be left.  The one icy outer planet and the trillions of
Plutinos in the Kuiper and Ort layers were next to go, melted and boiled away
by the heat, which still reached destructive levels two or more light months
from the star.

The heightened
luminosity of the star, millions of times normal, would continue to shine
through the system for months, first increasing over several weeks, then
dropping off.  The remaining mass of the stellar body, still over five times
that of Sol, first moved out with the explosion, then fell back in as gravity
re-exerted its force.  It heated up to millions of degrees as the pressure
increased to almost unbelievable levels, slowing the collapse.  But collapse
was inevitable, and the matter continued to press inward, first turning the
five Sol mass into a ball of neutrons that would normally be the ultimate fate
of matter, there being no space between the particles to speak of.  This mass
was fated to an even more bizarre end, as it crushed past the neutron stage and
continued to collapse, gravity rising to the point where even light no longer
possessed the velocity to escape.  The mass pinched off from the universe into
a self-contained bubble of space-time, and a new black hole was born.

*     *     *

“The clock is
ticking, First Councilman,” said Nguyen van Hung over the com to the leader of
Tsarzor.  “The radiation wave will hit your world in four thousand, three
hundred and ninety-two hours.”

“It’s strange to
think that this has already happened,” said the Klassekian male, looking into
the night sky to see what looked like the still intact pinpoint of the blue
supergiant.

“You’ll see the
flare of the star as it explodes,” said the Admiral.  “About four hours before
the radiation hits.  That star will be the brightest thing in your sky for
weeks before it fades, but there won’t be anyone alive on the surface of your
world to witness most of that splendor.”

“I knew this was
coming,” said the First Councilman, a look on his face that the Admiral had
come to associate with shock.  “It was still hard to believe that it was ever
going to get here.”

Nguyen nodded.  And
he knows that he will not be here by the time the radiation clears.  He
admired the courage of the elderly Klassekian, who had ordered that only those
young enough to reproduce, children, and valued scientists and technicians,
were to be allowed in the shelters.  I’m not sure I could make that
decision, not with a hundred or more years of life ahead of me.  “We’ll
keep putting shelters in the ground while we can, and get as many of your
people under cover as possible.”

“Thank you,”
said the First Councilman.  “Now, I must talk to my people.”

And I must
talk to mine, thought the Admiral.  Now was the time to start taking some
tens of thousands or so of the people of Honish and its allies, so that the
genetic distinction of those ethnic groups were not lost.  And maybe we can
breed some of the fanaticism out of them.

Several hours
later the full vid coms from beyond the hyper I barrier were coming in, and the
news was not good.

“Garrett reports
that they are unable to jump into hyper,” said the Com Officer, speaking about
the destroyer that had been station out beyond that barrier just so it could
test the theory of the XO of Lewis.  “It looks like hyper is barred to
us at this time.”

And it will
continue to be so for how long?  A week?  A month?  Surely not longer than
that.  Longer than that would mean that a couple of hundred thousand more
Klassekians would die.  The figures that Harrison had come up with had hinted
at no more than a week or two, but they really wouldn’t know until hyper became
available again.

“Order all ships
on the perimeter to engage their graviton beacons with all available power,”
said the Admiral, thinking about that light cruiser and hoping they had gotten
into hyper in time.  We won’t know until they reach here and start sending
out their own hyper beacon, if we can even read it with that mass of gravitons.

At least the
ships they had around the system would be broadcasting a simple warning signal
to anything approaching the system.  Similar to the system beacons used in the
Empire, there was no guarantee that they would get through that interference
either.  But it was the best they could do.

Nguyen brought
up a couple of the media casts on holo, kicking back in his chair to see what
the local news had to say.  Several were saying that the day of doom had come,
and that, although it was still six months in the future, the planet was still
officially doomed.  Other channels, those of Honish and a few of the religious
channels of Tsarzor, were stating that nothing had happened, as there was
nothing they could detect on the planet, and that the Imperials were still
lying, trying to panic Klassekians so they would agree to be taken off world,
where they would toil as slaves in the hypothetical mines of the invading
aliens.

Soon would come
more riots, possibly more bombs, the natives killing their own in protest of
the Imperials they couldn’t get at.  Pure fanaticism, plain and simple, and
probably tens of thousands more killed, taking away their final six months of
life.

“Something
strange is happening to the artifacts, sir,” reported the Captain of the ship
from his station on the bridge.

Nguyen switched
his holo to take a look at the nearest of the artifacts, now glowing softly
along its entire length and width.  “What kind of energies are we picking up?”
he asked his Sensor Officer.  The holo zoomed out to show the entire globe of
the planet, the half dozen artifacts in view rising high above the atmosphere,
all glowing with the same soft light.

“Simple light
photons so far, sir.  And nothing else.”

It can’t be a
lighting system, can it?  What use is that?

“Keep it under
close watch,” ordered the Admiral, staring at the artifacts, trying to discern
a pattern and, except for the equidistant spacing, finding none.  Unless
that’s the only pattern that makes a difference.  “Make sure every sensor
we have is looking at those things at all times.”  Because there must be a
reason for them, and a reason for them turning on right now, at the same time
as the star blew.

Chapter Twenty-three

Many times, celestial phenomena
are mistaken for something of divine origin, of religious significance.  This
is because all intelligent species try to make sense of a Universe that makes
none to minds that have developed on planetary surfaces.  Eventually, they grow
up, and realize that a fluctuating star is just a star that is undergoing some
natural process.

Archbishop L’rranar, Reformed
Catholic Church of Phlistar.

The religious
frenzy that swept the planet when the artifacts lit up the night sky was like
nothing the Imperials had ever seen.   The closest analogue was that of the
Lasharans, when they went into a religious fugue state before launching one of
their bloody crusades.  Klassekians gathered in their churches and praised the
Gods for their salvation, or for their coming destruction, each as prophesied
by their holy books.  The more rational among them continued to count on the
Imperials for salvation, if not of themselves, at least of their species.
While the more fanatical of them continued to obstruct the Imperials in every
way possible.

These people
really hate us, thought Nguyen as he watched yet another riot on the holo.
Again the zealots of Hrrottha, this time joined by those they considered
infidels, were marching on a landing field where volunteers were being
processed for cryo, then flown up to the new docking facilities that were
waiting in orbit, themselves awaiting the arrival of ships that were still
waiting in hyper outside the barriers.

And when in
the hell will hyper clear enough for them to translate down, he thought.
Hyper I was already usable, as was II and III, as proven by the arrival the Merriwether
Lewis within the last couple of days, two weeks after the detonation of Big
Bastard.  She had come down from III, and today they had been able to send
a probe into IV, but all of the ships waiting were interned in VI or VII, the
dimension they had traveled in.

Another ship had
been sent back to Big Bastard in hyper I to retrieve the data from
surviving probes, and to survey the system that was no longer one.  Nguyen had
looked over that data, amazed at the information they had gathered that would
be years in the analysis by some of the finest astrophysicists of the Empire.
But now he had more important matters in mind, including trying to save this
species, whose majority seemed determined to subvert his efforts.

The Admiral
switched the view of the holo to another area of the surface, where yet another
shelter was being excavated.  Massive robotic machines were digging up a
hundred tons of earth with each scoop, while in the background construction was
proceeding on another shelter, this one already dug, more machines in the
process of putting together the framework of the stucture.  Once completed and
armored with carbon nanofiber and thick alloys, it would be covered by over a
hundred meters of packed earth, the revised estimate of the engineers for what
would be needed for satisfactory material protection.  They were ahead of
schedule on this part of the plan, though the experts were still divided on
whether the people sheltered would survive, and whether the world could be
terraformed back to a living ecosystem in time for their continued survival.
If so, they were going to save an estimated twenty million of the Klassekians.
If not, they were just delaying the inevitable.

I really
didn’t ask for this shit, thought the Admiral, wondering why he had ever
worried about losing this command.  The pressure seemed to be crushing him in
his seat.  The responsibility of saving an entire species and all of their
cultures, even if they were resisting his efforts.

“Sir,” came the
call on the com.  “General Wittmore is on the com.”

“Put him on,”
ordered the Admiral, then waited the few seconds for the face of the Imperial
Army officer to appear on the holo.

“What’s the
news, General?”

“We started
Operation Grab, as per your instructions, as soon as the news of Big Bastard
blowing reached us,” said the Army officer, a slight smile on his face.

Operation Grab
was the plan to kidnap and transplant Klassekians who belonged to the religions
of Honish, those who objected to leaving the planet in defiance of the
scriptures of their God.  Some had suggested that they just use nanoprobes to
gather genetic material from members of that ethnic group, then clone them.
The problem with that was the manner in which some species responded to
cloning.  All lower forms of Earth life cloned just fine, until the level of
the primate was reached.  Primates, including humans, cloned just fine
physically, but mentally, psychologically, something went missing.  Human
clones were psychopaths, with no conscience.  It didn’t matter how they were
raised, or who did that raising, they all turned out the same.  Murderous,
criminal, insane.  It didn’t work that way with many intelligent alien species,
and no one knew how it would work with this species.  Some had suggested just
going for the cloning, forcing the clones to reproduce naturally, then raise
their children away from them.  But the Admiral had vetoed that suggestion.  In
his mind it was better to raise them the way they were used to being raised.

“How many do you
have so far, General?”

“My special ops
people have taken a total of one thousand and fifteen family units so far.
Which works out to over seven thousand individuals.”

And,
hopefully, none of them will even go missing, thought the Admiral, thinking
about those people, and more, waking up in strange surroundings, not sure how
they got there.  With all the turmoil going on, with people dying every
minute, everyone should just put down the missing to the effects of the riots
and retaliations.

“And they’ve
been processed?”

“All but the
last few, Admiral.  And over half of the processed have been taken up to the
orbital docks for loading.”

And all we
need is for ships to come in so we can load them and get them out of here.
This disruption of hyperspace has really screwed up our timetable.

“Keep working on
it, General.  We’ve only got…”

“Sir,”
interrupted the Com Officer.  “We’re receiving a call for fire support from one
of the construction sites.”

“Show me,”
ordered the Admiral, who had moved his forces down to a lowered reaction state,
determined to lower the loss of life that had been occurring with alarming
regularity as natives attacked the construction and landing sites of the
Imperials.

The scene that
appeared on the holo viewer now told him that nonlethal protection was not
going to work in this situation.  There were tens of thousands of Klassekians
outside of the perimeter, and they were not peacefully protesting.  Instead,
they were crowding forward, throwing flaming bottles and improvised explosive
devices, firing off projectile weapons, even dropping artillery rounds into the
site.

The armor of the
infantry and their vehicles were protecting the Imperials for the most part.
Sonics and gas was being projected over the crowd with some effect, but not as
much as desired.  And now the tactical holo was showing columns of vehicles
approaching through the hills on the roads leading onto the plains.  He zoomed
in on one of the columns, and cursed as the images of tanks and armored personnel
carriers appeared in several of the columns.  Where in the hell did they get
those things, thought the Admiral, getting the information on the vehicles
and seeing that they were the latest models of the Tsarzorian Army, not the old
fashioned, obsolete equipment he would have expected from reactionary
civilians, even if supplied by the Honish.

“Get me the
First Councilman on the com,” he ordered.  “Priority One.”

“Yes, Admiral,”
said the Klassekian leader as he appeared on the holo.  Behind him was what
appeared to be his council chamber, filled with Klassekian males and females
going about their business in an agitated state.

“What can you
tell me about this?” asked Nguyen, shifting over the feed from the other holo
onto the transmission to the First Councilman.

“I was afraid of
that,” said the male, making a head motion of disbelief.  “I have just received
word of mutinies in my military.  I am afraid that is a pair of my armored
divisions rolling toward that shelter site.”

“Can you regain
control of them?”

“We have been
trying to for the last half hour,” said the leader, giving a head shake of
negation.  “So, in answer to your question, I would say no.”

“Then we are
going to have to stop them, First Councilman.  In their tracks.  I’m sorry, but
I have no choice.”

“Do what you
have to do, Admiral.  I want you to save as many of my people as you can, and
if that takes killing some of them, then that is what it takes.”

“I will be back
in touch,” said the Admiral, then terminated that link and went back to the
tactical.

“I’ve lost some
troops,” said General Wittmore over the com.  “The bastards brought some heavy
antiarmor weapons to bear and took out seven of my soldiers.”

“Light them up,
General Wittmore.  You have my permission to use all force to clear those
people away from that site.”  Nguyen switched the com to one of the heavy
cruisers that was in orbit around the planet, tasked for a ground support
role.  “Captain of New Athens.  You are hereby cleared to provide fire
support to ground combat units at site Beta Six.  And lock onto those vehicle
columns approaching through the hills.  I want them killed, completely.”

There was
acknowledgement from that ship, and the Admiral leaned back in his chair to
watch the two holos that were revealing the destruction he had set in motion.
It wasn’t something he wanted to do, since he was an explorer, not a warrior
per se.  This called for a warrior, and he felt almost relieved that he could
unleash hell on the stupid people who were trying to prevent him from saving
their species.

The first holo
showed the view from the soldiers’ side of the battle, as lasers and particle
beams burned into the crowd, while high velocity pellets ripped through other
sections.  Mortars and missiles followed suit, and the return fire at fist
slacked off, then died, along with those Klassekians who were wielding them.
The crowd broke, but this time there was no surcease, as the beam weapons and
rifles continued to tear and burn bodies, and explosives rained from the sky to
hit the far end of the crowd, cutting them off from retreat.

Maybe they
will learn something from this, thought the Admiral, feeling sick to his
stomach.  Maybe this will teach them that we are no longer fooling around
with them.

He looked to the
second holo as what looked like a streak of light connected sky with the front
of the column of vehicles in the view.  It was not a steak of light, but the
trail of the kinetic that had been launched by the heavy cruiser.  No
penetrator this one, but a weapon designed to spread its blast out from the
point of impact, it sent out a circular wall of superheated air and melted
earth.  The wave reached up and down the small valley, up into the hills on the
side which channeled it back into the roadway.  Soft skinned vehicles burst
into flame as they were thrown backward as if caught in a tornado.  Armored
personnel carriers were in some cases also set alight, as they were thrown up
and back in much the same way as the trucks and cars, if a lesser distance.
Concussion and heat killed their passengers and crew, while ammunition popped
off inside the vehicles.  The tanks were rocked or pushed back, not near as
much as the lighter vehicles.  Their crews were just as dead from the
concussion, and the superheated air set many ablaze as the fierce wind actually
blew the turrets off of several of the tanks.

As soon as the
first weapon hit a second landed about a hundred meters further back, a few
seconds later followed by another a further hundred yards along the road.  Five
kinetics came down on that one road, before the cruiser started to work the
second cut, then the third.  When it was over each of the roads was a junk yard
of wrecked and burning vehicles, hundreds of bodies scattered about on the
ground, or hanging out of vehicles.  Flames reached to the sky while oily
columns of smokes spread up and out.

“I want all of
our videos of this sent to every news outlet on the planet,” ordered the
Admiral, tapping into the Com Officer’s link.  “I want everyone on the planet
to see this.  And I want to record a message to go along with the vid.”  I
don’t want there to be any mistake this time.  I want them to know what’s going
to happen when they attack my people and installations.  From now on, there
will only be survivors if we happen to miss any, and my orders to my people
will be that everyone involved will be hunted down and eliminated.

*     *     *

“What in the
Hell is that?” asked Captain Gertrude Hasslehoff, staring at the huge construct
that hung in space before them.

The object in question
was mostly spherical, with some exceptions, and measured over a hundred
kilometers along its longest axis.  It was obviously not an asteroid, since its
skin had a metallic sheen to it.   The Empire had larger objects, but nothing
that existed in a dimension such as this.

“We’re picking
up energy readings from it, Captain,” said the Sensor Officer, looking over his
shoulder at his commanding officer.

That’s pretty
obvious, thought the Captain with a small smile.  Since there were lights
all over the thing, it was using power.  “Any idea on what their power source
is?”

“No, ma’am.  No
neutron emissions consistent with matter/antimatter.  No radiation sources
pointing to fusion or fission reactions.”

The Captain
thought about that for a moment, her eyes almost locked on it, only straying
every once in a while to the shadow form that they thought was the planet
Klassek.  That was the thing that made the object remarkable.  So far as they
had seen, it was the only material object in this dimension.  Not meaning that
there might not be a lot matter in the dimension, somewhere.

“Could they
possibly be using zero point energy?” asked Cenk Ungra, the chief engineer of
the battle cruiser Challenger.

“Pure
conjecture, Engineer,” said Hasslehoff, shaking her head.  Zero point energy
was the dream of almost any intelligent space faring species.  Of course, there
were theoretical dangers to that kind of energy, up to and including the
collapse of the Universe.  Which didn’t mean that some species wouldn’t go for
what seemed to be free energy.  “I guess the next question is whether or not we
are in fact near to Klassek?  And if so, does that benefit us at all, or are we
still trapped in this dimension, with no way out?”

“No way to tell
that, Ma’am,” said the Chief Engineer.  “But if we are to have any hope of
getting back home, being near to our point of departure has to be a good
thing.”

But is it a
good thing if we die here in sight of our point of origin, because we can’t get
through whatever barrier separates us from our space?

“The probe is
sending its data, ma’am,” said the Com Officer, who was monitoring all possible
communications channels.

Hasslehoff
nodded and pulled up the feed on her side holo.  The ship’s computer had
already predigested the data, parsing it, screening out the fuzz and distortion
and feeding her the information in a manner that made sense to a human mind.

Interesting,
she thought, checking out the readings of the shadow planet they were
near.  According to the readings from the probe, corroborated by the sensors of
the ships, the planet did manifest in this dimension as gravity, again proving
that gravitons moved through all dimensions, at least all that humankind had
actually experienced.  Besides that, there was some radiation along the electromagnetic
spectrum, about a thousandth of what could be expected from a planet with the
reflective surfaces Klassek was known to possess.  And from the smaller probes
that had been launched at the planet, it was now known that the shadow object
did not actually physically exist in this dimension, since the sub-probes had
been able to fly through the planet with no problem whatsoever.

“What do you
want to do next, Captain?” asked Ungra, who was also the acting XO.

“We’re here to
explore.  And here’s an object of mystery, right in front of us.  So I guess we
need to go ahead and look into it.”  Plus, since we don’t have any way to
return home, and here is something that somehow got here from normal space, it
seems to be our best chance of finding a way back.

“Go ahead and
launch a multi-probe,” she ordered the Sensor Officer.  “But keep it under
tight control.  I don’t want us to get sent to some other, possibly less
hospitable, dimension.”

*     *     *

The probe was a
marvel of the best technology the New Terran Empire could come up with.
Measuring a meter and a half in length by three quarters of a meter in
diameter, it boosted out of the missile tube in which it had been loaded at a
modest ten gravities, well under the thousands of which it could possibly
accelerate.  There was no need for high acceleration this close to the object,
but it was good to know that it could escape most high gravity fields less than
that of a neutron star or white dwarf.

The probe moved
up to the object, which the Imperials had termed a station for lack of a better
term.  Its passive sensors drank in every bit of information that impacted on
it, eschewing the use of actives at the moment, lest it trigger some kind of
response.

“What’s that?”
asked the Captain, her own link, like that of several other officers, allowing
her to look through the sensors of the probe.  A small section of the surface
of the station, which to that point had looked to be solidly integrated, was
now showing gaps around its ten square meter surface.  Not really a surprising
development due to the technology, as the Imperial ship used similar tech.  But
surprising in that the station seemed to be opening a portal for them to
board.  Unless it’s opening a weapon port, thought the Captain as the
portal slid inward and a deep tunnel manifested itself.

“Go ahead and
send her in,” the Captain ordered the Sensor Officer.

With a thought
the probe moved over until it confronted the opening.  It disappeared into the
hull of the station, visible for the first twenty meters or so before
disappearing into a well of inky blackness.  The Sensor Officer brought the
light enhancing sensors online, then brought up some lights when that did
nothing other than add about another half meter to what they already saw.  The
lights extended the view another twenty meters, but couldn’t penetrate the
blackness beyond that point.

“I think this
thing is really old,” said Ungra, his voice full of wonder.

“Reasons?” asked
Hasslehoff.  “Or just a feeling?”

“Feeling.  But
I’m pretty sure we’ll find the evidence.”

“Activating
radar and lidar,” said the Sensory Officer.  A moment later the tunnel in was
revealed in complete detail, reaching five hundred meters and ending in a blank
wall.  The probe floated forward, covering that distance in half a minute.  As
it reached a point five meters from the wall another portal appeared, the
bulkhead sliding in a half meter and then moving to the left.

“What do you
make of that door, ma’am?” asked Ungra, his attention fixed on the video feed.

Hasslehoff
looked at the door through the sensors of the probe, which gave her the exact
measurements of the doorway.  Three point one two meters tall by point five
wide.  “If these doors fit the makers, they were very tall and thin.  Possibly
low gravity planet dwellers.”

They moved the
probe through the doorway and into a large room.  An enormous map of the Galaxy
filled the room, obviously a holograph, or else an extradimensional construct
of some type.  The probe sent out active sensor pings, and determined nothing
as the signals were not returned.

“What’s that?”
asked the Sensor Officer as one of the stars in what looked like the subarm
Orion started blinking.

Hasslehoff
stared at the map, dawning comprehension coming.  “That’s Sol.  They’re telling
us that they know where our species comes from.”

Another whole
section of the galaxy lit up with a blue tint, showing the entire Empire, while
different colors showed the New Terran Republic, New Moscow, and filled in with
the alien powers that surrounded them.

“They know who
we are,” said the Captain, her eyes narrowing.  “And where we’re located.  I
wonder what else they know?”

“We know much
about you,” came the unexpected voice over the com.  The main holo viewer
turned to the same scene that the probe was presenting.

“I don’t know
what happened there, ma’am,” said the Com Officer, an alarmed look on her
face.  “That command came from outside our systems.”

“We have taken
control of your computer systems,” said the calming voice.  “We mean you no
harm, but wish for there to be no misunderstandings between ourselves and a
violent species such as yours.”

“We are on a
peaceful mission,” said the Captain, looking around the bridge, wondering what
else these aliens might do with her ship if the mood hit them.

“We know of your
mission.  In fact, we much laud you on your basic motivations, though there is
still an undercurrent of self-indulgence.  But there is enough altruism in your
species for us to allow you to complete your mission, even if it is not really
necessary.”

“These people
are all about to die from the supernova,” said Hasslehoff, not sure why their
mission was not necessary.  “And I assume that the blue giant has gone off by
now.”

“The star you
know as Big Bastard has indeed collapsed and rebounded in the phenomenon
you call a supernova.  The radiation wave which would sterilize this world is
on its way.”

“Then why do you
say that our mission is unnecessary?” asked Ungra, the disbelieving anger
apparent in his tone.

“We have seen
this disaster coming for a hundred millennia,” said the voice.  “And we made
the decision that this species and this world would not be allowed to die.”

“And how are you
going to do that?” asked Ungra, his tone challenging.

“You will be
here to see,” said the voice.  “And again, we caution you not to interfere in
the process.  You will accomplish nothing but the destruction of your ship.”

“You threaten
us?” asked the Captain, her eyes narrowing yet again.  She immediately thought
of how preposterous that question was.  Here were beings of immense power,
obviously thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of years more
advanced that the Imperials were.  If they wanted to they could have reached
out and crushed her ship like a toy made of thin plastic.

“We do not
threaten you,” said the voice, its tone one of an adult talking to a child.
“Only beings of your belligerence would assume such.  If we had wanted to
destroy you, we could have done so when your ship was firing on our devices.
Instead, we placed you in this dimension, as a warning to your other people
that it was not wise to poke at our systems.  Without actually destroying your
ship.”

“I have a
question for you,” said Captain Hasslehoff, wanting information, but not really
wanting to get into an argument with these beings.  “Why are you doing this?
Why go out of your way to save one intelligent species among many, when so many
others are wiped out all the time.  By pirates, plagues, asteroid strikes?
We’ve seen the evidence of so many extinctions, most of which could have been prevented
much more easily that saving a world from the radiation of a nearby supernova.”

“So asks the
makers of the murder machines that are infesting this region of space,” said
the voice, and Hasslehoff felt a chill run up her spine.

“But, we
destroyed those abominations as soon as they rebelled.”

“And so you
believe, but now you are moving into their refuge, and they have grown powerful
enough to strike back at their creators.  We do not blame you for their
creation, since most intelligent species develop such during their
technological evolution.  Some are destroyed by their own creations, which are
later destroyed by other species.  Or the destruction of machine and organic
creator is mutual.  In your case, the machines escaped, without your knowledge.
And they are still extant, which is your responsibility, and you will be
expected to clean this up once and for all.”

Hasslehoff
stared at the map of the Galaxy before her, not having any representative image
of the aliens to look at, the shock of the revelation that the existence of the
horrible inventions of the past were still around making it hard to think.

“But you ask why
we save this species, while we ignore others?” continued the voice.  “Not all
species will evolve to the next level, the precipice of which our own race
stands upon.  The Klassekians are one such species.  Yours is another.  It will
take hundreds of thousands of years to reach the next level, which will make
you no more Gods than we ourselves are, but will make you much better sentients.
Your species has spread far enough that no event like this can threaten you,
while this one does not have this advantage.”

“But we are
threatened,” blurted out Hasslehoff.

“And you will
fight your way through.  Or enough of you will escape to keep your species
going.  This one had a clear and present danger hanging in their sky for a
hundred thousand years, with no guarantee that they would develop to the point
where they could save themselves.  We are few in number, even if our technology
is advanced to the point where you, and the Klassekians, would think it magic.
We have to pick our battles, where we have the best chance of victory.”

“Why are you few
in number?” asked the Chief Engineer.  “If you are about to reach the next
level, shouldn’t you be a vibrant, expanding people.”

The image of the
Galaxy disappeared, both on the main viewer and in the chamber in which  the
probe was located.  Three beings stood there, like nothing that any of those
watching, which included most of the crew, had ever before seen.   Tall and
thin, but in no way humanoid, they seemed to float there, supported by six
tentacles that trailed from about the midpoint of the body to the floor.  Above
was a rounded section of torso, which continued into the head,
from which looked a trio of large, luminous eyes of a slightly darker color
than the skin.  That skin was a bluish green that seemed to glow with an
internal light.  There were no noticeable orifices of any kind, breathing,
eating or speaking.

“They’re
beautiful,” said Ungra.  The central alien raised one of its tentacles, which
went from a thick basal end to a thin terminal point.

“Such shows the
maturity of your species, that can look on us, and on the Klassekians, and see
an intelligent being, and not a monster.  Such is not always possible, even
among the most advanced of races.  But back to your question, Cenk Ungra.  We
are few because we achieved immortality.  Our natural lifespan is truly
endless, we are immune to disease, and all of our systems are self-healing.”

“But, that’s
wonderful,” said the Engineer.  “That’s been the dream of humankind for
thousands of years.”

“And  it seemed
to us, as well,” said the spokesbeing of the aliens.  “Until we realized that
we had lost the ability to reproduce.  All that we had were all that we would
ever have.  And while we healed quickly, and had an essentially limitless
lifespan, we could still die, of violence, accidents, at our own hands as the
endless depression of our existence set in.”

“And you
couldn’t clone new members?” asked Hasselhoff, feeling the deep tragedy of
these people in her heart.

“Unfortunately,
we and you are much the same, as are those you seek to rescue.  As seem to be
all beings who are capable of evolving into advanced forms.  Something is
missing when one of us is cloned.  And that missing something is what makes us
caring beings.  We did not like those who were made by such means.”

“Is there a
God?” asked the Captain, still a central question of most of the human race,
and still without proof.

“We have no
evidence that there is, and no proof that there isn’t,” said the being, its
eyes rolling to each side to look at its fellows.  “But back to the main point
of this conversation, do not interfere with what we are doing.  Stay within
proximity of the shadow of the planet, as this will be your only chance to
return to your own dimension, normal space.”

“Why can’t you
return us to normal space?” shouted out the Tactical Officer, shutting his
mouth under the glare of the Captain.

“Because we do
not want you reporting back to your people until after the event is over.  It
is safer for you to remain here until after the radiation wave passes.  Stay
near the shadow of the planet, but under no circumstances allow your ship or
your people to rest within that shadow.  To do so will be disastrous.”

“And what about
the machines?”

“That, Captain
Hasslehoff, is your problem and your task.  The machines must be destroyed,
lest they continue to spread.  They have been hiding in the dark places for
centuries, striking at the life they despise here and there as opportunity
presented itself.  But they have now achieved the strength they need to come
out into the open.  Maybe not against your Empire, yet, but here, on the
periphery, where you are not strong?  Yes.  Your task is to end them before
they can grow to the point where they overrun this arm.  And to make sure that
none of them escape.  Lest this fate befall all life bearing worlds in this
arm.”

The images of
the aliens faded, replaced by a view of a world that had no greens of browns,
but only the shining glare of starlight on metallic constructs.  The view swept
in, to show a planet girding city made up not of dwellings, but of factories.
And running through the streets of that city, or the air above, more machines, nothing
living in sight.

The view changed
again, sweeping out to show the Galaxy, a large area of blinking light on the
other side, closer to center, the core, than the space known by the humans.

“This is an
empire of machines, one that has been moving out from their point of origin for
millennia.  They possess a much lower level of hyperdrive than does your
Empire.  As machines, they did not see the need for expanding their domain as
quickly as possible.  And, as machines, though they are able to engineer marvelous
works, they lack the imagination of organics, who, possessing quantum brains,
are capable of deeper thought.  Unfortunately, there were no advanced
civilizations other than the one that these came from in the region.  Because
of this, they have reached the critical mass, controlling an area large enough
to support a military strong enough to sweep through their section of the
Galaxy.  And then they will continue on into the rest of the Galaxy, until
there is no life left in this island Universe.”

“That’s, awful,”
said Hasslehoff, imagining a Galaxy with no life, no laughter, no love.  “Isn’t
there anything we can do?”

“No, not you.
But we will leave on our last crusade when this task before us is done.  In
fact, the majority of our power is already in place around their Empire, ready
to strike as soon as we bring the last of our force into the region.”

“Can you stop
them?”

“We can,” said
the being as the image changed back to it and its two fellows.  “We can, but
the cost will be great, because we are few, and they are many.  And though we
are much more advanced, we are not invulnerable, and they fight without fear,
without thought of self-preservation, and are sure to cause casualties.  We
have calculated that this will be our last mission, our last fight, but we will
see the end of their Empire.  Because of that, it is again up to you to take
care of this local problem.  Make sure that your recording of this meeting gets
to your leaders, all the way up to your Emperor, Sean.  Now, this meeting is over.
Soon you will see wonders that you cannot imagine.  Remember this as well, as
one day your species will be able to achieve similar wonders, if you survive to
that point.  Something to look forward to, don’t you think?”

The holo went
blank, and the Com Officer looked back at the Captain.  “We’ve lost all contact
with our probe.”

“Try to get it
back,” ordered the Captain, staring at the now blank holo, which soon returned
a view of the enormous station.

No matter what
they did, they could not get the communication channel back.  They tried for
days, with no response.  They scanned the outer surface of the station, looking
for another opening, with no success.  The aliens had told them what they
wanted to say, and felt no other need to discuss current and future events with
an inferior species, no matter how highly regarded.

Challenger sat
in the strange space for many more days, all of its sensors trained on both the
station and the planet, careful to stay out of the shadow of the planet.
Hasslehoff did not know what was about to happen, but she was determined that
her ship would gather all possible data when it occurred.

And I want to
go home, she thought, looking at the viewer that showed the strange space
around her.  I want to see the stars, and living planets, and to know that
someday I can step out onto those worlds and breathe the clean air.

Chapter Twenty-four

People think that the human
species will go on forever, because we have ducked several events that might
have caused our extinction.  The nuclear age, global ecological disaster, the
bio-wars.  Now that we are spread out among the stars, we have a feeling among
us that we have escaped any possible destruction of our species.  But we have
already come upon the first indication of a civilization that reached the
stars, at the Tau Ceti system, and disappeared soon after.  I am sure we will
find the traces of others, and someday we may number among them.

World President Carolyn Kowalski,
Old Earth, the Year 2234 Old Calendar.

JANUARY 5TH, 1002.  D+182.

Nguyen watched
as the latest, and last, convoy hit the hyper barrier and translated up to
hyper I.  Boudeuse, along with much of the rest of the force, sat
outside the hyper I barrier, not more than a couple of light seconds from where
that convoy was translating.  The radiation wave was due in less than forty
hours.  It was thought that the vessels, at least the capital ships, could
weather the storm, with full electromagnetic fields raised, when that radiation
hit.  Still, it was thought that to be safe hyper was the best refuge, and so
all of the ships except for a pair of cruisers were now beyond that barrier.
After all, an event like this had never been experienced by Imperial ships.
Some ships had observed the recent supernova in the Empire, the one that the
Fleet had used to cover their own offensive.  But none of those ships had
survived.  So no one wanted to take chances.

All of the
Marines and soldiers were aboard the crowded ships, their heavy equipment left
behind on the planet.  That equipment was disabled, and there really wasn’t
much of a fear that the survivors would try to appropriate the tanks, aircraft
and robotic construction machines.  At least not before the Imperials returned,
which they would, as soon as the radiation storm had abated.

“Get them there
safely,” sent the Admiral over the com to Commodore Natasha Khrushchev, now
flying her flag on the flagship of that convoy, the battle cruiser Francis
Drake.  “We’ll be along as soon as we’re finished here.”

“We’ll get them
across,” said the Commodore, who commanded the entire escort of two battle
cruisers, one heavy cruiser, four light cruisers and nine destroyers.  That was
seemingly a powerful escort for the space they were traveling through, but they
were protecting over thirty liners, freighters and troop transports.  And most
important of all, over a hundred and ninety-five thousand Klassekians, almost
as many as they had transported to Bolthole to date.  That was a
precious cargo, and not only because of the singular abilities of that people.

Drake
translated, gone in an instant as the hole in space opened and the ship flew in
at point two light.  A light cruiser and two destroyers followed within a
second. The last of the ships translated a moment later, and the entire convoy
was on its way to the secret base of the Empire.

Not quite as
secret as it was, thought the Admiral, looking at the holo and following
the ships on the tactical display as they were tracked by their graviton
emissions.  The number of officers and crew who knew where Bolthole was
located, at least in a general sense, had quintupled since the beginning of
this mission.  Most would have that memory wiped, and the passengers would, of
course, not know where they were, and, when they left, would not know the path
they took.

There were
twenty million Imperials, mostly human, in the base system, with more arriving
all the time.  And they were adding about four hundred and fifty thousand
Klassekians to that mix, a people who were not up to the educational or technological
standards of the Empire.  Some could be trained to use basic machinery in
months, but others would take years to be brought up to the level where they
could contribute to the Empire.  Except for the sibling groups we train for
com duty with the Fleet, he thought.  Those will need to be put through
basic training, and then assigned to a ship for on the job training.

They had sent
another four hundred and fifty thousand to the Exploration Command base, and
the multiple habitats that had been built for them.  They had moved, or were in
the process of moving, nine hundred thousand of the sentients, as well as
samples of the complete genetic heritage of the planet.  They had saved the
species.  Which didn’t always give the Admiral a good feeling as he thought
about the six billion they hadn’t saved, who would start dying by the hundreds
of millions a day, starting in less than two days.

The Admiral
pulled up a holo of the world, with all of the blinking dots that showed where
the shelter fields they had planted all over the surface were located.  They
had finished four hundred and ninety of the buried structures, with a capacity
of over twelve million, well past their projections.  There was a chance they
would survive, actually quite good, if not guaranteed.  And they would come out
of the shelters to find a world of dead plants and rotting corpses.

“It’s visible,
Admiral,” came a call on the com, and Nguyen switched the view on his office
holo to the same as that being projected on the main bridge viewer.  And on
that viewer was centered a very bright star, the most luminous in the skies of
this system.  Only now it was even brighter, and getting more so by the second,
until it was as bright as a second sun.

So much
power, turned to destruction, he thought as the bright point grew brighter,
until it was so luminous that it could damage the naked eye out here in space.
It was the sign of a wasted system.  Of planets vaporized by their traitor
star, the object that was supposed to be the life giver.  In another way, it
was not a waste.  The churn of that self-destructing furnace had also seeded
its expanding cloud with materials that a star could not otherwise produce.
Heavy metals beyond iron, gold, silver, uranium, and many others that would
allow worlds billions of years in the future to become the havens of
intelligent, technological sentients.

He had watched
the data, visual and other, than had been returned from the probes that had
watched the detonation process and its subsequent destruction of the planets.
The destroyers that had gone there had risked much, but had found all but a few
of the probes, or their black boxes, floating in space, all pushed outward by
the combined light, matter and radiation pressure from the event.  It had been
a humbling experience to watch a process that produced a billion times more
energy than his entire civilization had produced in its lifetime.

“Radiation wave
arrival at this point in thirty-eight hours, ten minutes,” came the voice of
the ship’s computer over the intercom.

“And then a
little over two hours from here to the planet,” said the Admiral under his
breath, the image of all of those rotting bodies in mind when he closed his
eyes.

*     *     *

“Watch your
step, Leader,” said the security trooper, reaching out his left side tentacles
to grasp those on the right side of Zzarr.

The bright light
of daylight shone down through the hole they were climbing out of.  Zzarr
looked at his fine timepiece, which had been guaranteed to lose only a few
seconds per year, and wondered what was wrong with it.  “It should be night.”

“There’s
something, different, about the sky, Leader,” said another male who was helping
him out of the hole they had dug up from the refuge.

“What do you
mean, different?”

“The sky is as
bright as day,” said the trooper at the top of the hole as he pulled the older
male up and into the free air.

“By Hrrottha, it
has happened,” said Zzarr, looking up to the sky to the bright star that
dominated it.  It was painful to look at, and after a moment he was forced to
look away.  He looked through the spots over his field of view at the mountain
valley they had entered.  It was lit up as bright as day, more so if his memory
hadn’t failed him.

“Why is the
world still here?” he asked as his science councilor followed him out of the
hole.

“We are seeing
the light of the exploding star,” said the Scientist.  “The radiation wave
travels slightly slower than light, and will be along, soon.”

“Then we must
pray to Hrrottha for the salvation of our souls,” said the Leader, feeling the
joy of religious rapture coming over him.  “For soon this world will fade, and
we will face our judgment.”

“Shouldn’t we
seek shelter, my Leader?” asked one of the troopers, as other people were
helped from the hole.

“Blasphemy,”
said the Staff Cleric, who was now getting back on his feet after crawling out
of the hole.  “The God will soon take us to his bosom, and who are you to try
and escape his judgment.”

“I beg your
forgiveness, your Excellency,” said the trooper, dropping to his knees.

“There is no
time for argument,” said Zzarr, glancing back at the sky.  He looked over at
the Cleric.  “Prepare for the ceremony.  I want us to greet the God when he
brings his hand down on the world.  I want our place in paradise secured, while
the nonbelievers are struck down to eternal punishment.”  And I bet that the
unbelievers believe now, and wish they had worshipped as we did.  Too late,
because our God is vengeful, and will not listen to the entreaties of those who
turn to him in fear.  They will burn, and their screams will be the chorus to
our ears as we bask on the presence of our God.

*     *     *

“Why are you up
here, First Councilman?” asked the Aide, finding Rizzit Contena on the rooftop
of the Council Building.  “Aren’t you afraid that the light from the star will
kill you?”

“I couldn’t
think of anything better to do with my time,” said the First Councilman, who
was in the process of communing with his siblings, as he was sure most of the
citizens of his country were doing.  Maybe not most of them, he thought,
looking down on a nearby church.  Many of his citizens had flocked to the
churches as soon as the news had come from the other side of the world of the
bright light in the sky.

He looked back
at his Aide, and could see that the male was terrified.  “Nothing to fear from
the light, Grozzit.  It’s harmless in and of itself, though I wouldn’t stare
into it if you wanted to keep your sight.  No, it’s the radiation wave we have
to worry about, and there’s really nothing we can do about it anyway.”

“You could have
sought one of the shelters, First Councilman.  With your rank, there was no way
you would not have been admitted.”

And hopefully
you with me, thought the leader of Tsarzor.  But the future world will
not need over the hill politicians, or political aides.  The thoughts of
his siblings came to him then, all in agreement with his thoughts, that the
people of his nation did not need their elders looking over their shoulders as
they rebuilt their world.

The sun was
going down in the west, a large orange ball halfway below the trees of the
large park in that direction.  The sky was darkening, though there was still
something strange about it.  Rizzit turned around to look at the other side of
the sky, the east, where a light was shining on the horizon that hadn’t been
there on previous evenings.  As the sun disappeared in the west, the light
continued to brighten in the east, and what would normally be the coming of
darkness was now merely a changeover of one day for another.  Minutes after the
sun had disappeared, the eye hurting light of the exploded star rose in the
east.

It really
happened, thought Rizzit, who, though he was sure it was fact, could not
see it as real until it was seen by his own eyes.  And thirty-eight hours
before the invisible radiation strikes, he thought, and the dying
starts.

His science
advisors had told him that there would be some minor damage to the planet well
before that wave arrived.  The planet would go up in temperature, only a few
degrees over several days, at most fifteen during the entire event.  But that
was enough to cause drought, famine, the melting of ice caps, all disasters
that would bring pain and suffering to billions.  Except they will all be
dead by then.

Rizzit continued
to watch the rise of the star, averting his gaze and looking out of the corner
of his eyes to protect them from damage.  He wondered why he bothered, but
decided it was because he did not want to spend his last days blind as well as
sick.  The blindness might come soon enough anyway, when the radiation hit his
nervous system.  But until then, he didn’t see any reason to hasten the
process.

The next evening
he was again on the rooftop, watching as the sun set and the new, second sun
rose, even brighter than the night before.  Now only fourteen hours away from
the front of the radiation wave, he knew that the rising of the true sun might
be the last he would ever witness.  He spent the night on the rooftop, watching
more people stream into the churches, or loot and riot on the street, the
disbelief of people in their own end manifesting in violence.  His brothers
joined him on the rooftop just before sunrise, wishing for them all to be
together when the end came.  They had decided they would not try to shelter
from the radiation, but would greet it, taking in as much as possible in the
shortest time in order to die quickly.

Or maybe not, as
Kazzit, the financier, pulled out a case of syringes containing a drug that
would ease them easily into the darkness of death, well before radiation could
sicken them.

“We wait until
the effects of the radiation are apparent,” ordered Rizzit to his siblings, who
all nodded as they sent back their acceptance of his leadership to the end.

“But not too
long,” said Mazzat, the general.  “I don’t want to go out puking and shitting
on myself.”

All agreed with
that as well, and they turned to watch as the sun rose once again in the east,
wondering if this would be the last they would ever see.

“Councilman,”
came a call over his portable com.  “Councilman.”

“What is it?” he
asked, pulling out the com and looking at the face revealed, that of another of
his aides.  “Why are you disturbing us at a time like this?  And shouldn’t you
be with your family?”

“Sir.  You have
to see this.”

“See what?”

“The artifacts,
sir.  They’re glowing.”

“They were
already glowing,” said the incredulous leader.  “What in the hells are you
talking about.”

“You have to see
for yourself, sir,” said the Aide.

“Come on,”
Rizzit told his brothers, heading for the doorway to the stairs.

He headed for
the top floor conference room, where he knew a wide screen TV was located.  It
was already on when he entered the room, his brothers on his heels.  And there
was a view of one of the artifacts.  Rizzit stopped in his tracks and stared,
unable to believe his eyes, and not sure what they were telling him.

*     *     *

Captain Mandy
Albright sat in her command chair on the bridge of the William Clark and
stared at the holo of the planet she had been placed to observe.  It wasn’t a
job she was going to enjoy, watching the death of that world.  She wasn’t
worried much about her own ship or her people.  They were hiding in the shadow
of the planet, and not much of the radiation wave would get through that mass
of rock, if any.  Their electromagnetic fields were up at half strength, just
as a precaution.  Otherwise, they were in their shipboard coveralls,
concentrating on recording the entire process with their ship’s sensors and the
satellite net that was orbiting the planet.

“Something’s
going on with the artifacts, ma’am,” called out Ensign da Conti from his sensor
station.

“Show me,” she
shouted in her nervousness, then forced herself to speak in a normal tone.
“Show us, Ensign.”

Da Conti nodded
and a shot of the nearest artifact, curving above the atmosphere to the port
and one thousand kilometers in, appeared on the main holo.  “It’s glowing at
three times its former luminosity, and increasing.”

“Energy
readings?”

“Ten times
normal and rising.  I can’t tell where that energy is going, ma’am, but so far
it’s not directed at us.”

“What about the
other artifacts?”

The viewer
switched to another, showing the same effects, as was a third.  The view swept
back to a composite shot from the satellites, and Albright felt her breath
catch.  The entire planetary system of artifacts was glowing, and it was
increasing by the moment.

“Time to
radiation wave impact, twenty-eight minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer.
“This can’t be coincidence, ma’am.”

“Make sure the
Admiral is getting this,” ordered the Captain, knowing that he wouldn’t receive
these images until he returned to normal space, though the grav pulse would
tell him much sooner as it was relayed through the probes he had left in normal
space, giving him a short synopsis of the phenomenon.

“Should we move
back a bit, ma’am?” asked the XO, Commander Sekumbe, from his station in CIC.
“I would hate to see what happened to Challenger take us to the same
place.  Especially since we would go along with the Clark.”

“Back us out of
here, Helm,” ordered Albright, nodding at the suggestion of her Exec.  “Twenty
gravities.  All stop at ten thousand kilometers from current position.”

“Aye, aye,
ma’am,” called out the Helmsman, setting the ship in motion.

“Energy readings
twenty times normal ma’am.  They’re…they’re rising off the charts.  Still not
directed at us.”  The tone of the young Ensign’s voice let her know that he
didn’t feel secure just because it wasn’t currently directed at them.

Now the objects
were glowing bright enough to hurt the eyes, and there was a strange ripple
effect around the edge of the globe.  The viewer performed an automatic
step-down in brightness to protect the sight of the crew, and had to buffer
again a few moments later.  At that point the ripple effect had increased to
the level that the surface of the planet was hard to see.  And then, with a
flash, it was gone.

*     *     *

“What is
happening?” demanded Zzarr as he looked up at the sky.  The group had gathered
out in the open, awaiting the manifestation of Hrrattha that they knew was on
the brink.  His security had set up the portable communications gear they had
brought up from below so they could listen to the casts from all the other
nations as they discovered they were about to achieve paradise, or be pulled
down to hell.  The priests in the party had set up an altar and had been
celebrating continuously as they waited for the end, the others of the large
party moving in and out of the celebration as the mood struck them.  All were
looking forward to the coming dawn, when the hand of their God would strike, as
it was just about to strike at their enemies on the side of the planet facing
that God.

But now everyone
was looking to the sky, moonless this night, filled with the stars of the
Perseus Arm.  Except that those stars were starting to fade for no apparent
reason.  Already they had lost half their luminosity, and what was left was
fading with alarming speed.

“Look,” yelled
one of the soldiers, standing on the side of the mountain and pointing to the
north, where one of the artifacts rose into the sky.  There had already been
much discussion of that artifact when they had first reached the surface, most,
including the priests, believing that the temples were finally awakening to the
glory of their God.

Now the
structure was glowing brightly along its entire length, its bluish light
illuminating the mountains much like a full moon.  It grew brighter, the stars
faded completely, and the sky above started taking on a purplish tint.

“What is
happening?” asked Zzarr again.

“It must be the
coming of paradise,” shouted out one of the priests.

“What are you
hearing on the media?” yelled Zzarr, looking over at his monitoring crew.  “Are
they screaming in panic as Hrrottha reaches for them.”

One of the males
monitoring the news looked up, an expression of surprise on his face, and sent
his feed to one of the speakers.

“We are not sure
what is happening,” said the voice of a male speaking the language of the
Tsarzorians.  “But it appears that salvation is at hand.  The Gods have taken
pity on us.”

“No,” yelled
Zzarr, shaking his tentacles.  “This cannot be.  Their Gods are fiction.  They
cannot be saved.”

“Calm, Leader,”
said one of the priests, hurrying over to Zzarr.  “This is just the start, and
surely the Tsarzorians are mistaking their temporary deliverance for
salvation.  When Hrrottha appears in the flesh, they will realize their error,
before they are consumed with terror.”

The Leader
looked back to the now purple sky, devoid of stars.  The purplish light of that
sky now cast strange shadows across the landscape, making the familiar world
look as alien as anything on another planet.

“Of course,”
said Zzarr, trying to believe his own thoughts, his own words.  “Of course,
this is just the beginning.”

*     *     *

“Something is
happening,” called out the Sensor Officer, switching the viewer from the shadow
of the planet to the station.  Part of that station was now glowing, as bright
as a star in the day sky.  Not the entire construct, but only the one side,
pointing like a search light toward the shadow.  Where something else was
happening.

“They’re
bringing the whole damned planet into this dimension,” said Captain Gertrude
Hasslehoff in a quiet voice.

She stared at
the shadow, as the shapes of the artifacts rising above the world first began
to glow, brighter every second, and with that light they solidified into the
forms she had seen in the dimension of normal space.  Their light fell on the
world, quickly turning shadow into detail, like a sun rising over hills.  She
wasn’t sure how long it took, and really didn’t concern herself with that.  The
ship’s memory would tell them later to the micro-second.  However long it took,
it seemed like seconds before Klassek was there in front of them in all its
glory, lights of cities standing out like glorious gems on the night side,
while the sun like spotlight of the station illuminated the day side.

“We’re picking
up signals from the planet,” said the Com Officer, a look of disbelief on his
face.  “They’re all talking down there.  No one knows what happened, but
they’re vocally throwing around their opinions.  Or thanking whatever of their
gods they believed in.”

“They saved the
whole damn planet,” she said in a louder voice, looking around at all of the
incredulous faces of her crew.  “The sons of bitches saved the whole damn
world, and everyone on it.”

At first there
was silence, everyone staring at her.  A cheer came over the intercom, joined
by another, until a rising crescendo of yells and calls of joy echoed through
the ship.

Hasslehoff sat
in her chair as the bridge erupted around her, tears rolling down her cheeks.  They
set this up thousands of years ago, put all this effort into this project, so
that a world would not die.

“What’s next?”
asked Commander Ungra from engineering.  “What happens now?”

“Now, we hug
this world for all its worth.  When they return to normal space, we go with
them.”  She looked at the planet for a few moments more before looking back at
her Com Officer.

“Get First
Councilman Rizzit on the com,” she ordered.  “We have a lot to talk about.”

*     *     *

Rizzit looked
out of the window of the conference room to the purplish cast sky.  The strange
object hanging there was not a sun.  He could tell that in a moment.  It was
too large, though he knew it was much closer than their star.  It was providing
the same function as their sun, sending life giving light onto the world.  He
could feel the warmth on his face.

“What happened?”
asked the Aide.

Rizzit looked at
the faces of his brothers, knowing through his link that they had come to the
same conclusion, reading his thoughts while he read theirs.  “They saved us,”
he said.  “All of us.”

“Who?” demanded
the frightened looking Aide.  “The humans?  The Gods?”

“It wasn’t the
humans,” he said, looking back at the viewer that still showed the artifact,
its bright glow now having backed off to its rest state, that which it had
manifested at the time the blue giant had blown.  Holding its power, waiting.
To bring them back?  He had to believe that.  “It wasn’t the Gods,” he continued,
looking the Aide in the face.  He looked back out the window at the bright
object in the sky.  “They might seem like Gods to us, as advanced as they are.
Even the humans might consider them Gods, though I doubt they would go that
far.”

“First Councilman,”
called out another Aide, running into the room.  “One of the human ships is on
the radio.  They wish to speak to you.”

“Who?” asked the
surprised leader, not sure how the humans would have followed them here.

“It’s their
missing ship.  The Challenger.”

The one that
disappeared, thought Rizzit.

It wasn’t
destroyed, thought Mazzat, the general.  It was sent here, wherever here
is.

“Let’s go talk
with them,” he told the second Aide.  “I think we have a lot to talk about.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke.

“Raise the
electromagnetic field to maximum,” ordered Captain Albright, staring at the
spot that the planet had once existed at but now no longer did.  “I want cold
plasma injection, now.”  She looked around the bridge, noting that no one was
in armor, which would help to protect them from the coming radiation storm.

“As soon as you
get my ship’s protection squared away, everyone get into their armor.”  She
linked to the ship’s medical bay a moment later.  “I want our nanite stores
under maximum radiation protection protocol, set for maximum reproduction.”

Radiation was
one thing that could purge their systems of working nanites, the fast moving
particles not only damaging their cells but also battering the nanoscale
robots.  And the robots were really the only thing that could repair the damage
to their cells, so they would be in great need in the near future.

Orders given,
Albright jumped to her feet and ran to her armor cubby, which was opening at
her approach.  She backed into the cubby, letting her arms and legs seek their
hollows while her head rested against the back of the helmet.  The connections,
neural and sanitary, were made, and the suit closed up around her.  As soon as
closure was made the nanosystems sealed the seams to the point where they no
longer existed, and would not exist again until those systems opened them.

Albright looked
for some other cover, something that would help them to survive until they
could get out of the system and into hyperspace.  The planet’s moon was still
there, still moving in the same orbit for some reason.

“What’s the
gravitic environment?” she asked her Sensor Officer as he got back in his seat,
his own armor sealed.

The officer
looked to his board for a moment.  “We’re still sensing the presence of the
planet, even though it’s not there as far as we can tell through any other
means.”

“And the moon?”

“Still in its
path, just like the planet is still there.”

“Helm,” she
called out.  “Get us behind it as fast as possible.”

“ETA to
sheltering position, fifteen minutes, twelve seconds,” called back the
Helmsman, working his board.

“Radiation wave
in fifty-three seconds,” called out the Tactical Officer.

So we will be
exposed for over fourteen minutes, she thought, looking at the moon, three
thousand kilometers of rock with a small metallic core, which would stop
everything but neutrinos, and neutrinos couldn’t hurt them.  Neutrons could,
and would go right through their electromagnetic field like it wasn’t there.

“Make sure the
Admiral gets all of our data on continuous update,” she ordered the Com
Officer.  “Both grav pulse and cast.”  Even if they don’t get the cast while
they’re in hyper.

The main threat
was not the wave per se, which was a wave much in the way a tsunami crossing
deep water was.  It was expanding as the inverse square of the distance from
the point of origin, for each doubling of distance a quartering of the
particles.  Not all the particles thrown out of the supernova had not been
given equal force, though it was pretty close to equal.  It was spreading out
in depth as the slower particles were outpaced by those with greater
velocities.  It was now a light week in thickness.  By the time it reached the
nearer stars, light years away, it would be over a light month from wavefront
to end.  That did not make it any less deadly, since the radiation would strike
over a longer period of time, though of course it would have lost some of its
strength due to that same inverse square law.

The main threat
to the ship was the presence of violent beams of neutrons that were
intermingled with the general wave, with did not spread as much and carried
hundreds of times more energy per square meter of front than the rest of the
expanding tsunami of death.  The odds were remote that they would be hit, but
not out of the realm of possibility.  And in a Universe where anything could
happen, it would, eventually.

“Wavefront
impact, now,” called out the Sensory Officer.

The wall of
radiation washed over the ship, alpha, beta, gamma, more exotic particles.
Charged particles were either repelled by the electromagnetic field, or grabbed
and pulled around the ship by its attraction.  This was true for about three
quarters of these particles, as the screens were overloaded by the sheer
volume.  The uncharged particles were not affected by the fields at all, though
many of them hit the hydrogen molecules in the cold plasma and were deflected
away.  But many in this mass meant a very small percentage of them, and the
great majority pushed through to hit the armored nose of the ship.  The armor
was a very good particle shield, and over ninety-five percent of the neutrons
that hit it were stopped, while that five percent made it through.  It hit more
barriers after it passed the hull, so that only one half of one percent of the
original neutron radiation made it through to hit the crew in their armored
suits, where about half of it was stopped as well.

Everyone aboard
the ship, save those working within the engineering section, where there was
shielding intended to keep the radiation of the matter/anti-matter reactors in
check, felt a wave of nausea pass through them with the radiation, minor, not
anything they would not recover from.  But the radiation continued, and each
second some of their internal nanites, the tiny robots that would fight
cellular damage, were taken out.

Albright checked
the readouts from the ships sensors, and the composite of the takes from each
and every crewperson, analyzed by the computers, and was sure they would make
it through to their hiding place.  From where the crew could be re-injected
with nanites.

As soon as she
had that thought, while still almost ten seconds from shelter behind the moon,
they were clipped by one of those high energy neutron beams.  It didn’t hit
head on, but through the stern third of the ship just to the rear of
engineering.  Not the full width of the beam, only about a third of it, and
only for a microsecond, it was still enough to shoot killing radiation through
sixty-one of the crew while causing severe radiation sickness among forty two
others.

Warning klaxons
sounded throughout the ship, and Albright looked at the schematic to see where
they had been hit, her face going white as the casualty figures came through
her link.

“Medical
emergency, sections forty through forty-six, decks nine through seventeen,”
came a call over the com.

Clark
slid behind the moon at maximum deceleration, putting the body between itself
and the radiation wave.  Commands were imputed into the computer that would
force the ship to hold position, fighting against the orbit its velocity and
the gravity of the moon wanted to force it into, through the constant pull of
its grabbers.

“We made it,”
called out Commander Nord Sekumbe from CIC, which had been too close for
comfort to the section that had intersected the neutron beam.

“Are you OK,
Exec?”

“Everyone
survived,” he said, stopping to cough.  “We’re all a little sick, and ten more
meters would have hurt a lot more.  But I think we’ll make it.”

And we’re all
lucky to have made it, thought the Captain, looking at the place where the
planet had been, and still was there, according to its gravity, even if
materially it was gone.  Some hadn’t made it, but it could have been much
worse, and she was thankful that it hadn’t been.

*     *     *

“The grav pulse
signal has repeated for the third time, Admiral,” said Captain Susan Lee,
standing beside his command chair.  “We’ve cleaned up all the inconsistencies
caused by the static, and we’re sure of the content.”

“Which is?”
asked Nguyen, looking up at his Chief of Staff.  “Just the gist of it.”  He
knew it had taken over ten minutes for each iteration of the message to come
through.  It had been severely distorted by all of the radiation, and by some
new distortions they had never before encountered.  Maybe from the planet
jumping dimensions.

They still had
not actually seen that the planet was missing, not stuck in hyperspace like
they were.  The ship’s commander had scheduled a probe launch to translate back
into normal space in time to catch the visual image of the planet when it was
said to have translated.  The probe would spend the minimum time it could to
gather the information, then jump back into hyper, bringing with it the take
from real space.

“From what Clark
transmitted, the planet disappeared just before the radiation wave reached it.
The alien artifacts glowed with almost painful brilliance, and the planet was
gone.  And with it the cover that the cruiser was depending on to provide protection
from the wave.”

“And the
condition of Clark?”

“They report
having made it to safety with some damage and heavy casualties.  The planet’s
moon is still there, and they sheltered behind it.”

The moon is
still there?  What the hell happened there?  Why didn’t it go flying off on its
own, or into a new orbit?  Of course, it might have, and we won’t know until
we’ve gotten firm com with the cruiser.  “Did they say how heavy their
casualties were?”

“No, sir.  Only
that one word, heavy.”

“And they stayed
there on my orders, so they could observe a planet that doesn’t need further
observation.”  Nguyen rubbed his eyes, the guilt of however many men and women
had died or been injured falling squarely on his shoulders.

“You couldn’t
know that, sir,” said the Captain, laying a hand on his shoulder.  “As far as
any of us knew, that planet was going to continue being there, no matter what
else happened.”

“And those
objects on the planet?  What were they for?  And why did they take the planet
out of normal space?”

“To save the
planet and the people on it would be my guess,” said Lee.  “Some other
civilization saw this coming, thousands of years ago, if the histories of the
Klassekians are to be believed.  They set up the machinery to take the planet
out of the way of the radiation wave.”

“Is such
technology even possible?” asked Captain Jackson, the ship’s commander.  “It
boggles the mind.”

“It’s only a
matter of scale over what we already do,” said Lee, nodding.  “We move objects
of millions of tons between the dimensions of normal, sub and hyperspace.  And
with the Donut in operation, who can say where our own abilities will
end.”

“And will it be
coming back?” asked Jackson.  “The planet, I mean?”

“I would think
so,” said Lee, looking over at her Admiral.

“I guess a
better question would be,” murmured Nguyen, “is whether they went to the same
place as Challenger.  And if Challenger will come back through
when they do?”

*     *     *

“So, it seems as
if your aid was not needed in the first place,” said First Councilman Rizzit
Contena over the com.  “Not that we don’t appreciate the help, since it looked
to those of us with enough rationality to think that we were doomed as well.”

“We have no idea
who these creatures are who saved you,” said Captain Gertrude Hasslehoff in
return.  “They contacted us as soon as we made it back to this location, and
explained somewhat how this was going down.  Other than that, and some basic
information on what they look like, we know almost nothing about them.”

“Is this where
we stay from now on?” asked Rizzit, his eyes looking off screen for a moment.
“Not that we’re not grateful to them as well, but I think we will miss the
sight of our own sun, and the stars in the sky.”

“They told us to
stay close to the planet if we want to return to our space,” said Hasslehoff,
recalling the words of the alien.  “I don’t think they would tell us that if
they didn’t intend for you to return as well.”

“When?”

“Surely not
until the radiation wave has passed,” said the Captain.  “Say, two to three weeks.”

“My people are
already celebrating their deliverance in the streets.  They even put an
artificial sun in the sky, so that the plants won’t die.”

“You will still
face some problems in the future,” said Hasslehoff.  “I’m not an expert on
supernovas, but that one had to have put a lot of material into space, and not
just what’s in the radiation wave.  It’s going to make a hell of a nebula, and,
though it may take centuries, or longer, your system will eventually be invaded
by that gas cloud, and I have no idea what effects it will have on your
planet.  But I can already think of some really bad consequences.”

“So, what are we
to do?” asked the leader, looking like a depression was about to overtake him,
if the Captain was reading it right.

“By the time the
nebula reaches you, you should be advanced enough to take one of any number of
technological solutions.  And that we can help you with.”  Unless the
mysterious aliens have that covered as well.  But they told us they were about
to go on their last crusade, so it will probably be up to us to take care of
the Klassekians.

“So what should
I do?” asked the First Councilman.  “I mean about the current situation.”

“Talk to your
people.  Keep them calm, and reassure them that things will return to normal.
Do you have contact with any of the other nations?”

“Our allies.
The Honish refuse to return any of our com requests, other than to gloat how
they will be seeing us in hell in the near future, seeing as how judgment day
is here.”

“And who is
their leader?”

“Still Zzarr, if
you can believe that, Captain.”  He must have seen the confused expression on
the Captain’s face.  “It happened after you, disappeared.  Zzarr retreated to
an underground shelter to escape capture, and Admiral Nguyen, as soon as he
found the location, hit him with a heavy kinetic.  We thought he had gone on to
meet his God, but somehow he survived, and is now broadcasting to his people
that they are in paradise.”

“And no one has
tried to talk him out of this madness and see reason?”

“We’ve tried,
but all he does now is tell us how we are doomed.”

“Do you have his
general location?”

“No, but we have
the frequency he has been broadcasting on.  Will that help?”

“I think it
will, First Councilman.  I surely think it will.”

*     *     *

Zzarr stood outside
the tent that now housed the broadcast equipment that was linked into the
national media net, looking up to the sky and wondering when the hells the God
was going to make his appearance.  After all, paradise was here, wasn’t it?
Though he had to admit he felt no healthier, no younger, things that were
supposed to go along with paradise.  Or did that need the coming of the God to
happen.  Which again brought forth the question of where that God was.

He looked around
at his camp, seeing all of the people still going about their business, putting
up more tents from the supplies that were continuing to come from below,
waiting for the air transports to come and take them back to the capital.  Not
that many of his military were actually doing anything like put aircraft in the
air, since they had more important things to do, like wait for their savior to
come down from heaven.

The first he
knew that something other than his own people, or the God, were coming to him
was when a trio of the human shuttles came over the ridgeline on their nearly
silent propulsion.  He recognized them for the assault vehicles used to deliver
their ground combat troops.  But even recognizing them didn’t mean he believed
they were there.

They can’t be,
was the thought that kept running through his mind.  What the hell would
humans, or their machines, be doing here?  This is our judgment, not theirs.
The thought then hit him that maybe these humans were here to suffer for the
sins of the rest.  Until the shuttles started on their way down the side of the
ridge.

“Zzarr,” yelled
a translated human voice over the speakers of all the shuttles.  “You are
hereby notified that you, and all who stand with you, and under arrest for the
violations of the laws of the New Terran Empire, as well as those of the
civilized nations of the planet Klassek.  These include mass murder and the
deployment of weapons of mass destruction both against the militaries of the
Empire, the Nation of Tsarzor, and associated nations, as well as civilians
caught in the line of fire.”

Hatches popped
on the bottoms of all the shuttles, and immediately the armored forms of
Marines fell into the air, catching themselves on their grabber units and
propelling themselves down the valley.  Rocket pods extruded from the bodies of
the shuttles, whose laser rings now glowed with power.

“They come for
the Leader,” yelled one of the military commanders in the camp.  “Stop them.”

The hundred or
so soldiers on the ground opened fire, their military discipline overruling
their common sense.  All they had were personal weapons, rifles, pistols, a
couple of light machine guns.  Nothing that could hurt the Marines or their
shuttles.  Bullets sparked off of hard alloys, and the Imperials returned fire
with lasers and particle beams.

The fight was
really over before it began, the energy weapons destroying their targets,
killing three quarters of the Honish troops before the remainder dropped their
weapons and tried frantically to surrender.

“Zzarr, Leader
of Honish,” intoned the speakers on a Marine’s armor as the suit stopped in
front of the elder.  “You are under arrest.”

Hard alloy
gauntlets grabbed him, then secured him with plastic restraints.

“You can’t be
here,” shouted Zzarr, struggling against the restraints that had no yield in them.
“This is our time, and that of our God.”

“You God appears
to be a no show,” said the Marine, who the Leader thought had the rank of a
company commander on his helmet.  “Don’t worry, though.  We’ve got a  good
selection of our own.  Maybe you can pick up a new one while we have you locked
up awaiting trial.”

Chapter Twenty-six

And one day the machines will
come back.  The giant ground combat robots, the self-aware ships, the things
which murdered billions of humans.  Some say they are already here, in the
darkness, waiting to snag unwary children who leave their homes at night.

Bedtime story told in the New
Terran Empire.

FEBRUARY 10TH, 1002.
D+217.

“The Crean is
reporting hyper resonances at the far edge of their sensor range, ma’am,”
reported the Captain of the battle cruiser Francis Drake, Commodore
Natasha Khrushchev’s flagship.

The ship in
question was the Exploration Command destroyer Tom Crean, named after an
Irish born Antarctic explorer from Old Earth.  It was the tail end of their
rear scouting party, consisting of the destroyer and two sister ships, Xuanzang
and Yuri Gagarin, as well as the light cruiser Gjoa, all Command
vessels.  The forward screen consisted of light cruisers Roebuck and Jeannette,
along with the Command destroyers Benedict Allen, Martin Forbisher and Bill
Anders, along with the Fleet destroyer James Stewart.  Which left
the two battle cruisers, Drake and Endurance, both Command ships,
the Fleet heavy cruiser New Potsdam, and the light cruiser Greenville,
also a Fleet vessel.  Flanking the convoy to either side were the Fleet
destroyers Mihn Quan and Todrick McDermit.

The Command
ships had better sensor suites, while the Fleet ships carried a heavier missile
load, both offensive and defensive.  None of the ships carried the same load of
hyper capable missiles, or the dual purpose weapons just entering service, as
the vessels in Sector IV, where the war was raging.  Those weapons were still
in short supply, and were going to where they were needed most.

Khrushchev would
have wished for more of those new weapons, just as she would have wanted more
ships to guard this convoy.  Unfortunately, that was true of any force
commander. More was always better.

“What else are
they giving us?” asked the Commodore, looking at the tactical plot, which
showed the trailing squadron twenty light minutes back from the body of the
convoy.  Meaning com was only possible through grav pulse, as anything
transmitted through the electromagnetic spectrums would have fallen back to
normal space well before reaching target.

“They think it
was a translation of fourteen vessels into hyper VI, just on the edge of
detection range.  Identification, unknown.  Type and mass, unknown.  Vector,
unknown, but presumed to be in our general direction.”

And they are
unlikely to catch us, thought the Commodore, wondering who they could
be way out here in the middle of nowhere.  The convoy was moving through hyper
VI at point nine light, the greatest safe velocity possible for the freighters
and liners, with their much less robust particle fields.  They were
approximately one hundred and three point two hours away from deceleration, and
would take just a little over a day to get down to point two c outside the
hyper VI barrier to the system, from whence they would start their stair step
of translations.  Because of the time dilation of relativistic effects, which
worked in hyperspace as well, they were only forty five hours from translation
according to the clocks kept on the ships.

Twelve hours
later the hope that the unknowns were out of the picture was shattered.

“Report from Gjoa,
Commodore,” reported the Flag Com Officer, who was now monitoring the same
channels as the flagship’s communications section.  “They’re picking up
fourteen sources coming up from astern at point nine-six light.  Still
accelerating at an estimated twelve hundred gravities.”

“My God,”
blurted the Commodore, looking back at the tactical holo, seeing the fourteen
red arrows that had appeared.  The acceleration meant they were either small
ships, since the Empire had vessels that could reach near to those levels of
pseudogravitation, but none that were capable of hyper.  Or that they had
massive inertial compensators, which the humans had found to eventually reach
diminishing returns.  Or they could handle much higher gravity loads than other
living creatures.  If they are living creatures, thought the Commodore,
a chill running down her spine.

Their velocity
was just as alarming.  The human ships could at most pull point nine five
light, due to the sleet of deadly particles such velocities engendered.  The
merchant ships among them could pull point nine c, still higher than most ships
of their type, since they had been configured to go from point a to b at near
military speeds.  So again, these beings either had much better shielding,
something humans were still trying to develop, with little success.  Or they
weren’t as bothered by particle radiation as any known organic form.

“Any
identification of class?” she asked, hoping that she might get the information
to fill in the gaps.

“Preliminary
estimates put them between one and three million tons, ma’am.”

Which means
they are not small couriers or attack craft.  More like heavy cruisers.

“Orders, ma’am?”
asked the Drake’s Captain, who was also the convoy’s lead ship’s
commander.

“I don’t want
those ships within missile range of the convoy.”  Even though we don’t know
what their range is, or if they even have hyper capable missiles.  But I have
to assume they do.  “Gjoa is to warn them off by all means possible.
They are not to fire until fired upon, or until the unknowns are fifteen
minutes within a destroyer missile’s maximum range of the convoy.”  She
suspected that their range would be greater than even her own cruisers, but she
wanted her destroyers to be able to fire if needed.  “When the unknowns enter
that range, I want our ships to fire a warning shot, followed by fire for
effect if they do not respond to that shot.”

“They’re kind of
outnumbered and out massed back there, ma’am,” said the Captain.

“Endurance,
Greenville and the two flanking destroyers will drop back to support
them,” she ordered.

“Not the Drake,
ma’am?”

Khrushchev
thought for a moment, then shook her head.  “I don’t want to strip the convoy
of all of its close in missile protection, so I want us and New Potsdam
to remain in support of the fragiles.”

That still
gives them the advantage in mass, but not quite of the same magnitude, she
thought.  I could pull back the forward screen, and then drop Drake and
New Potsdam back with the rear screen, which would probably give us the
mass advantage.  She thought about that for a moment, then dismissed it,
not knowing what waited ahead.  The wait to find out did not take long.

“Roebuck
is reporting twelve contacts ahead, accelerating at twelve hundred gravities on
a vector that will bring them into contact with the forward screen in
forty-nine minutes.  CIC is designating original force as Bogey One, new
contact as Bogey Two.”

In that instant
the entire equation was changed.  Now she couldn’t pull back the forward
screen, and couldn’t afford to reinforce the force to the rear.  Doctrine
called for trying to defeat the unknown forces in detail, but doing so would
leave the merchantmen and liners open to attack from the other force.

And we still
don’t know what they are, she thought, staring at the tactical that was
showing a situation she was very uncomfortable with.  Pirates?  Probably not
in those numbers.  And pirates are more likely to attack an easier target than
we present.

On the face of
it, piracy did not seem like a viable tactic for the accumulation of fortune.
It still occurred, especially out on the fringes, or beyond the borders of the
major powers.  One capture could set the rogues up for life, and they could
rely on the thought that some pirate somewhere made that capture every couple
of months, so why not them.  Or, more likely, they could find a technologically
backward system to extort/exploit.  But this didn’t feel like an attack by
pirates, since most of that ilk weren’t of the proper personality type to get
along in large groups.

“Change of
orders,” she said to the holo of the Captain of the Drake, glancing over
at her Com Officer to make sure he was also getting her words to transmit to
the entire squadron.  “All ships are to accelerate up to point nine three
light.”  She knew that would cause some problems with the particle shielding of
the non-warships, and the people aboard would probably sustain some cellular
damage.  That could be repaired, while being blown apart by a missile launched
by a hostile ship could not.

“Rear force is
to remain in place at their current distance, increasing acceleration to match
that of the convoy.”

“They’re going
to be overwhelmed, ma’am,” said Drake’s commander, Captain
Timofeyavich..

“They’ll just
have to do the best they can,” she replied, not liking the probable effects of
that command on those ships and crews, and not really sure what else she could
order.  “Meanwhile, Drake, Endurance and the destroyers will boost ahead
and join with the forward screen.  We will blast our way through those ships
and make a way for the convoy.”

“We still aren’t
sure about their motivations, ma’am,” said the Captain, no disapproval in his
tone, just playing devil’s advocate.

“I cannot risk
the convoy.  There are one hundred and ninety-five thousand of an endangered
sentient species aboard, not to mention twenty-five thousand precious skilled
workers for Bolthole.”  She thought about those other people for a
moment, some of whom had families along with them.  The great majority were
humans, with a smattering of Phlistarans, Gryphons, Malticons, and some
others.  All of them citizens of the Empire, and her responsibility at the
moment.

I wish there
was a real combat fleet commander in charge here, she thought while she
continued to stare at the holo.  Not that she doubted her own abilities, in her
chosen path.  She had earned her position as a flag officer because of her
ability as an explorer.  Not because of a record of vanquishing enemies in
overwhelming numbers.

“And New
Potsdam?”

“Get me the
Captain of New Potsdam on the com?” ordered the Commodore, and a moment
later she was looking at the face of Captain Stone Mason.  She was sure that
the Captain’s name had caused him considerable teasing as a child, but he had
grown into the name, and was known to be as steady a combat commander as there
was.

“I have a very
specific task for your ship, Stone.  She is to stay close to the convoy.
You’re their last line of defense, and I don’t want you to leave them uncovered
for any reason.  Understood?”

“New Potsdam can
add quite a bit of firepower to your force ma’am,” said the other officer in a
gravelly voice that fit his name.  “She carries a larger hyper capable missile
load than one of your battle cruisers.”

And I would feel
so much better about my chances with her at my side, thought the Commodore,
shaking her head.  “If we don’t clear that force ahead, and stop the one
behind, you are the only thing that’s going to get these people through.  That
is your one responsibility.  Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then I’ll leave
you to it, Captain.”

The holo died,
and the Commodore looked to her Com Officer once again.   “Send out the order.
Execute.”

The Commodore
looked back at the holo, where the numbers below the green vector arrows
started to change.  Every commercial vessel in the convoy, every freighter,
liner and transport, went from coasting at point nine light to boosting ahead
at two hundred and fifty gravities, the maximum of the least capable vessel.  New
Potsdam boosted along with them, holding steady at the center of the
formation, where she could best respond to threats from any direction.  The
ships in the rear screen boosted at the same rate of acceleration, maintaining
their distance from the convoy.  The front screen continued to coast, waiting
for their reinforcements.  While the two battle cruisers, the light cruiser and
the destroyer pair accelerated ahead at over five hundred gravities, heading
for their rendezvous with the front screen.

Warning klaxons
went off over Drake, crew donned their battle armor, weapons were
brought up to full power, or loaded into tubes, depending on their nature.  The
unknown ships continued on their original course, at their original
accelerations, as if the Imperial ships had not changed their posture at all.

“Gjoa is
continuing to cast warnings to Bogey One,” called out the voice of the
Com Officer.  “There is no response from Bogey One.  Bogey One will be
at the designated range in two minutes, thirty-three seconds.”

“Condition of Bogey
Two?” asked the Commodore, linking into CIC, who had the best take on the
tactical situation, and trying to get comfortable in her battle armor,
something she had always had trouble with.

“Bogey Two still
accelerating on closing vector with forward screen at twelve hundred
gravities.  They will be in engagement range in four minutes and fifty-three
seconds.”

“And when will
we be in range?” she asked, knowing that her own capital missiles had about
five more minutes of boost and hyper duration than those of the lighter ships.

“Six minutes,
twenty-three seconds,” called back CIC.

And they’re
on their own for about a minute and a half, she thought.  They should be
OK.  They have to be OK.

All
communications and tracking were occurring by graviton emission, allowing quick
exchange of information well above the speed of light.  But also limiting that
information.  It was hoped that the opponent was working with the same
limitations, but no one really knew.

“Missile
launch,” called out CIC, voice taut with tension.  “Gjoa has launched
her warning shot.  Closest approach to Bogey One in five minutes and
eleven seconds.”

The green arrow
of the hyperdrive missile separated from the icon of the light cruiser, headed
back at five thousand gravities.  It was actually slowing down in relation to
the firing ship as it fought the velocity that the vessel carried.  In relation
to the oncoming ships of Bogey One it was adding forty nine kilometers a
second.  By the time it reached its target it would be heading in at a closing
velocity of point nine nine light, with the addition of the velocity of the
approaching ships.

“We have missile
launches from Bogey One,” called out CIC.  “Multiple launches,
estimating fourteen missiles launched, four thousand two hundred gravities
acceleration.”

The new red
arrows appeared, on a heading toward the rear screening force.  It seemed like
a pretty feeble response to the shot at them, which the other force had
definitely misinterpreted.

“Gjoa estimated
the missiles are in the eight thousand ton range,” said the Com Officer,
listening in on the com between the cruiser and the flagship’s CIC.

“Those aren’t
missiles,” said Captain Timofeyavich over the com.  “Those are attack ships.”

And if I’m
right, they are truly unmanned, thought the Commodore as the red arrows
crossed the path of the green arrow.

“Gjoa has
re-tasked her missile to attack,” reported CIC.  “Force launching first volley,
now.”

Twenty green
arrows appeared near to the Imperial ships, heading toward Bogey One at
five thousand gravities.  Fifteen seconds later the second volley went out,
nineteen, all that they had of the hyper capable missiles.  All they would be
able to fight the battle with at range.  After this, they would have to close
with the enemy and fight with beam weapons.  And that was an even scarier
proposition, considering this foe was a complete unknown, with unknowable
capabilities.

“Change of
orders,” announced the Commodore as she watched the arrows, which looked so
harmless on the plot, approach the other arrows they were intended to destroy.
“All ships in forward force are to fire on Bogey Two as soon as they
enter range.”

She continued to
stare at the holo, waiting for weapons to enter the range of her ships, so she
could see what the enemy capabilities truly were.

*     *     *

The single
missile fired by the light cruiser Gjoa came in on its target at almost
point nine nine light.  Half blinded by particle acceleration, it still had a
clear enough view of that target to adjust course, aiming for a direct hit.  If
the Imperials didn’t know the capabilities of their opponents, neither did that
opponent know theirs.  The targeted vessel opened up with lasers and fast
firing projectile weapons, while her sisters tried to vector their own beam
weapons in on the fast moving missile, which saved its own surprise for last.

The missile’s
ECM came up on full power, blasting the space around it with a cacophony of
different frequencies, showing up on the sensors of the enemy ships as dozens
of objects that weren’t there.  It spoofed the fire control of the enemy
vessels, enough to let the missile get within a microsecond of the targeted
ship.  They still found the solution at the last moment, vectoring their beams
in to strike the missile, just a fraction of a second after the warhead
flowered the twenty submunitions it carried, sending them into the enemy ship
in an unstoppable shotgun blast.  Only five of the multiple warheads struck,
each with a mere twenty megatons of antimatter.  The rest detonated within
twenty kilometers of the ship, sending their heat and radiation sheeting into
the vessel.

Part of the ship
came out of the harsh bright light of the detonation, about half of its million
and a half ton bulk.  Nothing living could have survived the acceleration forces
involved, and it was amazing that enough hyperdrive capacity was still up and
running to keep it from falling out of hyper.  Emergency systems started
repairs as the vessel tumbled away.  It would not be back in this fight, but it
would be back, and every kilogram of machinery was vital to cause, now that the
old enemy was back.

The wave of
missiles came in next, using both their greater acceleration and the enemy’s
own velocity to get to them before the enemy weapons, which were playing catch
up to the human ships.  The first volley had held back its acceleration just a
bit, while the second volley had pushed it just a little harder than max for
twenty seconds, before both volleys, now combined into one wave of thirty-nine
missiles, coasted for another twenty seconds before going back into full boost.

Fifteen of the
missiles were the larger cruiser version, the other twenty-four destroyer
weapons with lesser ECM capabilities and smaller warheads.  The destroyer
weapons came in as the decoys, more or less, sending out signals intended to
make them easier to track, at first, while the cruiser weapons hid behind their
wall of static.  The enemy ships had learned from the first missile something
of the capabilities of these weapons.  They took out twenty-one of the
destroyer class missiles on approach, turning them into bright pinpoints of
light that faded almost immediately as their matter fell out of hyper, followed
more slowly by the released photons.  Three destroyer class missiles made it to
final approach, only to be blotted out just before they got into effective
detonation range.  Of the fifteen cruiser missiles, six were killed as they
moved into attack range, three more just before they got into final release
range, and six released their multiple warheads.  Half of those were killed
before they could strike, though most did some damage on detonation, sending
enough particles and energetic photons into the ships to cause significant
surface damage.  The other fifty-nine hit their targets, sending the shock of
the blast wave and the hellish fury of heat and radiation through the enemy
hulls.

When the blasts
cleared, there were still eight intact enemy vessels heading for the rear
screening force.  Four others had been blotted from existence, while one fell
behind, trailing debris and barely keeping itself in hyper.  A minute later it
fell back to normal space in a catastrophic translation, probably destroyed,
but if not, at least out of the battle.

Now it was the
turn of the enemy weapons.  They were not really missiles, though they had been
fired with no thought of their survival.  More like kamikaze attack ships,
though they lacked the crews that would have been necessary to make them true
suicide vessels.  They now approached at a closing speed of point four-two
light, easy enough for the Imperial ships to track.  As they entered range the
Imperial ships starting launching their limited store of hyper capable
counter-missiles, cycling them through their launchers on the theory that if
they didn’t stop these weapons, it wouldn’t matter if they had any left over
for the next wave.

The attack craft
mounted their own weapons, lasers, projectile weapons only useful out to about
three hundred kilometers, their own missiles.  They fired on the
counter-missiles, blasting most of them out of space before they could close.
Three got through, and two of the enemy weapons exploded in space as the one
megaton warheads detonated in head on explosions.  Laser took out five more of
the enemy vessels, while particle beams, only effective out to two hundred
thousand kilometers, killed two more.  Which left four to come into attack
range and strike at their targets.  Two were direct hits, two near misses, and
when the flares died two heavily damaged Imperial vessels, the cruiser and a
destroyer, were all that were left.  They lost acceleration, Gjoa down
to less than a hundred gravities, while Xuanzang could barely make two
hundred.

*     *     *

“Shit,” cursed
Khrushchev as she saw her rear screen effectively cease to exist on the
tactical.  The enemy had also been hurt, but there were still eight coming on,
and the two damaged ships were really in no shape to stop them.

“New Potsdam.
Mason, I want you to drop to the rear of the convoy and engage those ships at
range as long as you have missiles.  We’ll drop back to help as soon as we take
care of Bogey Two.  Good luck to you and your crew.”

The Com Officer
typed on his board, converting her commands to the grav pulses the heavy
cruiser could read.  After a few minutes he looked up.  “Captain Mason
acknowledges, and wishes us luck in return.”

“Roebuck and
Jeannette have engaged Bogey Two,” came the report from CIC.  A
few moments later he continued.  “Destroyers are also firing missiles.”

“When do we come
within range?”

“One minute and
nine seconds,” responded CIC.  “We will be able to add our fire to theirs on
the third volley.”

And
unfortunately, all of those ships but Stewart will be out of hyper
capable missiles, and she’ll only have two more volleys before she’s out.  Damn,
but we need the dual purpose missiles out here.

“Enemy is
firing, twelve of their attack ships, I mean missiles.”

And we don’t
know what we mean, thought the Commodore.  But whatever they are, they
can only seem to fire one at a time.  Or maybe they only have one on each
ship.  Ten seconds later that was answered in the negative.  “Enemy is
firing another volley.”  And ten seconds later a third was released.  Twenty
seconds after that Drake bucked slightly as she sent a volley of twenty
hyperdrive missiles toward the enemy, followed a moment later by Endurance’s
volley.

The battle
cruisers each carried four hundred missiles, about half of what a Fleet hyper
VI scout capital ship carried.  While seeming an impressive number, only forty
of those carried a hyperdrive.  By contrast, a Fleet heavy cruiser like New
Potsdam carried six hundred of the slightly smaller cruiser missiles, and
eighty of those were hyper capable, as many as both Command battle cruisers
carried between them.

Twenty seconds
later the battle cruisers fired their second volley, and had shot themselves
dry of capital class hyperdrive weapons.  Greenville followed suit a
minute later, and a minute after that the destroyers fired, letting off their
two volleys.

The missiles
from the forward screen came in first, thirty-two cruiser and thirty two
destroyer class weapons, followed by a second volley of eight missiles fired
from Stewart in her third and fourth volleys.

This time the
enemy ships tried something different.  Each released another volley of
weapons, followed by two more.  But only one was targeted on the Imperial
vessels, this time on the Commodore’s group, while the others headed out on
paths that would take them into the courses of the human missiles.  All of
those weapons were destroyed, taking over fifty of the human missiles with
them, leaving a mere dozen to continue in to the attack.  One enemy ship
sustained heavy damage, while the rest came through the barrage combat
effective, if not all completely unharmed.  Stewart’s lone third and
fourth volley came in with less than overwhelming numbers, and failed, with the
exception of a single hit that blotted one of the million and a half ton
vessels from space.

The three enemy
volleys, also combined into one wave, came screaming in at the human ships.
Again the counters took out some, while close in weapons got some others.  But
this time the majority of the missiles hit targets, and the entire forward
screen was destroyed.

There was shock
on the flag bridge as they watched the two cruisers and four destroyers drop
from the plot.  And the red arrows of nine weapons that could not find targets
altered vectors and headed for the battle cruisers.

*     *     *

Four of the
eight ships from Bogey One decelerated at twelve hundred gravities, aiming
to match velocities and capture Gjoa.  Xuanzang tried to defend her
flag, firing her surviving laser ring at the closing vessels.  She scored some
hits, but achieved very limited results against the electromagnetic fields and
armor of the enemy ships.  They returned fire, and burned large holes through
her hull, first crippling, then causing a containment breach in her antimatter
stores which blew the ship into a cloud of plasma that catastrophically
translated the moment it formed.

Two of the ships
stopped at a distance after matching velocities with the cruiser, while the
other two closed to within fifty meters of the warship and started sending
objects across through the linked hyperfields.  Man sized objects, if not
always quite manned shaped.  They burned through the hull, fighting their way
in against the resistance of Marines and armed Spacers.  They lost half their
numbers, and more came across the space, until they overwhelmed the resistance
and entered the cruiser.

Moments after
the invaders started to swarm through the ship it blew, containment breach set
off by its own crew when they realized what had got on board, and what their
fate would be.  Gjoa converted into plasma, taking her crew and every
invader aboard into total annihilation.  Blast, radiation and heavy pieces of
the cruiser struck the two close in enemy ships, all but destroying them and
sending their remains into a catastrophic translation as well, leaving only six
vessels for Bogey One to continue after the convoy.

*     *     *

Khrushchev
cringed as she watched the last two icons of her following screen disappear
from the plot, along with a pair of enemy ships.  The screen had accomplished
its mission, inflicting much greater damage on the enemy, trading one point
four million tons of warships for over eight million tons of the enemy.  They
had fought in the best tradition of the Fleet, never giving up.  And at the
moment all of that rang hollow in the Commodore, as she thought of the men and
women who had given their lives to protect the innocent.  Men and women who had
their own plans for the future, families, some already in existence, careers
beyond their time in the service.  All gone, as if they had never been.

Not as if
they had never been, thought the Commodore as she watched the icons of the
first enemy weapons come at her ships.  Not ever that.

And they had
learned something when the enemy weapons had turned toward her battle
cruisers.  The enemy weapons out ranged hers in hyper, and now the first nine
of those long ranged weapons were about to enter attack range of her largest
warships.  She would soon find out how the big ships’ defenses stacked up to
the offensive capabilities of those weapons.   I wonder if we would fare
better if we still mounted plasma torpedoes, like Fleet ships.

Those weapons
were really considered obsolete, though Fleet vessels still mounted them as
backups.  But Exploration Command vessels no longer mounted them, freeing up
space to sensors and labs.  She had heard that they were still proving useful
in the war with the Ca’cadasans, especially in a missile defense role in
hyper.  And she would not get the chance to try out that doctrine here.

There seemed to
be no need, as the counter missiles of the battle cruisers, something they did
carry in similar quantities to Fleet vessels, even the hyper variant, reached
out and destroyed all but one of the enemy weapons, while the laser armament of
two capital ships took care of the remaining singleton.

Her own volleys
had damaged another two enemy ships, but they seemed to be learning, and she
had wasted all of her long range fire power for little result.  The enemy had
again fired some of their weapons  in a counter-missile role, at which they
proved to be very effective.  Greenville continued to launch all of her
volleys while she had them, putting a total of forty hyper capable missiles in
space.  But they were coming in as five separate waves, each too weak to
overwhelm the enemy defenses.

The second wave
of enemy weapons came in, this time a double volley of twenty-four, just
minutes behind that first strike at the battle cruisers.  Again the defenses
held, though one of the destroyers was hit hard by a weapon detonating just off
its port bow, and Endurance took some damage from a pair of near misses,
while Greenville sustained heavy damage from a very near miss.
Otherwise, they weathered the storm, and watched as one last volley came in, to
be defeated once again.

“Bogey Two is
increasing acceleration, on a heading straight down our throats,” called out
CIC.

“Perhaps they’re
out of weapons,” suggested Captain Timofeyavich.  “Each launched forty thousand
tons of weapons from a slightly more than one and a half million ton platform.”

“That would make
sense,” agreed the Commodore, hoping her ships would fare as well in the knife
fight that seemed to be developing.  “But keep our missile defenses ready, just
in case they didn’t get the memo.”

The captains of
all five ships acknowledged their orders, and were now in charge of
implementing those commands.  The Commodore’s job was to assign the tasks to
her commanders, while theirs was to fight their ships. The fire of the command
was integrated into a single whole, but there was some latitude in how they
allotted that fire, or protected their own ships.

Which a closing
speed of point nine six light, the ships would only be in effective laser
range, less than a light minute, for about one hundred and twenty-two seconds
on approach, pass and recession.  Both forces fired on each other as soon as
they were about a minute out of that range, the humans firing several seconds
before the enemy.  The beams reached across space to where they expected their
targets to be.  Both battle cruisers now presented their broadsides to the
oncoming vessels so they could bring all of their laser rings into action.

Five enemy ships
came right into the beams of the pentawatt lasers, their energy focused through
powerful gravity lenses that minimized their spread.  Electromagnetic fields
attenuated the beams, but not enough.  More of a factor was the tendency of
photons to drop out of hyper, so that only a quarter of their power reached to
that distance.  Each second more of those highly energetic photons reached
target, causing more damage.  As soon as the beams struck the enemy ships started
evasive maneuvers, boosting up and down, side to side, causing the majority of
the beams to miss.  The human ships had already started theirs when they had
fired, and the enemy never got the first flush of victory that normally started
any beam weapon duel.  They still got some hits, just not as many.

As the ships
drew closer the power of the beams on contact increased, their targeting
solutions improved, and the evasives lost their effectiveness.  The Imperial
battle cruisers, with their greater mass and generating power, as well as their
lower surface to volume ratio, deployed the stronger armor and electromagnetic
fields.  With their mass they could handle more energy absorbed into their
forms, and seemed to have all the advantages.  Their beams struck the harder,
and one of the enemy ships blew as something inside reacted poorly from the
penetration of an X-ray laser.

At ten light
seconds distance more lasers were hitting from both sides than missed.  The
ships were constantly shifting frequencies, attempting to get their beams past
the nanoweave skins of the vessels, which changed their reflective qualities to
meet the beams.  Almost always a losing battle, as the beams changed to random
frequencies each second, blasting past that reflective layer.

Enough beams
were hitting to blast considerable transfer energy into the ships.  The
toughest armor either side could make blew into pieces as beams sliced through
and into the interiors of the ships.  On the battle cruisers hundreds of
armored crew withered and died as beams penetrated their hulls.  Most died
instantly as that transfer energy blasted their suits apart.  Some, the
unfortunate, were in a position where their suits almost protected them, and
they died, quickly or slowly, from being roasted alive in their armor.

Greenville exploded,
the victim of several beams that blasted deep into her engineering spaces and
caused antimatter to breach containment.  One second the eight hundred and
fifty thousand ton light cruiser was battling away.  The next it was a cloud of
plasma that flew swiftly in all directions, disappearing in translation before
it could hit any of its companion ships.

Another enemy
ship exploded a few seconds before the forces passed.   The Imperial ships had
figured out the pattern of the enemy evasives, which didn’t seem to be as
effective as their own, repeating every twelve point three four seconds, and
the hit rate increased for several seconds before the enemy changed their
patterns.  Two more enemy ships suffered blasts that ripped out of their hulls
and sent them spinning off on different paths, still pursued by the lasers of
the human vessels.  One of the destroyers, that most damaged previously,
detonated in an antimatter breach, sending heat and radiation at random into
vessels both friend and foe.  The battle cruisers took a pounding, shuddering
from multiple hits and the reaction of mass blasted free, or atmosphere
venting.  All of it fell out of hyper as they left the hyperfield of the owning
vessel, including still living crew, a few of which found themselves floating
in normal space, light years from the nearest star with no hope of rescue.

Four enemy
vessels passed through the formation of the two battle cruisers and the lone
destroyer, all still firing their lasers, as well as particle beams that could,
for a few seconds, hit the human ships, ripping further holes in the armored
hulls of the Imperial vessels.  Turnabout being fair play, the battle cruisers
opened up with their own, more powerful particle beams, sending antiprotons
into the enemy hulls to explode with the fury of mutual annihilation.  The
seconds passed where the matter could exist long enough to reach the target,
but only one of the enemy ships made it through, streaming particles, clearly
heavily damaged.

“We’re not
picking up enough atmosphere from those ships,” called out CIC, who was getting
his information from the sensor division of the battle cruiser.

“That’s because
they don’t breathe,” said Khrushchev, sure of what she was now facing.  “No
asphyxiation, no hunger, no fear.  And that will be what we will be fighting
out here.”  She shivered a bit, remembering the stories she had been told as a
child, and what she had studied as an adult.  She wasn’t sure if they were the
same machines, those developed by her culture.  It didn’t really matter.  They
would not allow organic life to live, and so they could not be allowed to
survive.

Endurance was
almost a complete wreck, streaming atmosphere from thousands of holes and
gashes through the hull, only two of her grabber units working and sufficient
hyperdrive capability to stay in hyperspace, but not translate out.  Drake was
still battle worthy, barely, with one working laser ring and three quarters of
her particle beams.  Mihn Quan, the lone surviving destroyer, was the
most intact of all the vessels, with only minor damage.  Unfortunately, she was
also the weakest of the remaining ships, even Endurance still possessing
more firepower.

Mihn Quan was
decelerating at maximum while continuing to put all of her laser power onto the
remaining enemy ship, which was still on course toward the convoy.  Drake was
decelerating at four hundred gravities, her current maximum, turned so that her
final laser ring could target that ship.  Endurance was decelerating at
a mere fifty-four gravities, all she was capable of, and really was of no more
use to the convoy.

“What’s the
situation with New Potsdam?” she shot the question to CIC, whose job was
to monitor the entire tactical situation.  She was looking at her own tactical
plot, which showed six red arrows still heading into the convoy from that
vector, and two sets of eight green arrows each heading their way.

“New Potsdam has
shot her entire hyper missile load at the enemy,” returned the officer who was
her connection to CIC.  “She reports two kills, and the last sixteen missiles
are two and three minutes from contact respectively.”

At that moment
the tactical plot blossomed with six more red arrows, all heading toward the
convoy at just over four thousand gravities, which seemed to be their
acceleration limit.

At the last
second Khrushchev stopped herself from ordering a warning sent to the heavy
cruiser.  Mason knows they’re there, and he’ll react when it’s time to.
Mihn Quan was still firing on the enemy, which was still on a course for
the convoy, obviously hoping to get within beam weapon range of the ships, if a
word like hope could be used with the thing controlling it.  She was still
scoring hits, and as she watched a laser from the enemy vessel hit the destroyer
and blasted some of her side armor out into hyper, to translate away.

“I want that
ship surrounded with fire,” she barked into the intercom.  “Full power,
x-rays.  Let’s see if we can get them to jump right into the frying pan.”

The
acknowledgement came back, and Drake fired six beams from her final
operative ring, each spearing through space about a light second from the enemy
ship, forming the spokes of a wheel sixty degrees from each other.  As soon as
they were streaming past the ship the Drake swung them in.  One of the
beams hit the enemy ship, which tried to dodge away, running into another one,
until three beams made contact, each blasting through armor and into the hull.
The enemy ship must have decided then to swing through one of the beams and escape
the cage.  That would have been a good decision, except the beam she swung into
shot right through a gash in the hull and blew out the entire side of the
vessel.  It spun in space for a few moments, then exploded into plasma.

“They’re going
for the convoy,” shouted CIC, and Khrushchev turned to the plot to see that the
red arrows had in fact diverged, two still heading for the cruiser, the others
taking paths that would bring each into contact with a different ship, one
freighter and three liners.  The liners each had over six thousand Klassekians
in cryo, the freighter five hundred Imperial technicians.  She didn’t think the
cruiser could stop all of them, and there was no good choice here as to who
should live, and who die.

Drake continued
to decelerate at 3.9 kilometers per second, Mihn Quan keeping station on
the battle cruiser.  The convoy had reached its maximum velocity by this time,
point nine two five light, and was catching up to the slowing battle cruiser.
It would still take some minutes before they caught up, and some more minutes
for Drake to fall through the convoy so she could try to protect the
merchies from the enemy’s close in weapons.  According to the calculations, she
would reach the rear of the convoy two minutes, three seconds before the first
of the enemy ships brought one of the liners into effective laser range.

The enemy
weapons were a minute from impact as the second to the last volley from the
heavy cruiser attacked the alien formation.  There weren’t enough of them
according to Fleet doctrine, which called for numbers to overwhelm the
defenses.  Six of the missiles were taken out,  and only two got within
detonation range.  Both were near misses on a single ship, causing noticeable
damage, but not slowing her in the least.  A minute later the last volley came
in, and the enemy defenses took out five of them.  One was a direct hit on the
most damaged of the enemy vessels, the gigaton class warhead coming in with
considerable kinetic energy, and the million plus ton vessel converted to
plasma in an instant, before the hot gas was blown out even further by the
antimatter within the ship.  The two others struck at another vessel, resulting
in more near misses that, while damaging the vessel, did not seem to do enough
damage to stop the ship.  Ten seconds later it was apparent that the first
analysis had been wrong, as the vessel catastrophically translated out of
hyper, and out of the battle.

The enemy
weapons came in, and New Potsdam started cycling her hyper capable
counters as soon as they were within range.  At first she tried to engage all
the missiles, but the enemy weapons blasted them from space with their own
lasers.  She switched tactics after that first volley, concentrating on two of
the enemy weapons, two that were heading for liners.  By the fourth volley she
had achieved overwhelm, and the two enemy weapons were blotted from existence
by the counters.  The cruiser switched her targeting to the other two weapons
not targeting her, ignoring for the moment the two heading for her.  After a
volley of misses, and time running out, she switched everything to one of the
weapons.  Her lasers and close in weapons started blasting at the two targeting
her, taking out one.  The other dodged past the fire, to get within eight thousand
kilometers of the cruiser before a hit by two laser rings contacted it dead
center.  Its warhead breached, and eight thousand tons of matter came shooting
in a cloud toward the cruiser.  About a third struck at a closing velocity of
point two three light, the spray cutting through the tough hull and pushing the
heavy cruiser back at almost six hundred gravities for a fraction of a second.

Aboard the
cruiser the warning klaxons sounded as the ship was hit by a hammer blow.
Inertial compensators went into emergency overload, but fifty gravities still
got through for one hundredth of a second.  Not enough to kill by itself, but
enough to injure limbs and spines.

“What’s our
condition?” yelled out Captain Mason as he struggled to get his wits about him
through his red blurred vision.  His link was showing severe casualties, and
major damage.  His ship had survived, but with the enemy closing that was not a
condition that would obtain over the next couple of minutes.

He looked over
at the tactical plot to see that only one of the enemy weapons survived, just
before it disappeared from the plot, along with the icon of the freighter it
was targeting.

*     *     *

Khrushchev sat
in her command chair on the flag bridge and watched the tactical holo as Drake
slid through the tail end of the convoy.  New Potsdam was just ahead
and to port, and the enemy ships were closing in on the crippled heavy cruiser
with lasers blazing.

“Fire,” yelled
Captain Timofeyavich over the com, and the remaining laser ring of the battle cruiser
fired a full power blast into one of the enemy ships.  Immediately all four of
the enemy vessels changed vector for a moment, then brought the battle cruiser
under their combined fire.  Timofeyavich followed doctrine and kept his laser
targeted on the ship he was already engaging.  Drake shuddered as
transfer energy exploded into her bow and port side, blasting out armor and
tearing new holes in her hull.  And then came the hit they had all feared, and
the remaining laser ring lost all power.  At the same moment the ship they had
been engaging had had enough, and blew up in an explosion that tore her into
three large pieces, accompanied by millions of smaller ones.

“Requesting
permission to ram, Commodore,” said Timofeyavich over the com.

“Permission
denied,” said Khrushchev, staring at the viewer, which was giving her a split
view of the three surviving enemy ships.  She looked over at her Com Officer,
who looked back with fear in her eyes.  Without the laser they had no more
medium range firepower.  “Contact Mason.  Tell him to get any weapons he might
have back online.  Then tell Mihn Quan to come in, on my signal, with
all lasers blazing at any whatever targets are left.”

“What are your
orders, Admiral?” asked Timofeyavich over the com.

“Here’s what
we’re going to do, Captain.”

*     *     *

The enemy was
hoping to get technology from this encounter, something they could look over
and duplicate.  The cruiser was coming back to life, and there was still the
fully functioning destroyer at the edge of laser range.  And the largest of the
warships, lying dead in space, theirs for the taking.  All of its laser rings
were dead, all with enough damage that it was apparent they wouldn’t be working
anytime soon.  Its electromagnetic field was down, making it an easy target,
and the only thing they could detect as functioning were its hyperfield
generators.  They might still have particle beams, but there was no evidence of
such.

The command
ship, or what had become the command ship after the destruction of so many
others, ordered the other two vessels to close with the large enemy.  From
there they would mesh their hyperfields and send boarders over.  The command
ship would stay within laser range and cover the boarding vessels from the
other ships, if they were foolish enough to come within range.

The pair of
million and a half ton ships slid up next to the battle cruiser, one on each
side, meshing their fields so the boarders could cross without actually going
into hyper.  Hatches opened on their sides and thousands of objects, from one
meter to four meters in length, flew out and swarmed toward the battle
cruiser.  Which was when Drake acted.

Three systems
were activated at the same time on the battle cruiser.  The electromag field
projectors spun up to full power in an instant.  There wasn’t time to inject
fresh cold plasma into the field, but it was still at ninety percent of its
maximum healthy strength.  Second, the particle beams, one to the port, two to
starboard, opened fire.  They hadn’t had time to spin their protons, or, in
this case, antiprotons, up to much speed, and the beams came out at a mere
point zero five light.  Which meant they still put kilograms of antimatter onto
each of the enemy ships in microseconds of firing.  The antimatter exploded as
it hit the matter of the enemy ship’s hull, blasting deep into the armor,
destroying machinery underneath and shocking the electronic systems of the
ships.

It was the third
system that was the killer, as three tubes on each side accelerated missiles
through them and into the ships sitting less than three hundred meters to each
side.  The missiles didn’t even have the time to engage their own grabber
units.  Each missile carried a mere one hundred megaton warhead, the smallest
unitary device available for the capital ship weapons.  As soon as they hit the
warheads, configured to shape charge mode, blasted their antimatter into the
bodies of the enemy vessels.  Most of the blast occurred on the surface, but
enough was pushed into the body of each ship to send blasts of hellish fire and
radiation through every part of each vessel.

The two enemy
ships were dead the instant they were hit.  Drake shook like a spiked
whale as the blast reached back to strike the battle cruiser. Klaxons sounded,
machinery under the hull was smashed, or flared into melting piles extruding
superhot vapor.

The crew had all
evacuated to the three central capsules of the ship, the cylinders that held
crew quarters, medical facilities, and all control functions of the vessel.
Each capsule was protected by an additional meter of armor, and another meter
of water as both consumables storage and radiation protection.

The ship shook
like it was about to come apart as its grabbers shot it forward at emergency
acceleration, clearing the blast field in moments.  There were casualties,
mostly injuries, but they had destroyed the enemy ships and escaped with their
lives.

Mihn Quan came
flying into laser range at the moment the missile warheads detonated, firing
all her own coherent light weapons at the remaining alien ship.  New Potsdam
let loose with her one remaining ring, with all of two emitters powering
it.  The enemy ship could have probably weathered the attack, and destroyed
both ships, following that up with the destruction of Drake, Endurance,
and every ship in the convoy.  Its controller thought better of the
proposition, and the ship turned away and piled on the acceleration, going
above twelve hundred gravities and moving quickly out of range.

“We survived,”
said Captain Timofeyavich over the com, disbelief in his voice.

“We still have a
mission to perform,” said the Commodore, feeling weak as her system came down
from combat mode and the relief of survival swept through her.  “We still have
this convoy to deliver.”  And by God, I intend to get the rest of these
ships to their destination.  And warn the Admiralty that we have another war on
our hands.

Chapter Twenty-seven

There’s no place like home.
There’s no place like home.  There’s no place like home.

Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

FEBRUARY 12TH, 1002.

“They’re glowing
again, ma’am,” reported the Sensor Officer to Captain Hasslehoff.

“I’ll be right
there,” she replied over the com, closing her flat comp and heading out of her
day cabin at a run.

She didn’t have
to ask what the officer was talking about.  Challenger was floating in
the air above one of Klassek’s oceans at this very moment, well within the
sphere enclosed by the outermost reach of the arms of the artifacts.  The
aliens who controlled them had not deigned to speak with them again, but she
was well aware of their instructions to stay close to the planet.  And since
they hadn’t been affected by its arrival, it was thought that the effect was
only manifested within the reach of those arms.

The Captain came
onto the bridge to find the entire watch staring at the viewer, where two
separate images were showing.  One was of the huge enemy station, dark now for
the first time in over a month, when the planet had arrived in this dimension.
The other was a view of the nearest artifact arm, glowing bright as it had on
that day when they had pulled an entire world through the dimensions.  And
getting brighter by the moment.

“Here we go,”
shouted out the Tactical Officer as a queasy feeling hit the stomachs of
everyone aboard at the same time.  The purple space, the station above, all
started fading away, while another sky began to fade in, superimposing itself
over the other image.  There were stars in that sky, including one brighter
than normal one in the direction where the blue giant had been located.  With
almost a snap the one sky was gone and the other cleared, and they were back in
the dimension of normal space.

“Coms are coming
in from all directions, ma’am,” called out the Com Officer.  “It seems we’ve
caught the attention of every ship that had been hanging here, waiting for
something to happen.”  The officer hit a panel on his board and a face appeared
on the holo.

“Welcome home, Challenger,”
said Rear Admiral Nguyen van Hung.  “I’m sure you have a story to tell.”

“I need to speak
with you, Admiral,” said Hasslehoff, thinking about the information the aliens
had given her.  “Priority Alpha.”

“Understood,”
said the Admiral, nodding.  She had used the signal for most important, but
hadn’t added the qualifier danger imminent.  “Why don’t you bring your
ship back up here and make it a spaceship once again, then come aboard Boudeuse
as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” said
the Captain with a smile at the flag officer’s choice of words.  “Helm.  Take
us out of here and into a medium insertion orbit.  Hangar deck.  Prepare a
shuttle for immediate departure as soon as we achieve orbit.”

There were
cheers and excited speech on the bridge, and over the intercom, a celebration
of relief that they had finally returned to normal space, and the rest of the
human race, or whatever other species they might belong to.  And she knew there
were celebrations going on throughout the rest of the force.  A ship, three
thousand crew, and a planet with over six billion intelligent beings had just
come back to the real world.  And in minutes she would be telling the Admiral
the news that their problems were just beginning.

*     *     *

Rear Admiral
Nguyen van Hung stared at the holo for over a minute after the presentation
ended.  The conference room was totally silent, the feeling of disbelief
palpable in the air.  He rubbed his eyes, then looked over at his Chief of
Staff, who looked like she had already digested the information and was ready
to get to work.  The reason I asked for her in the first place, thought
the Admiral.

“And they didn’t
communicate with you at all after this, recording?”

“No, sir,” said
Captain Hasslehoff.  “We continued to signal them throughout our stay in that
dimension, but they refused to initiate further contact.”

“And any idea what
this dimension was?”

“No, sir.  They
did not give me any hints as to where it was located, but obviously it touches
our space in some manner.”

“Any idea of
what these beings are?” asked the Admiral, looking over at Susan Lee.

“Anthropology
and sociology reports no record of any intelligent life form like this,” said
Lee, shaking her head.  “Biology reports no planets in our records containing
life forms that conform to their general body plan.  It would help if we had
some cell samples to go on.”

“They didn’t
allow us on their ship, Captain Lee,” said Hasslehoff.  “If they would have
allowed it, I would have gone myself.  But they only allowed the probe aboard,
and we didn’t get it back.”

“Any chance
they’re related to the Ancients in our part of the Arm?” asked one of the other
officers present.  The Ancients were a species who had once occupied a good
portion of the Perseus Arm.  In fact, they had once occupied many of the worlds
of the Supersystem where the New Terran Empire now made its capital.  They had
bootstrapped many of the species in the region to spaceflight, and were rumored
to have been capable of some really fantastic technological feats.

“We have
pictures of the Ancients,” said Lee, shaking her head.  “They were a completely
different life form than these beings.”

“If those really
are pictures of them,” said the officer.  “The Ancients, I mean.”

“We have
verification from both the Brakakak and the Crakista that the images we have of
the Ancients do in fact match their own recordings of the beings,” said Lee.
“And even the Ancients weren’t capable of transporting an entire planet to some
new dimension of space.  Or harnessing the power of the supernova, like they
seem to have had done with those artifacts they placed around Big Bastard.”

“I think we need
to move on to the more important topic, at least more important for the here
and now.”  The Admiral nodded to one of the ratings in the room, and the holo
came back to life, showing the region of space that the aliens had highlighted
as containing the machine kingdom they had warned Challenger about.  “We
need to do something about, our mess, didn’t they say?”

“They did seem
to feel that these machine intelligences originated with us,” said Hasslehoff,
closing her eyes and shaking her head.  “I didn’t think that any of them got
away.”

“And if we
didn’t know they got away, they made a clean escape,” said Lee, looking at the
holo.  “And who can say how advanced they have become in that time.”

“The aliens
seemed to feel that the machines lacked imaginations, because they didn’t have
quantum brains, like organics,” said Hasslehoff.  “The machines are capable of
copying, even advancing well understood concepts, but they lack the ability to
come up with new ideas.  The Eureka effect, the Gestalt of the quantum brain.”

Quantum
computers had been a dream of artificial intelligence for many generations.
Unfortunately, the breakthrough always seemed to be right around the corner.
Or maybe fortunately.

“First thing we
need to do is to get word to higher command,” said Nguyen, pulling up a
schematic list of the forces under his current control.  “We have four couriers
in system.  I want one sent immediately back to Command base.  From there they
can inform the Empire, and especially the Emperor, about our situation out
here.  Two of the others will head to Bolthole, one by the direct route,
one around this space.  It is imperative that Admiral Gonzales know what kind
of neighbors she has, and prepares accordingly.”

“You think they
know where Bolthole is, sir?” asked Commander Bergland, the intelligence
specialist.

“We’ve been
sending convoys through that space for almost a year now,” said Nguyen, giving
the woman a cold look.  “They’ve been tracking our vessels every trip, unless I
miss my guess.  What do you think?”

The Intelligence
Officer returned an abashed smile and looked away, while Nguyen turned his
attention back to his Chief of Staff.  “We need to leave a force in this system
to defend it.  Damned if we went to all this trouble just so we could lose them
all to murder machines.”

“And my
infantry?” asked Major General Wittmore.  “And the Marines?”

“We’ll drop all
the ground troops off with enough supplies to carry them through for six
months.  They really won’t do us much good in ship to ship combat, and could
really bolster the defense of the planet.  I’ll leave a couple of battle
cruisers, a heavy cruiser and a half dozen destroyers to guard the system
space.  I want the rest of our ships ready to leave within the hour.  We’re
heading for Bolthole.  And Gertrude,” he said, looking at Hasslehoff.
“I’ll want you and Challenger to stay as one of the two battle
cruisers.  You’ve had enough adventure for the time being. I’m brevetting you
to commodore for now.”

“Thank you,
sir.”

“And I have
something to talk with you and General Wittmore about before we foray off into
the unknown.  This changes everything, and I think we’re going to have to reach
an understanding with these people, right now.”

*     *     *

“But, we were
saved by the Gods,” said First Councilman Rizzit Contena, sitting behind his
desk and looking at the humans through his four eyes, all as wide as they could
go.  “The Ancient Aliens, whatever they are.  And now you say we are in danger
again.”

“Potential
danger,” said Captain Gertrude Hasslehoff, who had gotten to know the First
Councilman as well as any of the Imperials from her time spent on his planet in
the other dimension.  “They may not come here.  We may be able to stop them
before they get this far, or they may show no interest in coming here in the
first place.  They may run again.”

“But you don’t
think so.”

“Not if they
have expanded into this much space,” said Hasslehoff, shaking her head.  “That
shows that they have expanded and entrenched themselves, and I don’t think they
are going to go without a fight.”

“Now understand,
First Councilman,” said General Wittmore, the system commander as far as the
Imperials were concerned.  “We will try to get them on the defensive as soon as
we can.  And, as they have no beef with you, they probably have no reason to
come here.”

“Except that you
are here,” countered Contena, pointing one of his right side tentacles at the
Major General.  “And that may draw them here.”

“Or they may
come here, whether we are here or not,” said Wittmore.  “After all, we are just
about to stir up the hornet’s nest.”  Seeing the confusion on the Klassekian’s
face the General explained.  “A really nasty insect form from Old Earth, that
attacks in mass when disturbed.  But the point is, we don’t know if they will
come here or not.  What we do know is that they are within fifty light years of
here, which, at our level of technology, is very close indeed.  Less than a
week.  The smart move is to act as if they are coming, and prepare defenses.”

“Of which we
have none,” shouted Contena, waving his tentacles in the air.  “We’ve seen how
easily you defeated our systems, and they should have tech almost as good.
Right?”

We will help
you,” said Hasslehoff, wishing not for the first time that she had more ships
in the system.  Admiral Nguyen had left with most of their hulls.  He had split
his hyper VII craft into seven scouting teams, and sent them on a course into
the space they thought was controlled by the machines.  They had the speed to
possibly escape.  And every hyper VI vessel he took was heading toward Bolthole.
That system was just that important, even more so than the one she was in.

“I know you had
talked about helping us progress,” said the First Councilman, his tentacles
enclosing his head in a gesture of tension.  “But that quickly?”

“It’s time you
grew up,” said Wittmore, giving the alien a steady look.  “And that means a
united world government.”

I could wish
I had a more diplomatic commander, thought Hasslehoff.  But she had what
she had, and he was in charge due to his rank.

“With Tsarzor in
charge?” asked the First Councilman in a doubting tone.

“We sure don’t
want it to be Honish, so that leaves you.  Of course, we will give you whatever
support you need to impose this government, and we would prefer that it be some
form of republic or parliamentary form.  And, of course, you will become a
protectorate of the Empire.”

Rizzit looked up
at that, his eyes narrowing in the way of his species, pinching in from the
sides.  “And if we don’t wish to become a protectorate.”

“I’m afraid you
have no choice, at the moment,” said the General.

From the stare
that the Klassekian was giving them, Hasslehoff was glad they were in their
battle armor, and that they had a platoon of Marines on call from the shuttle.

“There will, of
course, be a plebiscite,” said the Captain, thinking of how many times that of
course had slipped into the conversation.  “After you are organized,
educated and brought through this current crisis.”

“Which could
take centuries,” hissed the First Councilman.  “If it ever really occurs.”

The General made
a throwing away gesture with his hand.  “It doesn’t really matter what you want
at this time.  We need you organized and contributing to the defense of this
region, at least until this threat is dealt with.  After that, you can go your
own way, if you want, or become part of our Empire.”

“Look, First
Councilman,” said Hasslehoff, seeing the anger in that alien face.  “You’ve
talked with Lt. J’rrantar, and seen the interactions of the Gryphon Petty
Officer Hi’tarris with your astronauts.  Their species have done very well
within the Empire.  And so can yours.  You can enjoy a prosperity and
technology you would take a thousand years or more on your own to achieve.
Longer life, medical miracles, the stars.  Think about that.”

“But it would
not be our achievements that got us there.  Merely our mimicking of yours.”

“Or you can sit
here with your pride for company,” said Wittmore, leaning forward in his seat,
which creaked under the weight of his armor, despite its grabbers taking some
of its mass in hand.  “And you can wait for things with no feelings, and no
compassion, to come to your world.  You will be at the mercy of things without
any, who will consider you the enemy merely because you are alive.”

The Klassekian
sat there with a look of concentration that told the humans he was communing
with his brothers through their quantum entangled minds.  He sat there for some
minutes, and the humans gave him his time, realizing that this was an important
part of the decision making process.  Finally, he opened his eyes

“And if I don’t
cooperate with you?  Will you then leave us alone?”

“We can’t do
that,” said Hasslehoff in a soft voice.  “We can’t abandon you to that kind of
fate.”

“And we would
just have to choose someone else to back,” said the General.  “We would prefer
you and your people.”

“And my brother,
the General, would kill me if I let you do that,” said the First Councilman in
a quiet voice.  “So I guess I had better accept your offer, and let him become
the next military hero of our nation’s, no, our world’s history.”

Epilogue

FEBRUARY 13TH, 1002.

Commodore
Natasha Khrushchev breathed a sigh of relief as Francis Drake slid
through the hole in the dimensions and entered normal space.  Most of the
convoy was already through, only a few remaining to make the crossover.  Mihn
Quan, as the fastest ship in the convoy, had run ahead to make translation
six hours before the rest of the ships, conveying Khrushchev’s reports.  Endurance,
not able to drop out of hyper VI due to her damage, had been evacuated and
scuttled, but every other ship that had made it through the battle was still
with them.

The tactical
holo filled in with information on the system, based on the graviton emissions
of the vessels in movement.  An instant later the electromagnetic spectrum
filled in the rest of the system, visual, broadcast, neutron and neutrino
emissions.  The K class primary, really a tweener almost into the range of G,
was centered on the holo, two and a half light hours away.  A ring of
antimatter production satellites orbited close to the star, while a couple of
tankers moved to and fro from the production facilities to shipyards.

There were a
couple of barren planets close to the star, then the one planet worth anything
ten light minutes out.  Tethys was an almost habitable planet, one that
had supported life before an asteroid strike has wiped it out ten thousand
years before.  Now it was in the middle stages of terraforming, and would soon,
within five years or so, become the rest and recreation center of the system.

Bolthole base
was about one and a quarter light hours in from the hyper I barrier, in the
first of the system’s asteroid belts.  The asteroid was about twelve hundred
kilometers in diameter, a little larger than Ceres in the Sol system, but was
much more massive.  Mostly of metallic composition, with only a three kilometer
thick crust of rock, carbon compounds and water ice over that huge core, the
planetoid actually had a gravity of approximately point one three Earth normal.

Twenty-eight
other objects were in orbit around the planetoid, twenty-two medium sized
asteroids being used for construction materials, two habitats, and six docks;
two completed, four still under assembly.  Two score ships were also in orbit
around the base, including twelve warships.

Further out were
the gas giants and the second of the two asteroid belts, and furthest were two
frozen rocky planets, one of which was the subject of extensive activity as a
supermetal production facility was under construction.

“Grav pulse
signal coming in from system command,” reported the Com Officer.  “From Admiral
Gonzales.”

“Go ahead.”

“She wants to
meet with you as soon as you get to the base.  And Drake and New
Potsdam are cleared for dock space as soon as they reach Bolthole.”

Khrushchev
nodded.  It made sense to get the two ships up to combat effectiveness as soon
as possible.  Looking over the lists of ships on her side holo, she realized
that the system defense, while sufficient to defend against pirates or other
low level threats, was probably not strong enough to defeat what she suspected
was waiting in the dark.

*     *     *

The vessel sat
ten light hours outside the hyper I barrier, watching, listening.   It picked
up the coming of the convoy as it transited through the dimensions from hyper
VI down to I, and into normal space.  The vessel identified the ships by their
emissions, then waited for the visual confirmation before sending the amendment
to its report on system defenses to the courier group waiting two light weeks
further out.  The com laser was undetectable by anything that didn’t happen to
wander in the way.  And this far out, that was more than unlikely.  When the
com beam reached its target one of the couriers would jump into hyper I and
creep away, well outside of the range that something in the system could pick
up the translation.

All of this
took time, but the brains operating the ships were patient if nothing else.
And soon their patience would pay off.

The End

About the Author

Doug Dandridge
is the author of over twenty self-published books on Amazon, including the very
successful, Exodus: Empires at War series, the Refuge techno-fantasy series,
The Deep Dark Well Trilogy, as well as numerous standalone science fiction and
fantasy novels.  In a two year period as a self-published author, Doug has sold
over one hundred thousand ebooks, plus numerous copies of paperback and audio
books.  He has amassed over 1,700 reviews across his books on Amazon, with a
4.6 star average. He served in the US Army as an infantryman, as well as
several years in the Florida National Guard in the same MOS.  Doug, who holds
degrees from Florida State University and the University of Alabama, lives with
his five cats in Tallahassee Florida.  He is a sports enthusiast and a
self-proclaimed amateur military historian.

About The Prometheus Saga

The Prometheus Saga is the premier project of the Alvarium
Experiment, a consortium of accomplished and award-winning authors. The Saga
spans the range of the existence of Homo sapiens. The stories do not
need to be read in any particular order; each story is an entry point into the
overall story.

The Prometheus Saga stories & authors are:

“The Pisces
Affair” by Daco Auffenorde. CIA operative Jordan Jakes meets
Prometheus when the Secretary of State becomes the target of a terrorist attack
at a head-of-state dinner in Dubai. Visit Daco at www.authordaco.com.

“On Both
Sides” by Bria Burton. When a mysterious woman vanishes during
the American Revolution, young Robby Freeman searches for answers from a
cryptic sharpshooter who deserted Washington’s Continental Army. Visit Bria at www.briaburton.com.

“Ever
After” by M.J. Carlson. Two mysterious women convey the same
Cinderella story to Giambattista Basile in 1594 and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in
1811. How different cultures retell this story reveals humanity’s soul to those
who listen. Visit M.J. at www.mjcarlson.com.

“The
Blurred Man” by Bard Constantine. FBI agent Dylan Plumm's
investigation of a mill explosion puts her on the trail of the Blurred Man, a
mysterious individual who may have been on Earth for centuries. The case turns
deadlier at every turn, placing Dylan in the crosshairs of shadowy antagonists
even as she unravels a centuries-old mystery. Visit Bard at www.barwritesbooks.com

“Crystal
Night” by Charles A. Cornell. Berlin, 1938. On the eve of one of
history’s darkest moments, a Swedish bartender working in Nazi Germany
accidentally uncovers a woman’s hidden past. Can he avoid becoming an
accomplice as the Holocaust accelerates? Visit Charles at www.charlesacornell.com.

“Marathon”
by Doug Dandridge. Prometheus, posing as a citizen of Athens, participates in
the battle of Marathon alongside the playwright Aeschylus. Visit Doug at www.dougdandridge.net.

“The
Strange Case of Lord Byron’s Lover” by Parker Francis. Writing
in her journal, Mary Shelley recounts a series of perplexing events during her
visit with Lord Byron—a visit that resulted in the creation of her famous
Frankenstein novel, but also uncovered a remarkable mystery. Visit Parker at www.parkerfrancis.com.

“Strangers
on a Plane” by Kay Kendall. In 1969 during a flight across North
America, a young mother traveling with her infant meets an elderly woman who
displays unusual powers. But when a catastrophe threatens, are those powers
strong enough to avert disaster? This short story folds into Kay’s mystery series
featuring the young woman, amateur sleuth Austin Starr. Visit Kay at www.kaykendallauthor.com.

“East of
the Sun” by Jade Kerrion. Through a mysterious map depicting
far-flung lands, a Chinese sailor in 1424 and a Portuguese cartographer in 1519
share a vision of an Earth far greater than the reality they know. Visit Jade
at www.jadekerrion.com.

“Manteo”
by Elle Andrews Patt. In 1587, Croatan native Manteo returns from London to
Roanoke Island, Virginia. Can he reconcile his strong loyalty to the untamed
land and people of his home with his desire for the benefits the colonizing English
bring with them before one of them destroys the other? Visit Elle at www.elleandrewspatt.com.

“First
World War” by Ken Pelham. 40,000 BC: As the last remaining species
of hominid, Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis, fight a
desperate battle for ownership of the future, the outcasts of both sides find
themselves caught in middle. Visit Ken at www.kenpelham.com.

“Lilith”
by Antonio Simon, Jr. In this retelling of the Adam & Eve story, a hermit’s
life is turned upside-down by the arrival of a mysterious woman in his camp. As
the story of their portentous meeting carries forward through the millennia,
only time will tell if Lilith is a heroine, a victim, or a monster. Visit
Antonio at www.DarkwaterSyndicate.com.

“Fifteen
Dollars’ Guilt” by Antonio Simon, Jr. 1881: After a close brush
with death in a steamship disaster, Prometheus encounters another survivor who
gripes about how aimless his life has become. Prometheus helps him find his
calling, inadvertently setting in motion the assassination of President
Garfield. Visit Antonio at www.DarkwaterSyndicate.com.

For additional info about the
stories and authors, visit the official website: The Prometheus Saga

Five By Five 3: Target Zone

TARGETS ARE LOCKED!

Five short novels by five masters of military SF
capture the excitement, and hell, of fantastic future war—on and off the
battlefield. Stories of terrifying monsters, dangerous aliens and staggering
cosmic dreadnaughts march alongside far-flung courtroom dramas and cautionary
tales involving man and his devices.

Michael A. Stackpole—The Star Tigers are commandeered by a
powerful alien overseer on a covert mission to a world long abandoned by an
ancient species. There, the ruins of a forgotten war will tip the balance of
their war, unless the Star Tigers can prevent it.

Sarah A. Hoyt—Lucius Dante Maximilian Keeva is a
well-respected leader of the Usaian Revolution, but treason in the ranks can
cost him everything that makes life worth living—unless he takes justice into
his own hands and breaks every military regulation in its pursuit.

Doug Dandridge—Faced with an enemy more than two
hundred times her own size, Cinda Klerk has two options: hide, and let it
destroy the planet she is supposed to protect, or find a way to even the odds
and kill the enemy, even at the cost of her ship and crew.

Eytan Kollin and Dani Kollin—As the
Unincorporated War envelops the entire solar system, a father must come to the
rescue of a daughter he never raised. But he'll have to convince her to save
herself first.

Kevin J. Anderson—In the war against an alien
menace, Earth’s greatest military commanders risk themselves on the front
lines, but with an escape hatch: If the situation goes terribly wrong, they can
switch places with a safe soldier far from the battlefield. But the
cannon-fodder volunteers don’t consider that such a good deal.

Set your cross-hairs on the Target Zone.

Excerpt from Goliath:

“We have a translation, from the
hyper VII dimension down to VI,” called out the Sensory Officer, Ensign Emile
Schmidt, in his soft New Berliner accent.

“Ours, or theirs?” asked Lt.
Commander Cinda Klerk, watching the tactical holo and dreading the answer.  She
was not a large woman, in fact, the captain’s chair still felt too big when she
sat in it.  And she had the kind of face that attracted men, which she saw as a
detriment to her career, not letting her fit the image of the warrior woman.

“Theirs,” answered Schmidt, a look
of anxiety, no, fear showing on his face.  “And it’s a big one.  Twenty million
tons or more.”

It would be, thought Cinda,
the captain of the HIMS Joel Schumacher, one of the only two hyper
capable warships in the system.  She was the largest ship assigned to the
Compton system.  There were two more ships, both non-hyper vessels of similar
class.  Schumacher was the most massive of the three ships due to her
carrying the extra mass of a hyperdrive.  At a hundred thousand tons she was
not the smallest hyper capable vessel in the Imperial Fleet.  The couriers and
fast attack ships were much smaller, as were attack fighters, though only the
fast messengers were capable of reaching hyperspace on their own.  Still, they
were facing the prospect of a visit by a twenty five million ton battleship,
over two hundred and fifty times her own mass.

And we’re more suited to going
head to head with pirates, thought the Cinda.  That was exactly what
her ship had been envisioned to take on, either hunting them, or protecting
merchant traffic.  It was ludicrous at best to station her in a system as a
defense against an opponent whose smallest warship was in the six hundred thousand
ton range.  Especially with the special orders that came down from the Emperor
himself.

Cinda pulled up a side holo and
stared at the comp representation of the enemy that was en route.  An image
originally taken thousands of years before.  They haven’t changed,
she thought, looking at the figure of a tall, furred biped, standing on two
strong legs, double shoulders extending from the torso supporting four arms.
The head was the horror, a medium muzzled, red eyed carnivore with sharp teeth
showing in a grin, two large horns growing from the top of the skull.  The
creature stood three meters tall sans the horns, and looked very much like the
demons of some human religions.

“We’re receiving a gravity pulse
from New Kiev,” said the Com Officer, a young man who looked like he had
just walked out of the doors of the academy.  “Her captain is ordering us to
support them in an action against that warship.”

Books by Doug Dandridge

Science Fiction

The Deep Dark Well
Trilogy

The Deep Dark Well:  An Adventure 40,000 years in
the making.  Pandora Latham was a Kuiper Belt Miner from Alabama.  She’s used
to landing on her feet, even when the next surface is through a wormhole,
halfway across the Galaxy and 46,000 years in the Future.  Pandora must
discover the secret behind the end of civilization, and the enigma of the
Immortal Watcher, the last survivor of the Empire that once ruled the stars.
Her decisions will set the path for Galactic recovery, or a continuation down
the roads of Barbarism.

To Well and Back:  Pandora Latham is back,
working Watcher’s plan to restore Galactic Civilization.  But first she has to
deal with the Xenophobes of the Nation of Humanity, back in the Supersystem
with their sights set on making the Galaxy their own.  Pandora is angry at the
hyper religious Nation, and you don’t want to make a woman from Alabama angry.

Deeper and Darker:  Pandora Latham is on the
warpath.  Watcher, her lover, and the only man who can once again unite the
Galaxy, is a prisoner of the Totalitarian government of the New Galactic
Empire.  The Empire thinks they have the upper hand, but they have never faced
someone like Pandi, and the peoples of the Galaxy that she has rallied to her
cause.

The Exodus Series

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 1:  The introduction
to the Exodus Universe.  Two thousand years prior mankind fled from the
Predatory Ca’cadasans, traveling a thousand years and ten thousand light years
to a new home.  Now the greatest power of their sector of space, things seem to
be going well for the New Terran Empire.  Until the enemy appears once again at
the gates.  And the years have not softened the aliens’ stance toward Humanity.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2:  The saga
continues.  The Ca’cadasans attack at the moment when the government of the
Empire is at its most chaotic.  There are other enemies as well, waiting for
their chance to fall on the overwhelmed humans.  And a young man with no
ambition for power finds himself in the position he most dreads.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3:  Sean is rescued,
but he is not about to go back to the safety of the capital without striking
back at the Ca’cadasans who have invaded his Empire.  But will his decision put
the lives of thousands at risk, as well as risking the safety of his own
Empire, by depriving it of its leader.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 4:  Sean is crowned
Emperor, and attempts to organize the Empire for war against the Ca’cadasans.
But he finds that planning battles and winning battles are two different
things. Defeat follows defeat.  Can anyone snatch victory from the jaws of
defeat?  Or will the new Emperor fail before his reign even really begins.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger:
Cornelius Walbroski enters the rigors of Ranger training, becoming one of the
augmented warriors of the Empire.  But his first assignment, Azure, is one of
the most deadly planets in the Galaxy, even prior to the coming of the Cacas.
Can Cornelius survive his first mission?  Or will  promising career end before
it really begins.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 6: The Day of Battle:
Sean and the Empire need a victory before human morale goes completely into the
black hole.  He develops a plan to bring the Ca’cadasans into battle in space
of his choosing.  But the Cacas are not an easy opponent, and they have plans
of their own, for the Donut.

Exodus: Empires at War: Book 7: Counter Strike:
The Empire has weathered the Ca’cadasan onslaught, and now it’s the time to
strike back with an offensive of their own.  A victory could win the war.  But
will it?

Exodus: Tales of the Empire: Exploration Command:
Three novelettes concerning Exploration Command, the arm of the Fleet tasked
with pushing back the boundaries of the Empire, and discovering the technology
needed to win the war.

Other Scifi

Diamonds in the Sand:  When a perfectly healthy
scientist falls dead of an apparent heart attack, it is up to Sarasota Police
Detective Lieutenant Gary Lariviere to find out what really happened.  The
scientist was working on Nanotechnology, a secret desired by everyone from the
Government to the Mob.  There are too many suspects, including the woman that
Gary comes to love.  The Army had made Gary better than human, but had they
prepared him for the terrors that had been unleashed by the new technology?

The Scorpion:  The Scorpion had been the world’s
deadliest living terrorist.  Kestral McMann had been in on the kill.  Now The
Scorpion is back as a mind upload, using clones to penetrate the tight security
of an isolationist United States.  McMann is the only man who can stop him.
But can McMann survive the threat of his own side, and the insane President who
leads the Nation, in time to stop The Scorpion from plunging the Great Satan
back into the Stone Age.

The Shadows of the Multiverse:  Something has
been periodically wiping intelligence from our Universe through the ages.  It’s
back, and it’s up to three unlikely heroes, the Captain of a Battle Cruiser, a
Physicist turned Archeologist, and a Child, to save the intelligence of the
Universe from Monsters from another Dimension.  Can they learn to use the
powers of their unusual Quantum Minds to defeat creatures that have been
playing the game for billions of years?

Afterlife:  What if you didn’t believe in the
afterlife of the World’s Religions?  And what if science offered you the
alternative, survival within the Virtual World of a computer, where your mental
abilities are magnified and you can do anything you want?  And what if the World
decided that your way was wrong, and declared war on you, meaning to destroy
your reality?  What would you do?  Afterlife, a tale of survival at all costs.

We Are Death, Come For You:  When aliens strike
the Tau Ceti colony, humankind knows that something bad is on the way.  They
prepare as best they can, but will it be enough against superior technology?
The aliens are death worshippers, and only the extinction of the human race
will satisfy their evil intent.  There are wonders of tech on the horizon, but
can they be deployed in time?  Or will humankind have to depend on the smallest
of their techs to save them?

Fantasy

The Refuge Series

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1:  A nuclear war in
Central Europe opens the gates between dimensions, sending millions of Earth
Humans into a land of myth, archetypes and fantasy.  The Evil Emperor of the
Ellala Elves sees the humans as energy to fuel his transformation to
immortality.  But the humans have brought their own weapons with them, as well
as a race of Demigods who will battle the fantastic armies of Refuge.  The war
is on, and only one side will ultimately survive.

Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2:  The Ellala have a
plan to destroy the human military and capture the civilians.  And the humans
find that their weapons will soon cease to function.  So it’s use it or lose it
for the Earth Humans, and they use it with a vengeance.  Tanks against Mages,
Attack Helicopters against Dragons, and Nuclear Weapons against Death Gods.
And the other peoples of the planet come forth as allies to the humans that
they see as the fulfillment an Ancient Prophecy.  But will it be enough?

Refuge: Book 3: The Legions:  The human invaders
are now without their technologies, at least those using explosives and
internal combustion engines.  But they still have knowledge of many other
techs, especially the arts of warfare as practiced by the greatest infantry of
the ancient world.  Will it be enough to stand up to the half lich Emperor and
his magical forces.

Refuge: Book 4: Kurt’s Quest:  When the evil half
lich Emperor sends his minions on a mission to find the Crown of the Lost Gods,
an artifact which can control the minds of millions, it is up to Kurt von
Mannerheim to stop them.  Along with his fellow immortal, Jackie Smith, the
human Physicist/Mage James Drake, the Ellala Ranger Fenris and the Grimakan
Priest Garios, they must head to the frozen north to foil the plan, and ensure
that the evil artifact never sees the light of day.

Refuge: Doppelganger: Set thousands of years
after the arrival, Kurt von Mannerheim, the Immortal Emperor of the Imperium of
Free Nations, must give up everything to save his Empress, the Elfin Princess
Gwenara Elysius von Mannerheim.  The world is at a crisis point as the Evil
Tarakesh Empire, under its Immortal Emperor Heinrich Stuppleheim, prepares to
overrun the world with its Nazi Ideology.  And Kurt must face a creature of
legend that may prove too much for even his physical and mental abilities.

Other Fantasy

The Hunger:  Abused wife, drug addict,
prostitute; Lucinda Taylor had been victimized by men all her adult life.  Left
for dead by her pimp, Lucinda was turned by a passing vampire.  When he is
destroyed she becomes a free agent, slaking her hunger for blood on the bottom
dwellers of society, the type of men who once victimized her.  The crime boss
of Tampa is her next target, and the City by the Bay is about to become a
bloodbath.  But can Lucinda avoid those who are hunting for her; the Priest,
the FBI man, and a pair of Vampires who would like nothing better than to send
one Avenging Vampire forever into the dark?

Daemon:  A Steampunk Fantasy.  The world is
dying, the victim of the magic used by society for the last three hundred
years.  Daemon Corporation thinks they have the answer, stealing the life from
other worlds, bringing from other dimensions the intelligences that inhabit
them for sacrifice on Earth.  But something has come with them, a force that is
killing the employees of Daemon Corp.  It is up to Forensic Mage Detective Jude
Parkinson to find a way to stop the unstoppable, while keeping the head of
Daemon Corp from silencing him to keep the dark secrets of the company out of
the public eye.

Aura:  Triplets are born on a world where the
magical Aura decides the fate of its owner.  Ariel is a girl with more than
double the normal Aura, destined to become a mighty Priest or Mage.  Aiden has
a less than normal Aura, and is destined to be a soldier or laborer.  While
Arlen has no Aura at all, and is seen as an abomination in the eyes of the
Church of Baalra the Dragon God, which has no power over those with Negative
Auras.  Fate will rip the siblings apart, then bring them back together as they
battle to defeat the Dragon God and leave the Evil Empire, before Ariel is
taken as the Avatar of Baalra, his mortal vessel on Earth.

Books with other Authors:

Five By Five 3: Target Zone:  Novellas by New
York Times Bestsellers Kevin J. Anderson and Michael A. Stackpole, along with
Prometheus Award Winner Dani and Eytan Kollin, Baen Author Sarah A. Hoyt, and
Exodus Empires at War Author Doug Dandridge, make this a must have book for the
military science fiction aficionado.

New Imagination
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