Date: 2013-11-07 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Space Opera; Fiction; Science Fiction Fantasy; Military Fiction; Military Science Fiction
Description: Previously published within the anthology Planetary Assault. From Hugo award finalist and Amazon bestselling author David VanDyke. When Admiral Absen and the crew of EarthFleet's most powerful dreadnought Conquest are sent on a mission forty light years from Earth, none of them expect to return. But to find a home and keep humanity safe from hostile aliens, they must fight to seize a new world, initiating EarthFleet's first conquest of another star system. First Conquest is Book 1 of the Plague Wars: Stellar Conquest series, which carries the Plague Wars series forward a century into the futur
Publisher: Reaper Press

First Conquest

Stellar Conquest Series

Book One
by

David VanDyke

Copyright © 2013 by David VanDyke. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means whatsoever (electronic, mechanical or otherwise) without prior written permission and consent from the author. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Books by David VanDyke

Plague Wars Series
The Eden Plague
Reaper’s Run
Skull’s Shadows
Eden’s Exodus
Apocalypse Austin
Nearest Night
The Demon Plagues
The Reaper Plague
The Orion Plague
Cyborg Strike
Comes The Destroyer

Stellar Conquest Series
The Plague Wars continues 100 years later!
First Conquest
Desolator
Tactics of Conquest
Conquest of Earth
Conquest and Empire

Star Force Series - with BV Larson
Outcast
Exile
Demon Star

For more information visit http://www.davidvandykeauthor.com/

Cover by Humblenations.com

Formatting by LiberWriter

Author's Introduction

If this is your very first book in the Plague Wars / Stellar Conquest series you may wish to read the whole saga in chronological order, starting with Book 0: The Eden Plague. This will introduce you to the characters from the beginning and may provide you with a better reading experience.

Also, look below to get Reaper's Run: Plague Wars Book 1 free for a limited time.

Cheers, and happy reading!

David VanDyke

_________________

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Prologue

“Before all else, be armed.” – Niccolo Machiavelli

Inbound toward Meme Empire system Gliese 370, thirty-six light years from Earth

Ink-dark and cold, robot recon drone R-35 cruised through the interstellar void, as stealthy as Earthtech could make it. The tiny ship soaked up electromagnetics and analyzed them, seeking specific conditions as it approached the target star system at an appreciable fraction of light speed.

Just before crossing the stellar boundary, its fate took an ill turn.

Directly ahead, a Meme Sentry waited. As black as the human-built intruder, the alien watcher detected the incoming drone’s impact on the standing wave of hot shocked plasma that existed, as with all star systems, at its stellar wind bubble boundary. This anomaly was sufficient to catch its attention; the semi-intelligent Sentry broadcast an alert, launched its available hypervelocity missile, and immediately began gestating another.

A living creature in its own right, the tiny shark-like weapon consisted of little more than a rudimentary nervous system and an advanced fusion engine, allowing it accelerations far in advance of any human technology. Its one goal in its short life was a kamikaze crash into its designated target at high speed.

R-35 had no defenses, but detected the launch in time to dump its memory, upload all data to its transmitter, and broadcast an encrypted signal burst. It had no chance to evade, as its enemy lay dead ahead. The Meme Sentry’s living missile hardly had to maneuver to intercept it. The collision of the two tiny vehicles annihilated them both in a burst of impact fusion.

Unseen, sibling drones R-05, R-15 and R-25 collected the transmitted data, relayed it via comm laser to the approaching EarthFleet dreadnought Conquest, and all continued silently inward toward the orange dwarf star, and humanity’s monstrous enemy.

With this tiny opening salvo, EarthFleet’s first bid for stellar conquest began.

Chapter 1

The being designated SystemLord brooded in his containment tank aboard the great Meme Empire guardian-ship Monitor. An eye and several pseudopods provided access to screens, controls and interfaces, but most of his body consisted of rich protoplasm infused with untold numbers of the molecules that made up his free-floating mind.

SystemLord called himself “he” in his own thoughts because of his long association with the lower races, especially those where the warriors were males. Unlike many Meme, he felt a certain fascination with the savages and Underlings that lived on planets rather than in free space as pure Meme did.

SystemLord considered himself a warrior. One day, when he grew tired of ruling, he would blend with an Underling. The thought of making war and killing with his own extremities, to take females for pleasure and produce progeny by sexual reproduction, sent quivers of anticipated decadence through his jelly-like substance.

But not today. At present he occupied himself with contemplating the concept of the personal name.

By tradition Meme only took names upon blending with sentient creatures. Until then, the amoeba-like bags of interconnected memory-molecules were designated based on function. Only upon absorbing and subsuming another thinking being would one of the True Race select its own name, to trade space-dwelling status for the sensory pleasures of planetary existence.

He also ruminated on the basis of his own race’s name of Meme, which meant simply ideas conveyed, imitated and replicated. It was an apt moniker for a people that reproduced by fission and expanded by blending with and taking over the bodies of others.

SystemLord wondered whether the Meme had been too long bound by tradition. A suitably impressive name might be useful, delineating him from all others also called SystemLord, but to do so would invite conflict. After all, named beings simply did not command systems.

His thoughts then turned to the concepts of taboo and iconoclast.

A communication pulse, filtered through the hierarchy of his Sentries, was routed to his main vision screen. Hemispherical, concave, the display perfectly surrounded the enormous eyeball that was a semi-permanent part of SystemLord’s body. The Meme ceased to brood as he studied the Sentry’s brief engagement, drawing certain conclusions.

First, the destroyed object was artificial, having revealed itself by transmitting. It was therefore by definition hostile. Because the concept of alliance or coexistence simply did not exist in Meme society, any non-Meme technology revealed an enemy.

SystemLord shuddered as he remembered Species 447, which called itself Ryss. Those creatures had resisted absorption for thousands of cycles, and had scoured many Meme systems clear of the True Race as it struggled to remain wild. They had required an Empire-wide effort to crush and absorb. Blending with their defeated, biologically lobotomized remnants had been sweet indeed.

Second, the object’s extrapolated line of approach originated within five degrees of the savage Species 666, so-called Human, planet, which had also proved itself resistant to absorption. Probability dictated it had come from there.

Why any species would defy the Meme and the Empire escaped SystemLord, but lower sentients were wild, unpredictable and insane.

Third, these Humans were vicious, but lacked the proper military mindset. Any commander worth his electrolytes would have ensured the probe died inert, failing to confirm its artificiality to its enemy. Had it done so, the automated Sentry system might have mistaken the device as merely an unidentified floating object, never to be reported.

But clearly Humans were fools, for now SystemLord knew they were coming.

***

“Wake them up.” Craggy, intense, and pale, Admiral Henrich J. Absen sat stiffly in his crash chair, feeling it respond perfectly to every shift. Looking confident in “The Chair” was important to any ship’s commander. Never comfortable with the adapted enemy biotech the seat used, he had to force himself not to fidget. It reminded him too much of the stasis cocoon he’d just spent forty years in.

At least he’d been among the earliest revived: first the BioMed personnel; next, the officers and other key personnel by rank; and then the rest of the thousands of crew.

Then there were the million colonists stacked in stasis deep in Conquest’s belly, but they would stay there until the battle was over.

“Aye aye, sir,” replied Doc Horton, the BioMed officer on bridge duty. The woman spoke aloud into the comm at the same time she transmitted her words via brain-datalink implant. “BioMed control, this is the bridge. Skipper says, wake them up.”

Skipper. The word felt right as it echoed through Absen’s head. He was a full Admiral now, three-star rank in EarthFleet’s Commonwealth-derived naval structure, but he’d declined to choose a flag captain to skipper the massive dreadnought EFS Conquest, as well as command the task force it would soon become.

Arrogant, some called him, but as the Fleet’s most experienced and decorated commander – surviving commander – he had that leeway. We drove the Meme back from Earth every time, he thought, but oh, the cost. Good friends gone forever.

Glancing around his bridge, he felt nothing but pride at his handpicked command crew. Survivors of numerous brutal alien assaults on Earth’s solar system, those that remained now meshed smoothly. Or they had, before more than forty years of stasis. Most had been revived only a few hours ago.

Of course, they had all taken yearlong waking shifts during their travel, but with thirty thousand crew to draw from within the multi-billion-ton ship, that was no burden.

“Intel, do you have the latest on Earth system?” Absen knew the question uppermost on everyone’s mind: Is my home still there?

The intelligence officer on watch replied, “Yes sir. Just came through from Analysis.”

“Push to all stations,” Absen ordered.

Those bridge crew not fully engaged in vital tasks avidly read the short extract on their screens:

SITREP EXECSUM: SOLAR SYSTEM SECURE AS OF DATE 2079/05/25. ENEMY TASK FORCE DETECTED INBOUND EARTH ETA APPROXIMATELY THIRTY-ONE (~31) YEARS (ARRIVAL DATE 2110/?/?). ASSESSED STRENGTH IN EXCESS OF SIXTY-FOUR (64) DESTROYERS. MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL PROJECTIONS ESTIMATE FORTY-THREE (43) PERCENT PROBABILITY EARTHFLEET DEFENSE SUCCESS.

A detailed report full of annexes followed, but for most, the summary was enough. As the ugly truth sunk in, a hush fell over the bridge.

Conquest and the task force she represented were thirty-six light-years from home. Because nothing known exceeded light speed, the information from Earth was by definition thirty-six years old.

The bridge readouts showed the 9th of April, 2115 AD, therefore the enemy fleet had already struck Earth’s solar system five years ago, sometime in the year 2110. Everyone at home might be dead, or lobotomized and absorbed by the Meme.

Forty-three percent chance of survival. Sixty-four Destroyers, Absen thought in quiet horror. Destroyers – but not the traditional human use of the term meaning an escort vessel. The name had come from captured Meme information: “Destroyer” was a simple declaration of function. Meme Destroyers were huge ships as puissant as his own dreadnought, which was itself the biggest and best warship EarthFleet had ever produced.

The best forty years ago, he reminded himself. Four more decades of development must have produced powerful ships indeed.

He sincerely hoped so.

“Schedule an All-Hands assembly in eighteen hours,” Absen ordered. “But since I know that the scuttlebutt will get there first, let me just say this to everyone. Nothing has changed for us here. Earth is either still free or it isn’t, and nothing we do will alter that. We accepted this mission when we left home forty years ago. We are here in the Gliese 370 system to make EarthFleet’s first conquest of an enemy-held planet. Humanity can’t sit at home and absorb ever-increasing assaults from an empire spanning thousands of worlds. Our only hope is to attack.”

***

Sergeant Major Jill Repeth, EarthFleet Marines, gasped as the slimy tracheal tube withdrew and she began to breathe on her own again. Lifting her hands to rub her face, she carefully opened her eyes for the first time in what must be nearly forty years. Lighting glowed dim and no klaxons wailed, no strobes flashed, so she figured Conquest to be on schedule, nearing her destination.

Repeth felt the living coffin, another product of adapted enemy biotech, loosen on her lower body, and she winced when the catheter probes withdrew. Naked, she was birthed anew. She welcomed the sound and fury to come. After nearly sixty years of Marine service – plus the forty in stasis – she still looked forward eagerly to righteous battle. Neither guilt nor moral ambiguity troubled her thoughts of killing aliens hell-bent on genocide.

Sixty years. She’d never expected to serve for that long, but the Eden Plague virus conferred immortality and rapid healing, so such spans were now commonplace. She could have easily been an officer by now, but she’d always hated the idea of separation from the rank and file. Offered her choice of warrant or commission many times, she’d always refused, preferring to stay where she was most comfortable – top enlisted Marine in a front-line combat unit.

Looking around, she marveled at the rows upon rows of the biotech cocoons that had kept everyone alive, healthy but in stasis for the last four decades. Lines of them extended in a vast adult nursery, incubators of military personnel. She could see at least a thousand of the things from where she stood. In various stages of processing, BioMed personnel bustling among them, she knew many thousands more were spread throughout Conquest and the ships attached to her.

Stumbling for the female showers in the deliberately heavy gravity that matched the target planet the astronomers had named Afrana, she was grateful for the protocol that decanted key leaders in order of rank. Brigadier Stallers and the rest of the Marine brigade’s officers should have been awakened ahead of her.

Under hot water she soaped and sluiced, scrubbing remnants of bio-gel out of her ears, and then gingerly tested her cybernetics. As far as she could tell, her laminated bones and polymer-enhanced musculature had come through without degrading.

Holding up her hands, she extended her claws in sequence to their full two centimeters, starting with the thumbs. The pain of the ferrocrystal knives slicing through her skin from beneath was familiar, comforting.

Like the anachronistic bayonet, she seldom used the cutting blades in combat, but they’d come in handy for covert missions, back before Earth had been unified.

Thoughts of Earth threw her mind back to her last view of that fragile blue marble hanging in space, and all the hopes and dreams of its inhabitants. Leaving behind everyone there was hard, and once again she crammed down the gentler part of her humanity, coating her soul in armor not so different from what she wore in combat. Only one man had been allowed past that façade: her husband, Commander Rick Johnstone.

Having him along kept her human, but the time for softness was past. Conquest and the ships attached to her had one simple mission: kill any Meme craft in the Gliese 370 system, destroy all resistance from the aliens nicknamed “Hippos” on the planet Afrana, and then colonize.

She thought about the briefings on the Hippos, what little they knew. So called because they were huge and gray and thick, they were reported to have technology similar to Earth’s, or possibly better.

It’s gonna be a hard fight, she thought.

Repeth touched her palm to the locker she had closed forty years ago and it hissed open, revealing her carefully packed kit. Looking in the mirror set inside, she saw a severe, strong-jawed face, intense brown eyes, and skin tinged with the blood of at least one Hispanic ancestor.

A warrior’s face.

Once dressed in crisp utilities, she felt like a Marine again. With her starched eight-point cap settled carefully on her head – an affectation from her U.S. wet-navy days – she went in search of coffee, information and her commander, in that order, probably all in the consolidated wardroom where officers and senior NCOs ate.

Drawing a steaming cup of “lifer-juice,” the muddy coffee dispensed by the industrial-sized brewer, she nodded at Brigadier Stallers sitting with his battalion commanders. One of those was her own, Major Joseph “Bull” ben Tauros, originally of the Israeli Defense Forces before volunteering for EarthFleet Marines. A hulking brute of a man, he was the only one that seemed completely normal without hair; the cue ball was his usual look.

Bull caught her eye and lifted his cup. She raised hers back in greeting, but doubted his held coffee. He stood up, nodding to the brigadier, then waved Repeth over to a table nearby, growling at a lone Navy ensign. The young man hastily grabbed his powdered eggs and found another place to be.

“Good decade, SMAJ,” Bull greeted her as they sat down.

She accepted the familiar corruption of “Sergeant Major” with good graces, knowing such nicknames built trust and camaraderie. “Good freakin’ four decades, Bull,” she replied, “but it feels like I only slept for a week.” Repeth sat down across from him and reached over to tilt his cup toward her with one short-nailed finger. “Ugh. Can’t believe you’re still drinking that dreck. I should space it.”

Bull pulled the protein shake back protectively. “Don’t you dare. I used all my personal allowance on this stuff. Can’t stay big on Navy food.”

“Who cares if you stay big? Your cybernetics provide most of your actual strength. Besides, it gives you gas like a sick hound.”

“I like to be big. You think this huge noggin would look good on a skinny body like yours?” He reached up to run a hand over his basketball-sized cranium.

Repeth held up her hands in surrender. “All right. So what’s the word?”

“Word is, All-Hands assembly at 1500 hours. Word is, Earth got hit five years ago by sixty-four Destroyers. We don’t even know if anyone’s left.” Bull slurped more of his shake, pensive.

Repeth pursed her lips and put on a stoic front. “Can’t help that. We knew when we left it was long years of traveling at best, a one-way trip at worst.”

“We might be all that’s left of the human race.” Bull hid a fleeting expression of deep concern.

She leaned over to pound her index finger on the tabletop in front of the big young Marine officer. “Listen, sir, I’ve been in active combat longer than you’ve been alive. I’ve spoon-fed green lieutenants and I’ve made and I’ve broke battalion commanders like you. But I’ve seen you over the past few months – before the forty years – hell, you know what I mean – and I know you’ve got what it takes. So just do your job the best you know how and have faith in ol’ mother Repeth.” Unconsciously she patted her left breast pocket where her father’s ancient leather-bound small-print Bible rested.

Bull’s mouth quirked up in a smile at her gesture. He reached up to his neckline to reveal a heavy ferrocrystal Star of David medallion on a chain. “I got faith, SMAJ. But Moshe Dayan said faith and bullets’ll get you farther than faith alone.”

Repeth laughed. “Amen to that, my bulky brother. No atheists in armor, eh? Pass the Lord and praise the ammunition.” She clapped him on the shoulder, a sensation like slapping wood. “I see the NCOs are up. Suggest you finish that glop and start doing some officer stuff. Find your drip-nose lieutenants, tell them mommy and daddy will make everything all right.”

Bull rose with her, draining his plastic cup and folding it into a cargo pocket. “Yeah, lieutenants. Making simple shit hard since Christ was a corporal.”

Repeth tsk-stk’d good-naturedly at his irreverence.

The Jewish major grinned. “You don’t like the way I talk, SMAJ, that’s your cross to bear.”

“Why do I feel like you set up every Gentile you know for that line?” With a rueful snort she took her leave and refilled the coffee mug and headed out, intending to see to her awakening troops. It was NCO business to get them ready so officers didn’t have to.

Crossing the floor, Repeth spotted Tran Pham “Spooky” Nguyen sitting alone in a corner. Usually the slim Vietnamese highlander was easy to overlook, except that today she saw he wore the blinding white high-collared uniform of the Naval Stewards, EarthFleet’s specialized protective police service. She’d given up surprise at Spooky’s changes of uniform; he’d long since passed into legend within the clandestine services of Earth.

He’d gotten the nickname long ago, before the aliens salted Earth with the Demon Plagues with which the Meme had tried to reduce humanity to mindless animals. Later enhancements – combat nanites in the blood, cybernetic implants like Repeth’s, and his dedication to the martial arts – had only magnified his legend.

I’m one of the handful of people aboard that knows he’s a covert operative – spy, assassin, intimidator. Should have figured he’d show up; he’s always where the action is.

“G’day, Spooky. Nice look.” She sat down, knocked her coffee cup against his tea mug. “You playing bodyguard this trip?”

“Thank you, Jill. Of course, a Steward’s role extends beyond personal protection of the senior staff.” His accent was precise, perfect upper-class English, an affectation adopted so long ago that it was unshakeable. “Are you still playing at being Australian?”

She noticed he didn’t exactly answer her question, a common occurrence with Spooky. Jill chuckled. “Lots of Aussies in the Marines, so I pick up the dialect, that’s all. But are you doing anything, uh, specific, or just keeping an eye on things?”

And I refuse to ask why you even came on this mission, she thought. You’ve always done exactly as you pleased, and somehow you get away with it.

“As you say, keeping an eye on things.” Spooky’s gaze roamed the room, searching, she knew, for anything out of place.

Repeth wondered whether he was hunting traitors and spies again…ugly work, work she never wanted to have to do again. Guarded, she watched him for a moment more. “Good to see you on the job, but I have things to do. Look me up sometime.”

“Oh, you can be sure of that.” His look was unfathomable.

She ignored the comment and stood up, bowed formally to him as if they were back at the dojo, and then put away her mug to go look for her troops.

Chapter 2

R-05, R-15 and R-25 continued inward toward the K-type orange dwarf star. In the years since they were launched from Conquest, they had moved outward along curving paths, thence to approach Gliese 370 at slightly convergent angles. Though spread millions of kilometers apart, each had long ago carefully aimed itself at a point very near the star itself.

Unlike R-35, these three crossed the interstellar boundary without incident, undetected. Even at more than half of light speed their approach to the star itself took several hours. During this time, they greedily collected data, pinpointing Meme spacecraft, orbital structures and the many installations that sat on moons, asteroids and planets.

Gliese 370 itself, an orange dwarf star, had six bodies that one could call planets. Labeled A through F for convenience, only Afrana, the innermost and most Earthlike, had a name and a single large moon. It also held indigenous life – the thousand-kilo bipeds they called Hippos. A hot world, when the time came to colonize, humans would be able to live comfortably only close to the poles.

B and C were Mars-like and D was a cold dwarf, barely large enough to be termed a planet. E and F were analogous to Jupiter and Uranus, respectively. All but Afrana happened to be well away from the task force’s path of travel, so neither Meme nor Hippos could use the planets, or any installations they might contain, for defense or surprise.

Electromagnetic emanations from all forms of technology within the Meme complex were shockingly faint. EarthFleet intelligence believed that the Meme Empire deliberately hid its emissions to minimize the warning any target civilizations might receive. Had humans picked up signals from other worlds at the dawn of the radio age, history might have been far different. Once the Meme invasion spurred humanity into space, careful searches had found the faint traces.

As they neared the orange dwarf star, the robot probes collected petabytes of data, imaging and recording every anomaly, every planetary surface, every moon, and as many of the asteroids as they could see. One even flew within a light-second of HD85512b, the planet dubbed Afrana, sponging up intelligence.

Independent of each other, never coordinating in order to stymie detection, each sent a heavily encrypted comm-burst of coherent light toward Conquest just before the probes began massive decelerations, very near the system’s sun.

The robot drones each made one brutally quick and close partial orbit of the star, decelerating all the way, their blazing emissions lost in the glare of its corona. Once slowed, they egressed on paths that would drift them into position to collect information for as long as possible.

R-15 never emerged from the far side of the star, having encountered a fluke solar flare that burned it to a cinder. R-05 and R-25 noted the fact and continued their missions, floating at speeds unlikely to trip enemy detection grids, back toward Afrana’s orbit but well away from the planet itself.

No longer protected by enormous velocity, each of the two remaining probes might be able to transmit its collected data once only, at risk from Meme automated systems defenses. Had the robots been sentient, this might have disturbed them, but in human experience, true AI had always failed or gone mad, leaving tasks such as this to mere computers. Thus, the robots fulfilled their assignments with machine determination and awaited their masters’ arrival.

***

SystemLord released instructions throughout his Sentry network and ordered his enormous ship Monitor to its intermediate stage of wakefulness. Soon the great animal would grow hungry, so he nudged the half-asleep leviathan toward a cache of comets and asteroids that had long ago been positioned at a stable orbital point, as a supply depot.

One kilometer-wide ball made of water ice and useful elements vanished into the vast maw of the Meme-directed spheroid and began its digestion. Tough outer skin hundreds of meters thick rippled as the chunk was broken, filtered, and processed. Biological factories, living creatures in their own right, attacked the pieces as they passed through Monitor’s gut.

Then it ate another.

Replete with materials, SystemLord turned Monitor in toward the orange dwarf star. Its shape changed from a lumpy grey ball to that of a disc, spreading surface area perpendicular to the solar radiation, becoming a vast collector of energy to process the water it had consumed. H2 and O2 were split and stored separately: isotopes of hydrogen for fusion, and pure oxygen to sustain the living tissues.

On the way, Monitor gulped two smaller metallic asteroids, materials to be digested into ships and weapons with which to eradicate the Human disease that was certainly on its way. Within itself it began the gestation processes that would ultimately birth destruction for its enemies.

***

The all-hands assembly approached rapidly as the BioMed staff hustled to get everyone decanted and on their feet in time. Some of the last ones ended up listening to Admiral Absen’s address in the locker rooms, but most clustered around screens in their designated wardrooms and messes, sat in filled auditoriums, crowded into conference rooms or stood on the flight decks of assault carriers, staring at giant screens.

Cameras focused on the main auditorium podium so everyone throughout the ship would see and hear the admiral’s address. “Attention on deck!” Thirty thousand pairs of boots snapped together in unison across the ship as Absen entered its largest amphitheatre.

Front and center with the rest of the off-watch senior bridge crew, Master Helmsman Otis Okuda imagined he could feel the crash through Conquest’s deck plates. “Take your seats,” came next, and he was happy to sit. Okuda understood the need for artificial gravity to be set high, but disliked it nonetheless. His was the realm of trackless space, of piloting starships through the implanted cybernetics in his brain, not clomping around with his boots in the mud. Coal-black skin glistened with sweat at the unaccustomed effort.

“Good morning Conquest, and welcome to the year 2115,” Absen began, prompting a murmur of amusement from the audience. “A few of you have been out of stasis during the trip, but for the vast majority, you have been asleep since 2075, and as most of you already know, a powerful Meme fleet was due to hit Earth in 2110. Ladies and gentlemen, as I told those near me when I found out, there’s nothing we can do about it. Word of the outcome won’t even reach us here for thirty-one years.”

Absen cleared his throat. “If EarthFleet won, some of us might eventually return home, but even then it will be a different solar system. Those you know might be alive, but after a hundred years of separation, they won’t be the same people you knew.”

Sweeping the room with his pale sky-colored eyes, the cameras transmitted his craggy intensity throughout the ship. “And if we lost, then we might be the last true humans in existence. So just as I told you forty years ago when we started, I tell you again in all sincerity: Conquest is your world, and the people here are your family, your clan, your tribe, your nation. If we do not conquer here, there is no retreat, no surrender. If we do not conquer here, we cannot run. If we do not conquer here, humanity dies.”

Pausing to let that sink in, he turned to his senior officers sitting behind him. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Absen concluded, looking pointedly at his watch, “we are nine days out.”

***

Relieved that the All-Hands had been short, Master Helmsman Okuda settled comfortably into the sunken pit of the bridge’s helm station, surrounded by holodisplays. The 4D screens were nearly superfluous as long as his linked cybernetics functioned, but like the manual controls in a computer-directed airliner, they comforted him. Besides, regulations required them, and no one ever died from too many redundant systems.

He reached up to his medusa, slotting retractable plugs into the interface sockets in his skull. Soon he resembled the mechanism’s namesake, his ebony shaven pate a nest of snakelike wires.

Initiating the link opened his mind to a whole new universe. Godlike, he flew in the center of nothingness, perceiving the cosmos in all directions. He smelled the interstellar winds, tasted hydrogen atoms as the magnetic scoops swept them into fuel collectors, heard the radio sirens of pulsars and quasars and stars of every kind – Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Magee’s High Flight stood enshrined in the heart of every helmsman, every pilot.

His sense of touch remained deliberately unaltered, essential for grounding a linked helmsman in the real world. Hands resting on the complex suite of manual controls, he brushed them lightly like a pianist, and though his nerves now transmitted impulses with the speed of fiber optics, nothing had ever really improved on the sensitivity of those ten digits.

Short of direct computer control, of course. Okuda had that option; he could turn any and all functions over to one of Conquest’s supercomputers, and he sometimes did, but ultimately, piloting had to come down to one helmsman.

Or woman. He thought of his wife Celia, Master Helmsman of the assault carrier Temasek, and the few days they would have together before Conquest initiated separation into its component ships. When it did, the massive mothership would spawn a fleet, and opportunities for visits would be rare. No doubt all those with lovers and spouses aboard – an unusually high percentage, since procreative ability was one criterion for the mission – were thinking the same thing: what will sex be like after forty years in stasis?

Thirty-seven minutes after his watch ended, Okuda found out it was still almost as good as piloting a starship.

***

Admiral Absen’s address still echoed across the crowded flight deck as she announced, “I am Sergeant Major Repeth.” Her amplified voice reached the whole formation as she stood in front of Second Marine Battalion, over one thousand enlisted troops. They were arrayed on the largest available open space of the assault carrier Temasek, which still clung like a remora to Conquest. Major ben Tauros and the other officers would arrive soon, she knew.

“Those of you who have served with me know I like to be called by my first name. Swede,” she asked, turning to her rawboned Alpha Company First Sergeant, “tell these diggers what my first name is.”

“Last time I heard,” First Sergeant Gunderson drawled, “it was SERGEANT MAJOR.” This elicited a few muffled chuckles from the newest Marines and groans from the oldest.

“How right you are.” She walked down the line, glorying in the precise ranks of well trained troops. “Now some of you may have heard of some stunts I pulled in my younger days. I’m an old and crotchety woman now,” she said, drawing some laughter, as the Eden Plague kept everyone fit and youthful in body, “and I have no interest in showing you how tough I am. Back in the day, a woman had to prove herself to a bunch of stupid macho boys. Any more, I just let my record speak for itself. I’ve killed more squids and blobbos than you greenies got boogers in your noses, and I still ain’t got my fill.”

“Besides,” she smiled nastily, “I know the lot of you young studs and studettes have the latest upgrades, just like me. You have laminated bones, cybernetic nerves and muscles, nanite speed and strength and the Eden Plague to heal you up after you break yourselves. This task force was given the best of Earth’s limited resources, so I’m not going to let you waste it on stupid schoolyard games. I will say this once and once only.” She swept the ranks with machine-gun eyes. “Do not test me. I would rather cull this herd of troublemakers now than let one stinking shitbird among you besmirch Second Battalion’s good name.” She scanned up and down the ranks, searching for any smirks, any hint of attitude or challenge, determined to make her example right away, as she always did.

A man stepped out of the ranks and swaggered up to her. He was big, and young, a corporal with a permanent anger on his face. A mutter went through the ranks.

There’s always one, Repeth thought with resignation. She wondered how the man had made it past the psych evals that were supposed to detect problem personalities. Best to get it over with quick.

“Finner,” she read off his name tag. “You sure you want to do this, Corporal? Even if you win, you lose.”

“I watched recordings of your little demonstrations,” the man responded with a sneer. “It took you whole minutes to barely beat better Marines than you, only because you had fancier cyberware. Now we all have the same, and I say your reputation is bullshit.”

The whole assembly watched and waited in silence for her response.

Repeth’s answering smile did not reach her eyes. Prominent eyeteeth enhanced her wolfish expression. “Take your best shot then, Private.”

His shot was a good one. Had she not been ready, it might have connected. A low, vicious kick at her knee, at least it showed the kid had some combat skills and street savvy.

It didn’t matter.

Repeth kept her claws in. To use them would be to prove her challenger right, since those were a modification available only to covert operatives and Stewards. Instead, she simply demonstrated a lifetime of personal combat experience and training.

She slid her leg back just enough to avoid the strike, then snapped it forward to plant her heel in the patella of his weight-bearing leg. It bowed unnaturally backward at the knee with a sickening crunch. Before he could fall, she stepped forward to seize the other leg, still in the air. Her elbow came down on that knee to destroy it as well.

Finner’s crybernetics had already shut down the pain, fooling his body into thinking it still had a chance, so even as he collapsed, his fists were striking out with surprising power.

Repeth turned her thigh into the blows, accepting a few bruises before driving the knife-edge of her foot through his guard and into his jaw, knocking him down, half-conscious. She then stamped both of his elbows to ruin.

It was over in three seconds. Finner lay broken on the deck, with knees and elbows smashed and inoperable. Absent those joints, all the implants and augmentation in the world couldn’t get him on his feet again.

Repeth hadn’t cracked a sweat. Her voice rang out. “This man’s squad leader, front and center.”

A stocky female sergeant double-timed forward to report, looking justifiably concerned. “Sorry, Sergeant M-“

“Shut it,” Repeth cut her off. She reached down to strip the fallen man’s rank tabs from his uniform, placing them in the other woman’s hand. Then she ripped the squad leader’s sergeant’s tabs off and put them in her own pocket.

“You should have handled his attitude yourself before this, Corporal. Take him directly to the brig. Tell them to disable his cybernetics before they treat him. Get moving.” She deliberately turned her back on the newly demoted noncom, waiting until she and her squad had carried the miscreant off.

Raising her voice to address the battalion again, she said, “I hope this lesson is not lost on everyone here. Not the lesson that I can take any one of you, because military discipline is not based on who’s the best brawler. The lesson I hope you learn is that this never should have happened. That shithead should have been dealt with long ago by his squad leader and his platoon sergeant and his first sergeant – who will all report to me after this formation concludes. We’re gonna be in a fight to the death in just a few days. There’s no room in this battalion for weak links like that.”

She looked around, searching for further problems, or challengers. This time she found nothing. This time, she thought, they know it’s as real as it gets. Fear of death doth wonderfully concentrate the mind.

Repeth’s smile became genuine, almost warm, lighting up her bony triathlete’s face. “But for those of you who give me one hundred percent, I will back you to the hilt, and so will your NCOs. If you have a problem, you bring it to them and they will bring it to me. You do not bring your problems to officers, unless you mistakenly think the problem is me, which is proof positive you are hallucinating, at which time you will be sent to BioMed for psych-eval. Am I clear?”

A thousand throats roared as one. “Clear, Sergeant Major!”

“We have nine days to get ready before we climb into the sleds. The training schedule is posted and I expect nothing less than your best. The only easy day was yesterday.” She saw Gunderson motion with his eyes off to her right and she turned to see Bull, his company commanders and a gaggle of lieutenants watching the drama from a discreet distance.

“Battalion: tench-hut!” She marched precisely to the center front of the formation and turned it over to Major ben Tauros with a perfect salute that nevertheless managed to convey that certain worldly confidence common to all senior noncommissioned officers. The fact that her commander overtopped her by a full head and eighty kilos somehow did nothing to diminish her presence as she marched to her position to listen to Bull’s first pep talk.

Yeah, it’s good to be a Marine.

***

Flight Leftenant Vincent “Vango” Markis flipped the switch that powered up the training simulator. With his “wizzo” – Weapons Systems Officer – Helen already linked in, initiating the simulation flooded their minds with shared sensation. The universe expanded and crowded into his brain all at once before his implanted cyberware sorted it out.

Opening his eyes changed nothing, as his optic nerves now shared their pathways with feeds from the virtual world. He could see the cockpit and the controls, which functioned just like in a real StormCrow fighter, as well as the complex overlay of the consoles only visible in his mind.

“Link is up and one hundred percent,” Vango said, and Helen echoed his words in ritual confirmation. “I’ll set us up for Level One.”

“Let’s just go right to Level Three, huh? The early ones are too easy,” Helen replied.

“No, we run the checklist. Jumping to Level Three denies the simulator data on our performance that the wing needs for its analysis and optimization. Besides, you haven’t used that link in forty years. You want to overload it now?”

“Better now than in combat. I ran the standard diagnostics; it’s fine.”

Vango’s voice hardened. “We do it by the book.”

Helen didn’t answer. He figured she heard he had fired wizzos before when they didn’t measure up. She was good and she knew it, so she got impatient.

“Look, Helen, it’s one thing to take a shortcut now and again in combat, if you think it’s worth the risk. If you do it routinely here in the simulator, you get used to it and you end up forgetting things.”

“Yes, boss.” Her voice sounded sulky.

Why do they send the problem hotshots to me? I think I know – because I’m the best there is. I hammer them into shape or I get rid of them.

“Okay, Level One.”

A simple row of Meme ships appeared at long range and launched a light spread of rather anemic hypervelocity missiles. As they approached, Vango lined up his sights and pressed the firing stud. Capacitors dumped simulated megajoules of electricity into the microwave laser, the maser, which ran through the spine of his fifty-meter-long StormCrow fighter.

The Crow had other weapons, but the maser was the biggest and hit the hardest. As it fired at full power, Vango saw his energy cells empty, and then start refilling as his fusion engine diverted some of its capacity to the closed-system generator. The invisible beam reached out toward the still slow-moving wave of enemy hypervelocity missiles, spearing one, cooking its living cells and causing it to veer and tumble. In the vastness of space and without guidance, that weapon was out.

Quickly he lined up another, letting it get closer and firing at half-charge, causing enough damage to kill that one too. He knew they’d speed up pretty soon and get harder to hit.

“Good shots,” Helen said from the back seat in a studiously bored voice; then again, she always seemed bored unless she was working her short-range systems, and the StormCrow squadron around them had killed all the inbound hypers of this wave at long to medium range.

Focusing ahead, Vango saw the far-off enemy ships launch another group, this time with greater velocity and more evasive maneuvers. A little more difficult, but he still lined up and killed his missile, then let his maser recharge. He nailed another, but some looked likely to make it past the fighter screen before he’d have power again.

“Helen, you are weapons free,” Vango said, rotating the Crow to give her a better solution on a cluster of three hypers flying past.

“Finally,” she groused, and the small secondary lasers and mini-railguns on the X of the StormCrow’s four equally spaced wings spat their deadly beams and balls. Though not packing the punch of the big maser, the converging high-cyclic-rate rays and shots battered a passing living missile with enough hits to cause it to sputter, deflate and fold up dead.

“Nice,” Vango praised. Helen was a cherry; she’d never flown a combat mission before Gliese 370. For her, this was all one big video game. She had never seen what a hyper could do if it really got going.

With their fantastic acceleration, Meme hypers got more and more dangerous at longer ranges. Sometimes they achieved a fair bit of light speed before impact, enough energy to tear apart anything smaller than a heavy cruiser. StormCrow fighters represented just one element of EarthFleet’s multilayered defense systems.

“Next wave coming up.” With capacitors full, he decided to split his shots at half power, since it looked like that was enough to take down a hyper after all. His shot at the first missile missed, but his second attempt nailed it, and he was glad he'd modified his technique.

Helen was already engaging at extreme secondary range, along with the dozens of Crows around them. They filled the space in front of them with coherent light and bullet-sized railgun rounds. Following one past in her crosshairs, Helen got another kill, and cheered herself. “Yes!”

Vango spun the fighter around to fire a parting half-power shot at the bright fusion flare of a hyper that had gotten past. The microwaves it projected, concentrated by the enemy missile drive’s plenum nozzle, overloaded the amazingly tough living material’s ability to control the reaction, for they destabilized the hyper’s engine and it blew.

“Getting tougher,” Helen said, concentration in her voice. “Who’s ahead on kills right now?”

Accessing his datalink, Vango replied, “We’re neck and neck with Ironman and Spin from the Giessen.”

“Good. Let’s beat those uppity bastards.”

“I think you ought to focus on saving the ships behind us from damage,” Vango said seriously.

“Same thing, isn’t it? Jeez, you’re such a damn straight arrow. It’s just a simulation!”

Growling deep in his throat, Vango touched the manual abort and the virtual universe evaporated around them. Fuming in the simulator cockpit for a moment, he finally barked, “Get out.”

“What?”

“Get out of my bird, Helen.”

“You bastard. You’d throw me out now? I’m the best wizzo in the squadron!”

Vango jerked his link out and stood up in the simulator, stepping up on his seat and turning around to look into her realistic cockpit. “Your stats may be the best, but that’s not all it takes. If you keep thinking of this as a simulation, you’re going to lose track of reality and get us killed. On every mission, simulated or actual, always treat everything as real. With our high-end virtual overlays, there’s no way to tell. The only way to operate is at your best, and if you’re not one hundred percent, you can go fly with someone else. Got it?”

Helen stared at Vango, her too-perfect face defiant. Finally she dropped her eyes. “I got it, boss,” she replied, and he glared at her for a moment more before dropping back into his own cockpit.

“You’d better,” he growled. “I’m about this close to flagging your flight status.” Plugging his link back in, he said flatly, “I’m setting the attackers to Level Three. Get ready.”

The hypers came at them again.

Chapter 3

Five days out, Absen thought as breakup time approached. Five days to live or die. His youthful appearance, product of the Eden Plague, belied his old soul. He had aged a hundred years when Kathleen and his children died in nuclear fire so long ago, and no amount of bodily rejuvenation could really make him young in spirit. He’d largely given up on hope of a relationship for the years he fought humanity’s war, and now he found himself again wondering if that had been a mistake.

Plenty of time if we win here. It will take decades for the Meme to react, to shift forces to try to retake Gliese 370, and in that time we’ll be making babies. That prospect was so much easier with orders to back it up – when he had a reason, an objective: another generation of humans to replace losses and to carry on the fight, to go with the ready-made factories that would build more factories that would build ships and weapons to defend the new civilization.

After that, on to another star system, and thence to conquer.

If we win. That’s on my shoulders.

“One minute until first-stage separation,” Master Helmsman Okuda said formally. He skimmed his screens, turning left and right to take in all of them, seeing nothing of concern except a few yellow lights in the later sequences.

“Initiate on the T-zero mark, Chief. Don’t wait for my word.” Absen had long since passed a need for the melodrama of giving history-making orders.

“Three, two, one, mark,” the computer’s voice said. Throughout Conquest the same voice spoke, synchronizing thought and action.

Those deep inside the great sphere continued about their business, secure in the knowledge that their parts would begin hours from now. Those on Conquest’s skin hovered hands over control boards and monitored automated sequences over their links, preparing for the moment when the ship became a fleet.

Each of thirty-seven war vessels fit into a vast puzzle box five kilometers across: assault carriers, missile frigates and beam cruisers, and the massive railgun-equipped battleships. They had been assembled together and had accelerated relatively slowly for years to reach this high speed, but they were simply not designed to decelerate together, and of course, only while separated could they employ all their weapons.

The battleships were the first to detach, four enormous wedge-shaped vessels layered thick with armor, heavy with billions of steel balls to be flung at the enemy by magnetic accelerators – railguns – the size of skyscrapers.

These drifted forward, maintaining their precombat role as Conquest’s final block against anything the anti-collision fields didn’t deflect. All maneuvers now were performed with exaggerated slowness and care, until the huge ships gained enough separation.

The cruisers split next, from Conquest’s sides, eight mid-sized pyramidal vessels equipped with beam weapons – lasers, grasers, masers and charged particle beam emitters – an abundance of fusion power plants, and little else. Armored most heavily in front, they depended on standoff distance and computer control to put their energies on target and avoid those of the enemy. The cruisers fell in, flanking the battleships.

Conquest’s onion continued to peel, this time from the rear as sixteen missile frigates fell away as one, then cleaved apart with gentle pushes of their thrusters, each a double-pointed obelisk with pyramidal ends and four flat sides. Nuclear-tipped missiles in hundred-count disposable launcher boxes clung to the vessels’ skins.

Now shrunken by half, Conquest paused in her systematic dismantlement for many hours as the warships tested systems, eliminated problems, performed final maintenance, and established their own routines. Each now had her own captain, her own helmsmen and bridge officers, and her own destiny.

Absen watched the ballet from his bridge, eyes bright but saying little as the sequence unfolded. A good commander knew when to stay out of the way, and at this point, everything was going according to instructions.

A good commander also knew no battle plan survived contact with the enemy.

Chapter 4

Monitor gulped asteroids and birthed warships as SystemLord mustered his forces. He vivified and placed a pure Meme aboard each newborn vessel, warrior-bred mitoses cloned from his own memory cells, possessing battle skills and little else. Adolescent in outlook, many years would pass before any of them matured enough to be a threat to his dominance – by which time, one way or another, most of them would be dead.

Again SystemLord speculated on the foolishness of the Humans, though as a wise and canny warrior he refused to underestimate them.

On one pseudopod, it seemed they had telegraphed their intentions with the probe.

On the other, he considered the possibility that there was no attacking force: that the probe was merely a lone information-gathering device directed at this system. Perhaps the enemy had sent tiny drones to many systems. Perhaps a Human fleet waited in interstellar space for further information, and would choose a different target when it saw how prepared his system was.

Such would be a worthy enemy strategy. It would be clever and efficient, forcing the Empire to expend vast amounts of materiel to prepare to hold many systems while the enemy attacked only one. This observation highlighted a principle that even the animalistic Humans could comprehend: in warfare, the attacker had the advantage of choosing time and place and circumstance, while the defender must wait, ever vigilant. This was doubly true in space combat, where speed was life, where unmoving things died.

That was why the Empire made it a policy of attacking, overwhelming and absorbing any threat, whatever the cost. Better a wounded victor, than defeated and dead.

The old Meme longed to take Monitor to assault the Human homeworld, but that would break with established doctrine. SystemLord believed that if they had immediately sent all Monitors and joined with all available roving Destroyers, the threat would have been ended already.

Perhaps it had: the latest assault on the enemy homeworld had taken place several stellar orbits ago, but of course he had to wait much longer to find out.

But tradition also said every Meme system would have its Monitor, to guard and fortify its planetary components, the wealth of the Empire – and keep the Underlings in line. Taboo and doctrine, he mused. I shall be the one to break taboo and create new and glorious doctrine.

Monitor had shrunk by a quarter of its own weight, shedding billions of tons as it first gestated dozens of frigates and cruisers rather than the usual millions of hypervelocity missiles. This strategy ran counter to standard doctrine, which was founded on the belief that a single large ship would always defeat an equal mass of smaller ships.

However, SystemLord had studied long on the old memories of Species 447 and the new ones of Human Species 666, and had made, for a Meme, an extraordinary intuitive leap.

He had realized that inorganic constructs, what Humans called machines, changed the usual equations. Where one living predator would easily dominate two of half its size, it was often true that two smaller machines could destroy one larger one.

Only Blends – Underlings and Purelings – built such machines. Even the dead Species 447, those called Ryss, had built ever-larger and more powerful warships, for a time besting the Empire in head-to-head combat. He remembered their Colossus-class vessels and shuddered at how each one had killed dozens of Destroyers before being brought down.

These Humans were no Ryss. They were more like Underlings, who, having given up their Meme form to use solid bodies with fixed structure and members, needed such tools to overcome their disabilities. But denied permission to join the attack, and with nothing to do for decades but pore over the records of recent assaults on the aliens, SystemLord realized that in some circumstances the Human strategy was superior, if not the Humans themselves.

A Human would say SystemLord thought to fight fire with fire.

He set the many smaller ships to grazing on interplanetary detritus, instructing their commanders to make themselves fat with raw materials, fuel and weapons.

Ordinary Meme doctrine was that of efficiency – living ships that could fire, fight and run away to heal and return again.

Contrarily, the Humans with their machines seemed to commit total effort to each battle, expending munitions at many times the rate Meme would in hopes of swamping their enemies’ ships with overwhelming numbers and varying attacks. In this case, where the aliens could not resupply, SystemLord was willing to pick and choose from traditional and enemy doctrines in hopes of synthesizing something new.

Accordingly, the Meme commander burned the resources of his star system with profligate rapidity as he thought, better to be prepared than to be made a fool – especially a dead fool.

***

Absen finally felt like an admiral. Whereas before he commanded one composite ship, now he had charge of a fleet in free flight. Computers and links would help, but the more complex the weapons, the more that could go wrong. A lot would come down to his captains and crews.

Eight assault carriers remained to be launched. Each AC held many people for its size: a Marine battalion of a thousand or so troops, plus an aerospace fighter wing of four hundred fifty and a ship’s crew of about a hundred, all in a ship with minimal armor and defensive systems. Almost half of my people are on those eight ships, he thought, and will likely take the largest number of casualties; but then, the assault forces always do.

Whereas the rest of the ships were there to control the high ground of space, these eight were there to take and hold things and places. Right now their objectives were rather murky. Eight Marine battalions couldn’t hold a planet in the face of determined resistance, but the Hippos’ world had orbital facilities, and a moon half the size of Earth’s. While Absen doubted he would ever again pull off anything as dramatic as ship-to-ship boarding, he was sure the ACs would get a workout somewhere, if only because he believed in using every tool to win.

Because ultimately, when this battle was over, they had to put down boots and roots, build something permanent, and prepare for the inevitable counterattack.

Absen toyed with a proscribed idea, to just strike and move on if the enemy proved too tough. Better to be the Flying Dutchmen of space than the last hurrah of a dead race.

If only we knew what had happened at home.

He stared at the holotank that displayed the Gliese 370 system. It showed their approach path as a straight shot in to Afrana near the stellar ecliptic, clear except for asteroids and comets. Those would be dealt with before the task force got there, by long-range railgun fire at high-c velocities. Planets B through F were well out of the way, by design, simplifying his tactical problem.

The bridge crew spoke in clipped tones around him, passing orders and information. He exchanged glances with Timmons, his imperturbable Chief of the Boat; it was an archaic position that the man maintained by refusing to go anywhere but Absen’s side. Though the COB looked younger and fitter than he used to, he still had an air of gravitas that his ever-present coffee mug of lifer-juice did nothing to dispel. Timmons nodded back and touched a control on his console.

Klaxons whooped throughout the ship, calling all hands to General Quarters. Tension aboard spiked as men and women scrambled to pull on suits and helmets, and then jogged along the decks through the wide passageways. Their gear grew suddenly less heavy as the gravplating reset to one-half G, the better to perform their duties. Once damage control parties had reported ready, the COB touched another key and the no-notice drill ended.

“Two minutes seventeen seconds,” he announced, checking an old-fashioned digital stopwatch. “Not bad.”

“Let’s get it under two minutes, COB,” Absen replied.

“Aye aye, sir.” He picked up his mug and took a sip. “I’ll give them five minutes to get halfway undressed and then call one again.”

“You’re a bad man, COB,” Absen grinned.

“Far worse than you know, sir,” he chuckled. Five minutes passed, then ten, while the chief sipped and played with his board.

Crafty old bastard knew he’d be overheard and someone would pass on the scuttlebutt through their link, Absen thought. Now they’re all sweating in their suits, ready to go and wondering what’s going on.

Ninety-five minutes later he watched as Timmons called another drill. Absen laughed to himself. That’ll teach them to try to outfox the fox.

Two hours later the Admiral gave up his watch to a duty officer, content to crawl into his bunk and catch up on some sleep. He knew that his role now was to make the big decisions when the time came. Tomorrow he would spend the day reviewing the finalized intelligence and OPLANs before he gave the order to start shooting for real.

***

Absen awoke seven hours later with that feeling again. Irritation flared in his breast, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to give the man the satisfaction of seeing it. Without opening his eyes he cleared his throat and said, “Hello, Spooky.”

“Greetings, Admiral. I trust all is well with your world?” The covert operative sat comfortably in the armchair in the corner farthest from the comm-panel light by Absen’s bunk, and thus a mere outline in the deep darkness.

“You know, this sneaking in was a lot more impressive before you adopted cover as a Steward and got the codes for the door. Now it’s just disrespectful.” Absen sat up, flipping on the overhead light, stripping the Vietnamese highlander of his shadows, and nearly blinding himself on the blued and silver-buttoned Steward garb.

Spooky blinked, shrugged. “Would it impress you more if I told you I don’t have the current codes, and that Tobias is standing outside gnashing his teeth wondering how I got by him – again?”

Absen waved a hand in surrender. “Yes, I suppose it would. All right, you’ve had your fun. What do you want this time?”

“I want to make a suggestion.”

“What would that be?”

Spooky leaned forward to put his palms on his knees. “Don’t strike the planet too hard.”

Absen nodded. “Well, not so hard we destroy the ecosystem. We do need to colonize. Why?”

“Because the best way to destroy an enemy is make him your friend.”

“And you think the Hippos will be our friends?”

Spooky nodded slowly. “It seems possible. Are they not slaves to the Meme?”

“Look, Nguyen, I’ve read a hundred reports on this issue and nobody agrees. What are they? Meme with Hippo bodies? Hippos cloaked in Meme biology? Slaves to their empire? We don’t know their exact relationship.”

“I simply advise keeping our options open. They can’t be allies if they are bombed back to the Stone Age.”

Absen sighed. “They can’t hurt us, either…but point taken. I’ll think about it.”

“What else are you thinking about?”

“Meaning?” Absen’s voice sharpened. “I’m not required to give you reports.”

Spooky smiled faintly. “Tell me I’m wrong then.”

“About what?”

“You’re wondering if we should strike with our velocity intact, going so fast they can’t hurt us, then come back after we’re certain we can take them.”

“You know me well, but so what? I’m the commander and I’ll make the decisions.”

Spooky spread his hands, placating. “So you are. But you still have your orders.”

Absen growled, “Now you’re sounding like some goddamned political officer. What’s your secret agenda? You must have come to do more than play games and give me unneeded strategic advice.”

“True enough.” Spooky folded his hands across his flat belly and gazed down at his interlaced digits. “As a courtesy I thought I’d let you know I’m going to assemble a covert action team.”

“For?”

“That’s still classified.” He rubbed the tips of his thumbs together.

“Classified from the task force commander this far from home? Bullshit.”

“Technically not bullshit, and I’m going to need the team.”

“For what?” Absen asked again.

“For whatever the team is for.”

Absen shook his head. “I think if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

Spooky laughed dryly. “You think because I am a covert operative, I’m manufacturing a covert operation?”

“Sounds like it to me.”

“Wouldn’t you like to be ready if an opportunity presents itself? Use every tool, I’ve heard you say.”

“Yes, and we’re all just tools to you black ops types. You’re saying you haven’t already got a team? If you could get assigned to this task force without my knowledge, why didn’t you bring some more of your spooks?”

Spooky shrugged, but did not answer, looking slightly uncomfortable for the first time.

“Ah…” Absen smiled. “You weren’t assigned, were you? You’re here without authorization.” He sat back to fold his arms on his chest with rare delight. “And now you need my help.”

“Without specific authorization, perhaps. Long ago I obtained general authorization to do anything Earth’s Council deems necessary.”

“And who’s going to back you up when I say no? Not like you can call back and complain.”

“I hope you don’t deny this. I do need your help.” Spooky quirked an eyebrow. “And I think you could use mine.”

Absen grunted noncommittally. “All right, let’s say the answer is yes. How many and who? I get the feeling you don’t just want a squad of jarheads to back you up.”

“You are correct, sir. And I have a feeling I will need special operators, not line troops, but it doesn’t need to be right away.”

“Uh oh.” Absen stood up and grabbed a towel. “Since we’re swapping feelings, I have a feeling I’m not going to like the roster. So rather than hash this out right now, I’m going to take a shower and you’re going to leave me your selections so I can think about it. In the meantime, get lost.”

“Fair enough.” Spooky stood up and bowed mockingly. “The list is short, and it’s under your pillow.” With that parting shot he walked out of the Admiral’s capacious quarters.

***

The Admiral’s private shower was a good place to think. The more he mulled over Spooky’s words, the more they made sense to him. Maybe there aren’t enough people here willing to speak truth to power. That means Nguyen is all the more valuable for that trait. Who else can contradict me? Brigadier Stallers? It’s a slippery slope to dictatorship.

One short walk later Absen took his seat in his command conference room, overflowing with targeters, planners and analysts. They ticked through dozens of slides detailing the specifics of the fleet’s initial strikes, which would take out the Meme fixed defenses before they could react.

His eyes began to roll back after the first hour no matter how he tried to hurry the process. They snapped open as the next presentation showed the hot, blue-green, Earthlike world of Afrana, where they hoped to build a human colony.

By the third slide he’d heard enough. “So, Major Dunlap,” Absen asked the targeting officer levelly, “you appear to have planned a genocide.”

The man shifted uncomfortably next to the big screen. “Estimates are for no more than ninety-four percent casualties on the Hippo planet, sir.”

“Ah.” Absen steepled his fingers. “And if this was a human enemy, would you consider that number within the bounds of morality?” The room had fallen silent as the staff watched the interplay.

“Sir?” Wisely, the man waited rather than argue – after all, he was merely the spokesman for a planning team.

Absen waved his own rhetorical question aside. “What will be the impact on the ecosystem of this proposed strike? I will eventually have to put a million colonists somewhere. I think they deserve a decent place to live.”

More confidently Dunlap responded, “The planet is already warm for human habitation. The actions will throw up enough debris to cool the planet and eventually increase the habitable zone.”

“Eventually when?”

“Ah…twenty to thirty years.”

Absen tapped his fingertips together. “Look, Dunlap, I am sure your plan is a perfect military solution, but there is a bigger picture here. Aside from the moral problem of wiping out enemy civilians, or non-blended Hippos that pose us no threat, aside from the wisdom of damaging the planet during the most critical colonization period, has anyone thought to ask about how we are going to live with these Hippos later?”

“But sir,” broke in Brigadier Stallers, “the Blends are just Meme in different form, and they control the rest of the Hippos. They are the enemy. We can’t exactly figure out who is who in the middle of combat.”

“So are we going to hunt them down and kill all of them, Blends and natural Hippos?” Absen responded. “A wise man recently reminded me the best way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend. Can’t do that by indiscriminate slaughter.”

Stallers answered, “We also can’t run around testing them one by one. I would rather just kill them all and let God sort them out, sir.” As commander of the Marines, Stallers had enough rank to play devil’s advocate, and Absen was glad of it. If he could be bullied, he should be fired.

“Yes, that’s the safest thing to do in the short term.” Absen looked up at the ceiling and put his arms behind his head, a cover for glancing around to try to gauge his staff’s reactions.

“It’s what will save lives, Admiral,” Stallers went on. “An enemy is an enemy. So is the population he hides in.”

Sitting up again, Absen said, “Brigadier, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the history of human warfare it’s the value of winning hearts and minds, and of holding out a hand to a defeated foe.”

Stallers leaned forward, his hawk-like face intense. “We have to defeat them first, sir. What if they have weapons or ships that survive a weak strike, then are used against us? We have only the one chance to surprise them with this high-c railgun sweep. After that, they will take precautions.”

“I appreciate your concerns, Brigadier.” Absen could see the staff around him was starting to sway to Stallers viewpoint, and he felt his own words sound hollow, so he strengthened his voice and rapped his knuckles on the table for emphasis. “Let me be clear: I want plans that demolish and destroy all enemy military capability, even associated industrial capability. I want them smashed flat, but I will not countenance genocide.”

Stallers stared at Absen for a moment before nodding in acquiescence. The man was far too much of a professional to mutiny, the admiral believed – but stranger things had happened in commands far from home. People were not machines, and would only charge into battle if they believed in what they were doing.

Absen nodded back, then turned to the intelligence briefer. “Dunlap, get your team working on something less extreme, something that kills fewer civilian Hippos. Something that allows us to immediately start colonization near the poles where it’s cool enough for humans. And Campbell,” he turned to his administrative aide, “draft a memo explaining my policy on Meme, Blends and native Hippos.”

“Yes, sir. Ah…what’s the difference?”

“I’ll tell you when I’m sure myself.” The admiral rubbed his eyes and stood up to stretch. “Take five and get on with the next presentation.”

Chapter 5

Vango turned when he heard his name called in the male pilots’ ready room. “Rick!” he exclaimed as he saw who it was, and returned Commander Johnstone’s grip with one hand, zipping up his clean flight suit, his “bag,” pilots called it, with the other. He grabbed a towel to quickly dry his dark wet hair, and then hung it back in his mesh locker. “Let’s go catch up. Twelve hours in the simulator and I need a drink.”

“Drink? When did you start drinking, you anal-retentive son of a bitch?” Johnstone quickly followed the pilot out.

“Oh, I’ve loosened up in the past forty years,” he said with false lightness. “I’m such an easy touch now I decided not to fire my latest wizzo, and I may regret it.” Vango’s dour face belied his tone.

“How many have you dumped – four?” They turned a corner, brushed past a maintenance crew. “You’re getting a reputation.”

Vango shook his head. “No, only three, as long as Helen works out. I’m sure you’ll see her in the wardroom. She always drinks up her ration.”

“Is that her problem? Drink?” Rick asked his friend as they walked down the corridor toward the wardroom, squeezing past crew hurrying here and there.

“No, not specifically. She’s just not taking things seriously.” The two men stepped into an endless lift, a vertical conveyor belt that carried people up and down Conquest’s hundred-plus decks.

Rick shook his head. “Vincent, nobody takes their job as seriously as you do.”

“It’s life or death out there, Rick. We fighter pilots don’t have a hundred meters of armor between us and the hypers.”

“I know; I get it. Anyway, I just wanted to stop by before ship separation. Once the carriers break off, there won’t be any more visiting.”

Vango eyed his boots, then looked up at his best friend from under his eyebrows. “I’m glad you did, but shouldn’t you be spending this time with your Sergeant Major wife, then?”

“She’s busy right now, whipping her battalion into top shape.”

“And you think I take things too seriously.” Vango shook his head in mock disapproval. “Hey, I always wanted to ask you, why didn’t she take your name?”

“Well…her family got nuked in Los Angeles back on Infection Day. She offered, but…I didn’t want her to be the last Repeth. Besides, the reputation attached to that name is more important to her than she admits.”

“That’s…really nice, man.”

“Thanks.”

“And by really nice, I mean, you’re such a pussy.” Vango put up his arms to block a casual left hook and chuckled as they entered the wardroom.

“Ah, was that a joke? You have loosened up. Speaking of the P-word…believe me, as soon as she’s off duty you won’t see me.” Rick grabbed a plastic bottle of weak beer from the dispenser after swiping his ration card.

“I hear you. If I had a wife like that, I wouldn’t keep her waiting either,” Vango said, pulling another out.

“Does that relate to her attractiveness, her steel claws, or her fierce punctuality?”

Vango held up his beer in salute. “No comment.”

Taking long swigs from the bottles, they looked around the wardroom, a big space on a populous and rank-heavy ship like an assault carrier. Marine officers were a relative few, but the Aerospace Forces pilots and their partner wizzos made up for them, and the room was filled with swaggering bags, most holding drinks.

“Vango!” came a cry. Stumping toward them was a stocky raven-haired woman with an ethereally beautiful face, almost as if someone had stuck the wrong head on her torso. She had two beers in her hands, and was obviously drinking both of them herself. Her glow of impending inebriation showed.

“Helen. Thought you’d be sick of me by now.” Vango’s words were sour and they held an edge of irritation. The pilot turned to Rick. “Rick, this is my wizzo, Sub-Lieu Troya Portamos, callsign Helen. Helen, Commander Rick Johnstone.”

“Helen...Troya…and you’re Greek?” Rick asked, then answered his own question with a snap of his fingers. “Helen of Troy.”

“Got it in one, Commander wirehead. V told me about you. Like an uncle?” The last few swallows in one bottle went down Helen’s gullet, and then she turned to launch the plastic container across the room. It fell into the bin with a perfect swish, a sure sign she had done it many times.

“Like an uncle, yeah,” Rick answered guardedly, obviously uncertain how to take this kind of jump to informality from a sub-lieutenant, but one that worked closely with his friend. He went on, “I’m only twelve years older than he is, but I’ve known him since he was born. We lived across the street from each other most of his childhood in South Africa.”

Helen glanced at Vango slyly before turning back. “Mister Rick Sir, I see you wear a ring. Mean anything?” Her face dimpled lasciviously as she ran her tongue deliberately over her upper lip.

Rick laughed uncomfortably. “Uh, hey, Vango told me you were gay…”

“And drunk too,” Vango interrupted sharply. “She enjoys using that face to make men squirm. Just like her namesake. Helen, how’d they ever allow you on this mission, anyway? I thought all the women had to agree to have children when we colonize.”

“Because I got no problem with breeding, boss. I just don’t like the injector all you guys want to use on me. I’ll raise my quota of bambinos when the time comes. Until then, I’m going to go get some. Unlike you boys.” With that parting shot she flounced off to throw her arms around a petite blonde with pilot’s wings pinned to her flat chest.

Vango shook his head. “Damn pain in the ass, but she’s so right. With my wife and all the rest of the colonists in coldsleep, looks like no fun for Yours Truly.” He shrugged, finished off his beer, got another, and then motioned for them to sit down out of the press. “Guess I should have married military like you.”

They drank in thoughtful silence for a moment before Rick reached into his pocket. “Got something for you.” He slid a pinkie drive over, with a memory wafer smaller than its plug.

“Software?”

“Finished updating it this morning. I submitted it to the Combat Cyber team for evaluation, but you know they won’t approve it without more testing than we have time for.”

Vango rubbed the drive between his thumb and forefinger. “Is it solid?”

“My friend, it is solid. I did most of it during my waking duty year. It’s based on proven quasi-AI heuristic algorithms. You’ll get a variable boost in automated response depending on how much time you give it to learn. Pretty soon it will be flying your ship better than you do, and it will help you and Helen fight your StormCrow. But she’ll probably never notice – everything will just work smoother and faster.”

“Oh, she’ll notice. She’s damn good, which is the only reason I put up with her attitude. What she’ll make of it, I don’t know. Still, we could use something to improve our kill percentage.” Vango put the drive in a pocket and zipped it shut. “What if it glitches?”

“Then pull it out. It runs from the drive; only loads a minimum presence. Reboot if it gives you any trouble after that. Relax, buddy,” Rick said clapping Vango on his shoulder. “If this works, Cyber will have its test.”

“And if it doesn’t, we’ll both be in deep kimchi, except I’ll be merely dead. Remember,” he said darkly, “buddy’s only half a word.”

“And speaking of the other half…” Rick checked his chrono. “I have to go meet my wife. We have one more watch before the Temasek and the other carriers separate.”

***

Master Helmsman Okuda watched Admiral Absen take The Chair. They nodded to each other, old comrades in arms, and the bald pilot sent out the ready pulse that ensured computer synchronization of all ships. Under control of Okuda’s and Conquest’s central brain, the minuet of death began. All the war vessels rolled to bring their weapons suites to bear on their first targets, still light-days away.

“Railguns firing,” Commander Ford at the weapons station called.

Four battleships, second in size only to Conquest herself, fed gigawatts of electricity to their Dahlgren Behemoth RL-40s, then poured many millions of one-kilogram stealth-coated ferrocrystal-steel spheres, each  the size of a racquetball, into their hoppers. One after another, thousands per second, induction rails snatched streams of shot and threw them forward at enormous velocity.

Combined with the fleet’s speed, where each metal ball struck it would punch a hole in a mountain as it underwent fusion, converting that incredible force into heat and pressure like a tiny thermonuclear weapon.

Bridge screens showed plotted lines radiating forward toward the Gliese 370 system, each a hyphen aimed at a known target: asteroids and comets, orbital defense satellites, bases on moons, planetary installations.

Movable targets such as satellites would probably survive; if the Hippos or their Meme masters had any sense at all they would issue small course changes at random that would cause these ultra-long-range shots to miss by kilometers, unguided as they were. For anything that could maneuver, it would be sheerest luck to hit. But railgun ammo was cheap, and more could eventually be manufactured from iron-rich asteroids. With enough ammo firing at enough targets, even mobile ones might take a lucky hit.

At least these targets were known, provided by their first robot probe, an unsung machine hero.

“Railgun strikes away, all weapons cease fire,” Ford called after almost an hour of continuous shooting. More than a billion rounds, a third of the battleships’ ammo, had been expended, and their electrical capacitors showed near empty. The enormous ships nudged themselves closer together, magnetic sweep-fields and two-hundred-meter-thick ferrocrystal armor shielding the task force from the possibility of a random micrometeorite strike.

“Mister Okuda, are the carriers ready?” Absen asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you may initiate separation.”

Eight assault carriers, thick wheels with dozens of spokelike launch bays aimed outward, unstacked themselves like coins dropped from the back end of Conquest and immediately began to spin up. Separating in three dimensions like flying discs thrown into the air, they used gyros and thrusters to form a cone behind the dreadnought.

Finally revealed, the shining teardrop of Conquest herself displayed a cluster of fusion drive engines grouped at the center of the fat end of her chocolate-kiss shape. Fully three thousand meters across, she was the largest vessel EarthFleet had ever constructed, discounting the fortified movable asteroids in the home system that could only loosely be termed ships.

Armed and armored to the limits of humanity’s technology, she was even superior to the monster Destroyers the Meme had been sending against the homeworld for decades. A testimony to faith and risk, she was the first of her class, her keel laid down in space in 2069, completed five years later by the gargantuan shipyards of Ceres.

Yet her missiles, her railguns, and her beam weapons remained silent. She was the heart of Task Force Conquest, and as such would withhold her full potency until they came to grips with the enemy, because deep within her structure rested the hope of humanity: over one million colonists, their coldsleep tubes stacked like cells in a beehive, layered with gravplates and maintained by robots.

“Missiles launching,” Ford recited. Computer feeds projected simulations of the launch. Intuition might imply such missiles should be fired later and nearer, but in vacuum the guided weapons had nearly unlimited range, constrained only by fuel to maneuver to their targets at the end of their journeys.

Thousands of phallic objects vomited forth from the disposable box launchers on the frigates, oriented themselves toward the fore using gyroscopes, and fired brief bursts of their fusion engines. These tiny suicidal robots slowly followed the railgun streams, but did not overtake them. Instead, they maneuvered carefully into a spreading swarm.

Before they entered the Gliese 370 system, they would decelerate like descending rockets, for if they did not, they would flash through the area so quickly that even computer control could not maneuver them against targets. Once slowed, they would cross the interstellar boundary and begin hunting even while continuing to intermittently decelerate. Since everything in the system was hostile, each target engaged would be introduced to a high-yield thermonuclear shaped charge and its bomb-pumped gamma-ray lasers.

“All missiles away.” The weapons would now cruise silently ahead, as yet undetected.

Sixteen missile frigates jettisoned their box launchers as single-pilot grabships seized them, shoving the empty cubes forward and away from the fleet, random objects to confound the enemy. The tiny tugs drew forth fresh hundred-round boxes from Conquest’s capacious bays, carefully maneuvering them onto the naked frigates until they were again clothed in weaponry.

“Recalling small craft. Making all secure for deceleration.”

Grabships raced back to their docking cradles and the crew of the fleet took their stations, preparing for the long uncomfortable days ahead. Several minutes later Okuda nodded. “All ships report ready.”

Absen made a casual chopping motion with his hand, as if to emphasize his next order. “Master Helm, you may maneuver the fleet.” I’ve waited as long as I could, he thought, and now when we light these fusion drives we will be announcing our location for the enemy.

For the first time Okuda reached out with his mind, using fleet comms and his command override codes to control the gyros, engines and thrusters of all thirty-seven warships in one synchronous waltz.

The dance began from the rear, with the lightest of touches on the thrusters from the assault carriers. They fell farther and farther behind, drifting apart even as their engine outputs ramped up, facing forward. This way they would enter the system last.

Missile frigates came next, tiny vessels little more than maneuvering systems for their box launchers, wearing weapons like bizarre cubic jewels. They had no need to flip end for end; this design sported one equally powerful engine at each tip, and from their forward extremes fusion fires flared, following the carriers as they fell behind.

Now it was Conquest’s turn. Ponderously, the great teardrop rolled, and the six fusion engines that ringed her axis began to glow. Gently, the dreadnought decelerated away from its charges, and Absen couldn’t help feeling like he was abandoning the others. Even after decades of experience in space, the vast separations that fighting doctrine mandated made him feel a lack of control. He consoled himself with the thought that he had one quarter of the fleet’s firepower under his own thumb.

On the other hand, he had all four quarters of its responsibility.

Eight beam cruisers, stubby pyramids covered with raised armor patterns protecting their projectors, now turned over to point broad bases forward and light off engines, gently drawing away and to the sides. They took positions around Conquest in a ring twenty kilometers across and spreading.

Lastly, the four battleships rolled their wedges to point their drives forward. These took stations in front of a point offset from their mutual center. Slowly and in coordination Okuda increased the whole fleet’s thrust.

As the engine forces rose, gravplates placed strategically throughout all the ships ensured that their crews and more delicate machinery were not smashed flat, with their compensating pull. Antigravity was a myth, but gravplates in the ceiling, walls and floors could exert pull opposite to the maneuvering forces, with sophisticated computer control.

Eventually the fleet decelerated at extremes that would have crushed them if not for the gravplates. The crew in their bio-gel conformal couches never felt more than a fraction due to the countering artificial gravity. The Eden Plague virus, the nanites in their bloodstreams, and their cybernetic augmentation took care of the rest.

Even so, the next four days were miserable. The fleet decelerated hard for seven hours at a stretch, then reduced burn for an hour to do maintenance and provide relief, and then did it again and again until their velocity had been reduced to less than a tenth of c. By this time the squadron spread out and slowed intermittently, randomly and violently, to throw off any long-range Meme weapons launched against them.

The whole affair, despite all planning and preparation, cost several dozen lives. A few gravplates failed under the tremendous strain, turning human bodies and structures into smears on the armored deck plates. One frigate’s missile box ripped loose and cartwheeled down the length of the ship, taking two more cubes with it. External fittings on all ships failed randomly under the heavy strain – communications dishes, sensors, optics, antennas – and tore loose, to add to the cloud of debris, stripped ions and fusion byproducts that preceded the fleet.

Despite these minor losses, the force held together and retained its combat effectiveness. Just as it reached its final cruising speed, it crossed the edge of the system to begin the invasion as planned.

Chapter 6

For all of the Meme commander’s preparations he could not account for one simple but unknown fact: though the enemy ships were decelerating so as not to flash uselessly through the system, over one billion railgun balls were not.

In fact, the steel streams, now varying widely with inevitable spread, entered the system only seconds after the light of the fleet’s fusion deceleration itself, having been fired before the EarthFleet ships began their burns. Seeing the evidence that the enemy would not arrive for days, he ordered his forces to continue their gestation and preparation.

Hardly had his assessment gone out when SystemLord began to receive evidence of his mistake.

Ten million clusters of one hundred steel spheres each swept through the system like scourges of a god, and only the vastness of space and the preliminary maneuvers of Meme targets allowed anything at all to survive.

Everything that was not already maneuvering died.

First to be struck were hundreds of Sentry posts affixed to asteroids. With no engines of any kind, these eyes and ears of the Meme star system simply vaporized as their rocks were pulverized in seconds. One moment the nearest of them transmitted their updates; the next, they had been rendered unto plasma and dust. Shattering explosions marched across the solar system over the next several hours as every one of the outposts was wiped out.

SystemLord and Monitor only realized what was happening when those Sentry posts beyond his position began to disappear; everything was being destroyed nearly at light speed, and not even organic radio could give sufficient warning to take action. The blasts of railgun shot were the flyswatters, and Meme installations the flies.

Clusters also targeted every other asteroid of significant size, over three hundred thousand of them. Those few containing Meme installations that had performed preventive maneuvers stayed safe. Those that did not, disappeared in the same destructive sweep. Millions of clusters of near-light-speed grapeshot rolled across the system and obliterated everything that stood in their way.

Along with this ongoing disaster, SystemLord ingested further information on the fusion flares inbound from decelerating enemy war-craft. Wave-shift analysis showed an initial speed of almost nine-tenths light, and the great organic computational brains of Monitor told a troubling tale: depending on how much velocity the enemy was willing to retain, they could enter the system in a very short time indeed.

SystemLord jolted Monitor to full wakefulness, heedless of the risk. At such a high state of readiness it became a bit high-strung, like a male animal eager for a fight over females. He also issued orders to its spaceborne progeny, who were in similar excited states, slowed only by their full guts that were gestating more weaponry.

SystemLord also alerted the Underlings, on and around the inhabited planet. He ordered them to increase the maneuver of their orbital bases in expectation of imminent attack, and then turned his attention back to his reports.

Though the steel storm shattered the system’s immobile pieces, when it reached the Underling planet’s orbit it was only minimally successful. Most of the artificial satellites had been moved to different paths days ago, and had continued to vary their positions at random intervals for just such an attack. Thus over ninety-eight percent of orbital installations and satellites survived the railgun blast.

The target planet’s single moon was more fortunate; the Human attack struck its tidally locked outer side. They probably believed that military and observer installations would face away from the planet. It was an impressive display, each steel sphere striking with the power of a small nuclear weapon, throwing dust upward for kilometers before it fell to the surface. However, except for a few telescopes and communication repeaters, all of the vital facilities survived on its inside face, turned perpetually toward the world below.

Unbeknownst to the Humans, SystemLord thought with some small satisfaction, the moon structures were not crewed by normal Underlings but by Purelings, cloned native bodies whose blank brains easily accepted the loyal Meme mitoses cleaved from the pure race. Such programmed warriors would fight and die with perfect obedience, ensuring the superficially similar Underlings on the planet could never upset the natural order of things.

Then the commander wondered to himself what those surviving moon installations would defend, as it observed with cold rage a ferrous sleet of over one million spheres impacting the atmosphere of the planet itself.

Such small objects underwent fusion and vaporized immediately in the upper atmosphere, creating spectacular and dangerous megaton yields of heat and shock, but not true devastation to the billions of Underlings and savages below. Had the individual shot massed even ten kilos each, they would have denuded half the planet of higher life.

But this group of shots had apparently been optimized to spare the population. The shockwaves of a million high-altitude detonations knocked Underling aircraft out of the sky, blew down radar dishes and towers, and shattered every window on half the planet, but caused surprisingly few casualties, except at certain military sites.

At those places, SystemLord’s reports said larger ferrocrystal spheres survived entry to deliver megatons of energy, vaporizing three spaceports, nine vital weapons-manufacturing complexes, and nineteen naval and aerospace-force bases. In an instant, half the planet’s military economy was erased.

A little while later a call came. “SystemLord,” Communicator announced from its holding tank, “I have a transmission from the senior counter-rebellion agent on the Underling’s planet.”

“Display.” SystemLord stuck an enormous eyeball into a hemispherical screen and a pseudopod into a translator. “I am here.”

The agent stood at attention in front of the video pickup on the planet. As a Pureling – a cloned planetary native, blended with a Meme at birth – he appeared no different from the other Underlings, and so was able to remain hidden in the indigenous population. “SystemLord,” he began, “the suddenness and precision of the strikes has shocked and unnerved the Underling population. They feel completely helpless to defend themselves. Some clamor for Empire protection; some agitate to rebel.”

SystemLord’s initial reaction was one of outrage: the Underlings, while not pure Meme, were nevertheless citizens of the Empire and owed their lives and loyalty to it. Still, a little calculated mercy was wise. “I will record a placating announcement, and you and your agents will spread information that this alien attack was their maximum effort, and they need have little further fear of more. Encourage them to practice their sheltering drills diligently and have courage; the Empire will defeat the enemy and soon all will be as before.”

“I hear and obey.” The display winked off.

After some thought, SystemLord recognized the Humans’ strategy, and he grudgingly accorded them credit for cunning. The attack was obviously designed to shock and unnerve the Underlings on the world below, but do minimum damage. The invaders obviously believed they could later seize the planet and make slaves of the terrified billions of natives, as well as their factories and wealth. All of those were valuable resources that the Humans would exploit ruthlessly, of course.

A clever ploy indeed, but one that would fail.

Despite his losses, SystemLord believed he still had sufficient resources for victory. His mobile Sentry network remained intact. The score of cruisers and two score of frigates he had ordered gestated would be his pseudopods of destruction. Those ships and Monitor itself had escaped all damage from the attack, so SystemLord still possessed over ninety percent of his maneuverable firepower.

However, most easy consumables had been demolished; if the battle lasted too long, his ships might run out of ready food and water, or spend undue amounts of time chasing crumbs of matter. He began to ponder a strategy to mitigate this problem.

***

Probe R-05 observed the results of the EarthFleet’s railgun salvo with a computer’s dispassion. It gathered its data and stored it, waiting to fulfill its purpose. As the enormous number of missed projectiles exited the system on the opposite side, this condition tripped a protocol. That subroutine ordered it to power up all of its capacitors, to direct its powerful laser communicator to the decelerating Conquest, and then to commit radio suicide.

Self-murder by Meme was an appropriate description, for within one minute a roving Sentry detected its broadcast. While its complete load of data flashed by laser toward the approaching Earth task force, the robot drone broadcast an abbreviated version in all directions via radio, and it was this that the living defender of the system homed on.

The probe emitted for almost three minutes before an organic projectile smashed it to fragments; plenty of time for thousands of incoming EarthFleet missiles to receive vital situation updates before carrying out their kamikaze missions.

***

“Sir, I have an initial INTSUM coming through.” The Intel bridge officer on duty brought the short, rough intelligence summary up on the main display. She was alone at the Intel board this watch, as most of her function was merely to relay information from the analysis teams in Conquest’s belly. “The header says it’s synthesized from the R-05 update we received thirty-five minutes ago. Analysis says they will have most of the detail in the 0600,” referring to the first briefing of the day. “Orange icons are new hostiles, sir.”

Pictures blossomed in the holotank, with hundreds of colored markers and icons showing positions of friendlies, enemies, and natural bodies in the Gliese 370 system. Absen remarked, “So it looks like, what, two dozen cruisers and thirty-some frigates. Tough, but with those numbers, we win.”

He did not have to manufacture confidence: he was telling the flat truth. If the enemy ships were similar to the classes encountered in the Sol system, his thirty-seven ships, with their hundreds of fighters, thousands of drones and missiles, and eight Marine battalions, were more than a match for their foes – not even counting the dreadnought Conquest herself.

“Looks like they are completely disorganized,” he mused. “Anyone know why?”

Silence reigned until the Intel watch officer hesitantly spoke up. “Sir…they might be feeding.”

“Of course,” Absen agreed, “Good catch. We’re days out, so they are stocking up on raw materials and gestating weapons. They must be chasing down the remnants of the asteroids and comets our railgun strike broke up. Nice to see those had some effect.” He pointed at a flashing icon lurking behind the scattered enemy, back near the orange dwarf star itself. “What’s that?”

“It’s tagged as an unknown ship type, sir. It’s too close to the star to get much detail but…great…these…” She rattled to a halt, a dazed expression on her face.

“What is it, Ensign?” Absen snapped.

Scoggins from Sensors started to move toward the Intel console, but Ford at Weapons beat her to it, to look over the ensign’s shoulder. “It’s a ship all right, a hulking big one, Skipper. The readout says over two hundred billion tons.”

Absen stood up to stare at the holotank, as if by doing so he could wrest forth its secrets. “That’s heavier than this whole task force. More than ten times the mass of a Destroyer. How big is it?”

“Ah…” Ford punched an icon, then another. The ensign’s fingers danced over the touchscreen and brought up the details, turning to look up at the commander, who read it. “It varies its configuration, but as a rough sphere, about six kilometers across.”

Absen grunted. “That dwarfs us like a watermelon against an apple. Damn. One of the reasons we chose this system was because we’d detected traces that its garrison of Destroyers had left. What the hell is this thing, then?”

“Some kind of system guardian I bet, sir,” answered Ford, turning his habitually scowling face toward the Admiral. “A mobile fortress.”

“Then why isn’t it near the planet?” Absen asked. “Why isn’t it hiding? That would be a nasty thing to have lurk behind its moon and jump out at us.”

“Perhaps it is gathering energy from the star,” Okuda’s bass voice interjected. “And if I were a Meme, that’s where I would put my admiral. Just like we do, the biggest, most survivable ship will hold the brains.”

“No doubt. And he’s giving us a choice – come after him, or come after the planet.”

Absen continued, lecturing his bridge crew as if in a class, to help organize his own thoughts. He held up one finger. “One: standard space control doctrine would suggest we take him out before we give up our velocity, but if we do that, we’ll lose ships, maybe the very ships we will need in the assault on the planet, and we’ll have to spend a long time turning back around.”

He held up a second finger. “Two: if we go for the planet we let him choose the time and manner to fight.”

A third finger went up. “Three: if we split our forces we risk defeat in detail, especially if he surprises us with something. Three possibilities.” Absen stroked his chin. “Ensign, inform Intel I want them to tease out everything they can on this Guardian. That’s what we’ll call it.”

Chapter 7

While not so vast a swarm as the billion railgun spheres, twenty thousand enemy fusion drives still struck fear into SystemLord’s complex molecules. Academically he knew this missile wave might be no more dangerous than the unexpected kinetic attack, but now he began to wonder just what else the Humans had prepared, and it worried him deep in his life code.

Even so, he was thankful that he had an accurate count of their incoming weapons and a rough prediction of their targets. Crossing the system boundary at less than one third of light speed and slowing, the missiles would take only hours to reach vital installations. The Meme commander transmitted instructions to his flotilla to gestate countermeasures specific to this type of attack: myriads of simple interceptor midges.

These tiny seekers were given just enough brain to sense, close with and attack the enemy weapons. They could be sown in their paths and be activated at the right time, like mines. Frigates and cruisers began to spew forth these countermeasures like fish laying eggs. Soon, hundreds of thousands of midges took their places, blind sacrificial defenders of the Empire.

This strategy met with moderate success; more than ninety percent of the Human weapons were destroyed as they approached but that still left over a thousand missiles to home in on targets of opportunity.

Many of these were killed by fusor beams, SystemLord’s ships’ close-range weapons. Nevertheless, seven newly born cruisers and thirteen frigates perished in nuclear fire, a number that would barely be replaced by the time the enemy ships arrived. SystemLord shed futile molecular curses that Monitor absorbed, exciting the great ship further. He sent the beast chasing after additional ice and ore. I need more ships, the Meme commander raged, and no easy food remains.

SystemLord observed as the remainder of the enemy missiles homed in on the Underlings’ orbital and planetary defense installations, obliterating all but three. Through his mobile Sentry network he watched as the hybrids desperately defended themselves, destroying many incoming weapons, but they simply were not equipped to handle hundreds of attackers at high speeds. Physics could not be overcome by the technologies available, and thus the planet he was supposed to protect was stripped almost bare of defenses.

Only the great Weapon on the inner face of the Underling planet’s moon remained untouched, even undiscovered, for its Meme controllers’ orders had not included firing on missiles that targeted others. Thus they had stood silent as the fortresses orbiting the planet below died to the enemy missiles.

SystemLord damned himself yet again for not issuing general directives to engage any threat, but accepted the advantage his mistake had unwittingly preserved: the Humans probably did not know of the vast underground complex and its destructive engine originally intended to crush any Underling rebellion.

The longer the Weapon remained hidden the better, for once the enemy fleet had given up its incredible speed, had slowed to enter and possess the system, it would also give up the vast kinetic energy necessary for such devastating strikes. The Humans would have to close to natural ship ranges and fight their way in, and if SystemLord guided his forces correctly, the Weapon could turn the tide of battle.

***

Admiral Absen eyed the bridge displays with his chin in his hand. Task Force Conquest had crossed into the Gliese 370 system sixteen hours ago and had slowed to a tenth of light speed. He watched the ships decelerate intermittently and randomly according to their captains and helmsmen’s whims, better than any computer program. Combined with lateral maneuvers, he hoped this dodging would allow them to close with the enemy unscathed. At the present rate it would take almost one hundred hours to reach Afrana.

Absen used that time to pace and consider his options. As with a sailing captain of old on his own quarterdeck, the narrow space behind The Chair was sacrosanct, and when he was in it, his officers knew not to disturb him for trivialities.

Splitting his forces in the face of the enemy was always a mistake, according to everyone from Sun Tzu to Schwarzkopf. While the exception occasionally proved the rule, he didn’t think this was the time to do it, not until he really knew more about the defenses around the planet.

That left attacking the Meme fleet directly, or threatening the planet.

Theoretically, attacking the Meme fleet had the advantage of taking care of one problem at a time. The two major parts of the enemy’s strength were the planetary defenses, and the mobile warships. But the only way to hit their fleet was to maintain speed and try to strike on the fly, firing and racing past. Otherwise, the Meme ships could simply run away, as they were so much faster to accelerate and maneuver.

If the EarthFleet task force did so, it would take days to slow down and come back, giving the enemy that much more time to gestate ships and weapons. Absen deemed that unacceptable. He had done his best with the surprise railgun and missile strike, and now he had to be ready for a slugging match.

He could win a slugging match. He’d won many in the past, defending Earth over the last several decades. What he couldn’t do was win a long, drawn-out war of maneuver with the faster, more resilient Meme ships.

So that left choice number three: threaten what they value. It was the same with any fleet, from ancient wet navies to modern space fleets.

Meme might live in space but taking planets from them denied them slaves, bodies to blend with, material resources, and the other things only possible on a life-bearing world. Clearly they were committed to defending Afrana; conversely, the Earthlike world was what humanity needed to colonize and thrive.

We have to put Afrana at risk, Absen thought, to bring them to battle at a manner and time of my choosing. Otherwise, the enemy ships could dance out of reach, conducting long-range attacks and harassing the colonization. And when we do, we have to decisively cleanse the system of enemy. With the Meme’s living ships, give them enough time and the threat will grow back again like weeds.

Absen’s pacing thought was suddenly interrupted.

“Conn: Sensors, bogeys, multiple bogeys,” Commander Scoggins on the primary sensors console called. “Inbound small hypers, count one hundred sixty-six. I detect the same number of stealthed drone launchers. Marking.” Her neatly pinned hair exposed the wires plugged into the link sockets at the base of her skull.

Soft bleeping alarms highlighted flashing red icons on the main 4D holotank. To Absen it seemed as if a swarm of red bees had appeared out of nothing in the path of the task force, too close to avoid. “Counterfire on automatic,” he heard Commander Ford at Weapons report.

The admiral barked, “Comms, sound Battle Stations. All ships prep damage control parties.”

“Should I authorize defensive drones?” Ford asked.

“No,” Absen responded after a long moment. “We’ll need them all later. We’ll just have to gamble on the rest of the defenses taking them out. We can absorb a few of these small hypers.” And a few casualties...it’s the cost of doing business.

Scoggins updated, “Looks like they were laying in wait along our path. Profiles match their standard scout drones used in their attacks on Earth. They should only have one shot each.”

“Good thing they’re too small to have nukes,” Ford growled. “Beam cruisers engaging.”

Forty-eight massive primary lasers, half the beam cruisers’ complement, flashed out and plucked the same number of enemy scout drones from space, ignoring the hypers they had fired. In keeping with Meme doctrine, the sentries had not maneuvered but had let the launch of their own missiles push them aside in hopes of dodging any fire and returning to stealth status while gestating new weapons.

Using primary lasers against such small targets was like using sledgehammers to swat flies, but in this case the sledgehammer could be spread wide, encompassing enough space to catch the little flies before they slipped away. Another forty-eight beams fired while the others recharged, destroying almost thirty more Sentries.

By this time missiles spat from launchers on all EarthFleet ships, one at each remaining enemy scout. These easily closed with and destroyed all but three of the rest, which slipped away into the black.

Neither of these weapon systems bothered with the inbound hypervelocity missiles themselves; accelerating at hundreds of gravities, these simply could not be intercepted at long range. The lightspeed delay itself made it impossible to hit them as they flew their serpentine courses, jinking in all directions to make even lasers miss. As they got closer to their targets, the task force’s multilayered integrated missile defense system came into play.

First the laser drones engaged, scattered by the hundreds in a cloud throughout the fleet. Inevitably some of the hypers crossed paths with these tiny pickets and their lightspeed weapons, and were damaged or destroyed; a few missiles turned to attack the little EarthFleet shiplets, annihilating themselves in the process.

“One hundred twenty-eight still inbound,” Scoggins recited. The bridge crew stared at the approaching red icons – just the first shower of darts that presaged the swarm to come.

Next came short-range charged particle beams, deliberately focused wide to catch the dodging hypers. These weapons generated enormous electrical energies that penetrated the living missiles they hit, scrambling their nervous systems and destroying their brains, causing them to tumble harmlessly off course.

“Forty-six…forty-three…” Scoggins counted down the tally as the impact clocks descended toward zero. At nine seconds out she called, “Thirty-eight got past the CBPs. Everyone’s on their own.”

Finally, electromagnetic shotguns on the surface of targeted ships engaged incoming projectiles at point-blank range, spewing forth millions of tiny tetrahedrons that shredded the enemy missiles. So great were the energies of these broken hypers that they still struck their targets, but instead of impacting in tight, deadly punches, they splattered themselves against EarthFleet armor and did not penetrate.

Even so, a few of the missiles dodged all attempts at interception and bore in to draw their first human blood.

One struck the massive forward armor of the battleship Bukavu, penetrating almost a meter before its energies dissipated, a bare pinprick. Two more impacted Conquest herself with no more effect. Five found forward faces of beam cruisers as they turned their armored glaces outward, achieving nothing. Three flew into the missile boxes of frigates, destroying swaths of weapons but sparing lives.

Despite all efforts, one smashed itself through the thin plating of the assault carrier Giessen and entered one of its four service decks at thousands of meters per second. Kinetic energy equal to many tons of explosives spewed debris across the hangar, cutting down crew chiefs, technicians and Marines alike, and destroying the eight StormCrow fighters resting there. Fires went out almost immediately as automatic systems sealed the flight deck off from the rest of the ship, leaving it and its grisly contents in vacuum.

As the word came in, Absen knew the Giessen’s dead were the first in a long litany of casualties sure to come. He should not have assumed attacks would come only from the enemy warships and the Guardian. It had been a clever ruse to maneuver the stealthy little drones into their path like mines. He had no doubt the Meme commander aboard that enormous ship would have more surprises.

***

Vango Markis ran through his preflight checklist as the numbers on his opticals counted down, and he knew Helen was doing the same in the back seat. The digits seemed to float in front of him but that was only an illusion caused by the direct feed to his optic nerve. When they hit five minutes the shiplink enabled and his consciousness expanded.

It was almost orgasmic, this rush of virtual sensation. He could hear the multilevel chatter of other preflights, could feel the thrum and pulse of his StormCrow Weaver, of idling fusion engines; he could see in all directions around him, he could taste and smell the healthy readiness of the weapons and systems.

Dangerously immersive, every Crow jock longed for this seductive state of being; to be fully integrated into a powerful, deadly machine. Perhaps only the Helmsmen who piloted starships shared this sensation. Even a wizzo in the back seat experienced only half of it. In this place and time his legs were engines, his arms were wings, his hands were drones, his fingers railguns and lasers, and his eyes…once they got into space his eyes would see the universe.

Supposedly it was the same in the simulators, but Vango could tell the difference. Probably Helen could too, but relying on that feeling was stupid, which is why he had slapped her hard, back in training. Since then she seemed to buckle down and give it her best.

For now, all he saw was a short narrow tube lined with rails. Weaver floated millimeters from the electromagnetic conduits, straining to be loosed. Vango felt the tug of the outward spin of the assault carrier; even if Temasek lost all power and grav, the fighter would fall outward and away from the mother ship, ready to fight.

As the numbers reached zero, Weaver accelerated gently, sliding smoothly until suddenly Vango was free and in open space. Around him he saw the rest of the sortie of one hundred StormCrows deployed now to counter any more threats. Out and ready to deal with anything the Meme threw at them, they extended the sensor reach of the fleet – and frankly shifted two hundred people off of each crowded carrier. The other seven ACs would be launching their sorties as well.

“I love this moment,” Vango said over the internal comm. “Free at last.”

“I know what you mean,” Helen responded from her position above and behind him. “What’s our assignment?”

“Weren’t you listening in the briefing?”

“Not really. Too busy being sick.”

“Sick?” Consternation filled his voice.

She laughed. “Yeah, Stymey brewed up some cheap hooch somehow. I was glad to link in and not feel my body.”

“Dammit, Helen, we’re going into combat and you’re hung over?”

She laughed wickedly, and then he got it.

Vango said, “You’re jerking my chain.”

“As hard as I can. You’re such an easy mark, Vincent Markis. I’m as fit as you are, more’s the pity.”

Vango scowled. “You know that’s why I use my handle. To make them all forget I’m the son of Earth’s Chairman.”

“Nobody cares about that shit out here.”

“Even so, that’s –” he broke off. “Update coming in anyway…” He examined the data burst as they drifted, then confirmed their orders. “Here we go. I got the coordinates. Looks like we just patrol quietly until we see something.”

“Right. Running weapons diagnostic sequence.” Vango could feel her pushing electrons around in the ship. “All in the green.”

“Good to hear.” He rotated Weaver, then tapped the fusion engine. Other Crows around did the same, spreading out in all directions to take their places between the big ships. “Let’s see those little SOBs try to sneak in now with eight hundred of us waiting.” His statement reeked of bravado, he knew, because even eight hundred fighters were swallowed in the vastness of interplanetary space.

The ship he wore was more than just a short-range weapons platform. Though small for a spaceship, it was over fifty meters long, a sleek cylinder with four stubby wings that had nothing to do with flying and everything to do with weapons, sensors and maneuvering thrusters. Each of the four sported a laser, a turreted railgun and a rotary missile launcher for short-range use. Tucked behind each lurked a shielded port from which feather drones could be ejected and recovered.

Weaver’s main armament filled its nose: a large microwave emitter, designed to cook the internal biology of their living enemies. Where normal lasers flash-heated the enemy skin with optical frequencies and thus could sometimes be reflected away, the electromagnetic beams of masers required different defenses. EarthFleet’s varying weapon suites were designed to force the Meme to play rock-paper-scissors with their countermeasures.

On the other hand, EarthFleet heavy warships relied on a brute-force approach for their defenses: ferrocrystal armor layered with reflectives, superconductors and ablatives. Each successive skin countered different types of weapons, usually taking several hits before it failed. The enemy hyperkinetic missiles were the most dangerous exception, delivering so much energy that massive hardened thickness was the only real proof.

A StormCrow was far too small to be armored that way, and so relied on speed and agility to survive. Still, Vango knew, they were there to support the fleet, not vice-versa; their role was to skirmish, to hit and run, to pick off weapons and take the easy shots. Let those battleships slug it out with weapon swarms heavier than my entire fighter, he thought. We’re here to sting and sting again.

“Datalink is up,” Helen called.

As the narrowband comms found Weaver, the fighter integrated into the aerospace control network and his senses expanded even further. Vango unsealed his skinsuit for a moment to reach inside and withdraw the tiny drive Rick had given him. No time like the present, he thought, and, I hope you don’t get us killed, ol’ buddy. But he trusted his friend and cyber-warfare expert, and out here he figured they needed all the help they could get.

Slipping it into a data slot, he told it to boot. Like ants under the skin, he felt the program start to scurry though the ship software, as if digging myriad new tunnels.

“Let’s –” he started to say.

“Bogey, danger close –” Helen yelped, and Vango’s attention suddenly narrowed to a pinpoint as he felt something appear nearby, a mere hundred kilometers away and drifting closer. “Where the hell did that come from?” she stuttered. “It wasn’t there before!”

“Don’t talk, engage it!” he said as he launched the Crow’s feathers. These tiny drones had no weapons but were full of active sensors. If something wanted to home in on a radar or lidar, it would hit the squawking drones and not the silent StormCrow.

“Already on it,” she said, and he felt the wing weapons firing at the bogey.

Looking closer, he realized the target was stealth-black and cold, and even the hammering of the feathers’ actives didn’t show very much. How had they even seen it? No way he could have…but he hadn’t seen it. Helen had noticed it first, then he had felt it…

Suddenly the thing blazed with fusion light, turning to leap toward Weaver at hundreds of gravities. Vango’s reactions were even faster, lighting his own fusion drive to dodge sideways and forward, turning toward the enemy in the age-old tactic of the fighter pilot – get inside the opponent’s turn radius and thus his decision curve.

Fortunately this enemy wasn’t as maneuverable as a hyper. As it flashed within a kilometer he could finally see it, lit up brightly in the glare of the defensive lasers. His link told him it was a Meme sentry. Must have been one of the ones that got away. It was lying doggo and as soon as we lit it up, it tried to suicide. It must be out of missiles.

“Ahh!” Vango wasn’t sure if it was him or Helen yelling over the link as he twisted his metal body out of the way of the oncoming drone. He could feel his wizzo pummeling it with laser energy and railgun ammo, one-gram ball bearings. The scout staggered and tumbled, flashing past as its fusion drive died.

Helen fired a chase missile that quickly caught up with it and blew it to scraps.

“Save those,” Vango barked. “Remember, there is no resupply. Next time just let me line up the maser and fry it.”

“Sure,” she sulked. “You get all the fun.”

“Cheer up, you did a fine job for your first real engagement,” he praised. “Nobody can call you ‘cherry’ anymore.” Vango sent a query through the network. “Looks like we got the first fighter kill of this battle.”

“Okay, old man. How many does that make for you?”

“Forty-nine combat sorties, third confirmed kill, not counting hypers. Meme don’t use small craft enough to rack up many.”

“Maybe you’ll be an ace before this is done.” Helen adjusted her weapons suite. “How did we see that thing?”

“What do you mean?” Vango asked casually. He already had a suspicion.

“One minute it wasn’t there, then suddenly it was…like I could smell it. I’m reviewing the record and I can’t pinpoint anything concrete…just that I suddenly knew it was there before Weaver’s systems detected it.”

“Yeah, me too. Must have been something intuitive. That’s why human minds will always be in the fight.”

Helen snorted in disbelief. “That’s a crock. It must have been something concrete, like it passed between us and a bright star and we both noticed it.”

Vango deliberately did not respond, hoping she wouldn’t think any more of it. Happened right after I loaded the software…

They remained quiet for a few minutes, running through their checklists and watching their sectors.

“I still think there’s something funny going on,” Helen muttered.

Because of the link, Vango could hear her no matter how quietly she spoke. Crews who worked together a long time claimed they started to read each others’ thoughts that way. There were a surprising number of marriages that resulted from fighter pairings, and even more longtime friendships. He wondered to himself if he should say anything…then decided that this was the best time to do it, after they’d just dodged a bullet and won a victory.

Vango cleared his throat. “Helen, there’s something I should have told you earlier.”

“What? Come on, spit it out.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, you know Commander Johnstone – Rick – is a CyberComm expert. Actually, he’s more than an expert, he’s a bloody software genius. He hides it so he can stay on the bridge instead of stuck in some geek cell deep inside the ship, but he’s as good as they come.”

“So?”

“So…he gave me some upgraded software to try out.”

“Try out…here, now? In combat? You asshole, you could have gotten us killed!” She sounded furious.

Vango stiffened. “Overreacting a bit, aren’t you?” She’s green, and it scared her, that’s all.

“Don’t change the subject, you turd,” Helen snarled. “It’s fine to risk your own life, but not mine too.”

“That’s Flight Lieutenant Turd to you, Sub-Lieu,” he snapped back, “but it worked. I’m thinking it was the new software that allowed us to see and smell the scout. And when you were fighting, didn’t it feel like everything was easier, faster?”

She choked back a reply to try to think without passion. “Yes, now that you mention it, it did.”

“So, there you go.” Vango hoped that settled it.

“There you go what? This isn’t about whether it was good software, it’s about you and me being a team. It’s my ass out here too. So are we?”

“A team?” He chuckled. “What do you think?”

“Hmph.” Helen kept a sulky silence for as long as she could, then said with a grin in her voice, “I about crapped my pants when that thing showed up, though!” She started laughing uproariously.

After a moment Vango laughed too, sharing her giddiness at surviving their first real combat mission together.

***

The BioMed station called out, “Admiral, I have an odd report. Assault carrier Giessen says they are having problems with a bio-weapon released by the missile that hit them.”

“Counteragents?” Plagues were nothing new. The Meme routinely added them to their missiles and the damage control parties deployed decontamination chemicals, counterphages and nanobots to control them.

“They say nothing’s working, sir. They’ve tried everything, even radioactives, chemical fuels, hydraulic fluid…this stuff just keeps eating plastic and metal. The only thing that’s slowed it down is flame, or vacuum. They’re requesting help.”

Absen swore. “And that damned puppy Captain Bailey is only just telling us about it? It’s been how many hours since the missile hit him?” I’ll have that fool in the brig – if we survive this. “Start shifting Marines and other non-crew to other carriers, and get all of BioMed working on a counteragent, tell them I said this is maximum effort. There are more than two thousand people on that ship.” He deliberately did not think about what would happen if they did not get the infection under control. “And point out to them that if they don’t find something to stop it, Conquest could be next hit. That ought to motivate them.”

At least it wasn’t a nuke. Because of the incredible accelerations of the Meme hypers, they didn’t often use nuclear warheads, unless they wanted to drastically cut their speed and range. The delicate mechanisms of atomics couldn’t take the strain of hundreds of Gs.

Turning back to the screen he examined his fleet formation. The irony of their continuing deceleration and evasives meant that their ETA never got any closer. As they approached Afrana they moved slower and slower, extending their time, much as if a ground car kept braking the nearer it got to its destination.

Absen felt better with the StormCrows out on rotating patrol. The stealthy drones lying in wait had already shown him his error, and he tried never to make the same mistake twice.

He’d also complicated his own situation by shattering hundreds of thousands of asteroids with the railgun barrage; now there were tens if not hundreds of millions of pebbles in the fleet’s way. The lighter ships had lined up at a distance behind as the heavy ones swept forward, clawing debris out of their way with their magnetic scoops, blasting it with lasers, or smashing it aside with their armor.

The StormCrows just had to take their chances.

They’d already lost two to rock strikes, though their pilot-wizzo teams had survived. Price of combat. Absen needed them and their feather drones to see. Right now those were hammering the ether with their radar and lidar, to allow others to collect the reflected electromagnetics.

They’d also fended off another smaller attempt to ambush the task force. Fortunately the little Meme pickets did not seem smart enough or well-directed enough to go after his most vulnerable ships – the assault carriers and missile frigates.

“Sir, I have coordinated fusion flares,” the sensors officer on watch said, throwing the computer simulation up into the main holotank. “Order of battle matching says it’s sixteen cruisers and thirty-five frigates, maneuvering into our path at slow speed. Intercept looks like about…nineteen hours at these velocities.”

“Keep an eye on them, you know how fast that can change. Major Parnell,” he turned to the helmsman in the cockpit, “keep a running plot of Potential Minimum Engagement Time assuming maximum Meme effort. I want to know the soonest they can hit us at all times.” This measure, usually just called “Potential,” determined how soon the enemy could close to engagement range if they suddenly went to full acceleration – which, for Meme, was very high. If the enemy was actually under acceleration, then the time to engagement was termed “Actual.”

“Yes, sir. Running the numbers now.” A moment later she fed her data into the holotank, adding symbols, colors and numbers, suppressing others. “Right now Potential is thirty-four minutes ten seconds – that number there.” A row of digits pulsed.

“Raise our readiness state as Potential falls. When we’re under ten minutes, call for the Primary Watch.” Absen liked to have his best people on the bridge when battle was likely. “How long to the planet?”

“With current deceleration profiles, twenty-two hours to cross the orbit of Afrana.”

“So they might be planning to engage us three hours from the planet, and fight us as we approach. Makes sense. We’ll have to slow down a lot or fly on past. How many orbital platforms do they have left?”

“Just three, sir, that the nukes didn’t get,” Sensors responded. “They look to be mechanicals, sir, like the intel briefing showed us. We’ve never seen anything exactly like them, but we got a rough idea of their firepower from the fight with our missiles. They’re about dreadnought level power, but physically bigger.”

“That’s assuming they don’t have something we haven’t seen yet. And they could have heavier weapons because they don’t need to waste space on engines, high-capacity gravplates, bulky supplies…any number of things only a starship needs.”

If I were the enemy commander, I’d try to induce a running fight to sucker us within range of those huge orbitals, and bring up that Guardian ship. That would be the schwerpunkt, the point of decisive battle, at the planet.

“The Guardian is moving up, sir,” Sensors called. “It’s on an intercept burn to join the others, but later and back a bit.”

“Makes sense. He’ll use his warships to screen and his big ship to anchor his fleet – just like we are.” Absen stroked his chin. “Comms, bring everyone to ready state two. Five minute drill. Weapons, what’s your estimation of a missile and railgun strike on the remaining orbitals?”

The Weapons watch officer brought up a graphic. “It would take a significant amount of expendables to finish them off from this distance. The farther away we are, the easier it is for them to dodge. I’d advise against it, Skipper.”

“All right.” Absen rubbed his chin. “Tell the battleships to start a slow rolling fire of railgun single shots every few minutes, and keep it up. That will force the orbitals to keep adjusting, burning fuel. And maybe we’ll get lucky. In fact, tell them to start laying slow fire on all the enemy ships including the Guardian. Might as well use cheap ammo to keep them from resting.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Weapons touched a control. “Firing will begin in two minutes.”

Absen stood up to stretch, shooting COB Timmons a significant look. “Chief, initiate a no-notice drill for the auxiliary bridge to take over function in…” he looked at his watch, “seven seconds.”

The COB pointed at the helmsman, who nodded and closed his eyes, and seven seconds later the bridge’s consoles all went dark.

“Take a break, everyone. Get up and stretch. Let them run the fleet for a while.” Absen liked to rotate his command officers into The Chair for real. “I’ll be in my quarters. Call me if you need me.”

Chapter 8

SystemLord considered his enemy’s approach, one globular fleet defined by the size of its fusion flares. His Sentries had scanned many up close before dying, but with the long range and the thousands of flares from missile launches, even Monitor’s great brain lost track of which was which.

No matter. Nothing he could imagine could stand up to his battle plan. A glow of pride warmed his molecules and he had to force himself not to daydream about the accolades he would be awarded. I have been too long brooding, he thought, and am prone to count progeny before they gestate. No, I must hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

First he would do the expected, for the Humans’ benefit, to lull them into foolish complacency. Light harassing strikes, keeping his weapons stores full. Then, when the time came, a ploy to prompt a reaction leading to another ploy, then to his trap.

Sending a molecular packet to a subordinate, designated Communicator, he waited patiently, watching the steady approach of the enemy fleet. As his smaller ships were faster than the Humans’ – except for Monitor – he always had the initiative and the option to attack or run. I will assemble more force, he thought. Task the Underlings to assist their betters… another break with tradition.

“Tell me the response,” SystemLord ordered, irritation tingeing the taste of his words.

“The Underlings claim they have discovered a debilitating error in their sting-ships’ machine code, making launch impossible.”

“Unlikely and curiously timed.” The SystemLord seethed with anger.

“Shall I communicate threats or promises?” Communicator asked.

“Yes…tell them if they do not launch their sting-ships to support, the Weapon will obliterate their associated tribal centers.” SystemLord heaved his liquid bulk half out of his pool to place extra eyes into hemiscreens, the Meme equivalent of a malevolent stare at the orbitals. An inordinate amount of time passed before Communicator relayed the reply.

“SystemLord, the Underlings say that if they launch the sting-ships, the machine code flaw will be sure to spread to their primary armament, and they will not be able to target the enemy with their orbital fortresses.” The taste of Communicator’s bio-words conveyed profound unease. “They further state that if forced to take offensive action with this ‘flaw’ unresolved, they cannot guarantee their weapons would not…would not…”

“Vomit it forth, subordinate!”

“…would not accidentally target ships of the Empire.” Communicator quivered and came near to voluntary dissolution from even contemplating such treason.

“No. This I do not believe. Psychological analysis indicates they are centuries from rebellion. I have been a benevolent ruler, ensuring their prosperity and welfare. It is an empty threat.” SystemLord hoped it was true, and was aware that he tasted less sure than he wished. “Besides, how could they coordinate with the Humans? Our counter-rebellion agents have reported no attempts to learn enemy lingua code. You have detected no electromagnetic transmissions?”

“Correct, SystemLord. None.”

“Even Underlings would not be so foolish as to believe the Humans would be better masters than I have been. They may display mercy now, but were they to drive us off, they would take the planet for their own. Why throw off a benevolent master for an unknown alien?”

Communicator maintained the smell of polite silence, but thought to itself how SystemLord seemed to be trying to convince its own self of hopeful but low-probability theories.

SystemLord made his decision. “Do not press them to launch. In the end it will matter little. Merely by existing, the orbitals threaten the Humans and soak up their attention and weaponry. Our own resources, and the Weapon, will be enough.”

Communicator wisely said nothing.

***

When Absen’s intercom buzzed he was out of his rack and walking to the bridge before he was fully awake. Sealing his skinsuit, he took over The Chair from the officer of the deck. “Report,” he snapped as he motioned for Master Chief Timmons to pass him a cup of coffee.

“They just crossed the ten-minute Potential, Skipper,” Parnell told him. “We are about six hours Actual.” This meant they were six hours from battle at current speeds, the “Actual.” If the enemy lunged to maximum acceleration they could attack within ten minutes, the “Potential.”

The outgoing helmsman began to unplug from the medusa above her head. Master Helmsman Okuda helped, deftly plucking out plugs and jacking them into his own crown even before sitting down to take over.

Ten minutes to six hours. That’s our window of uncertainty, Absen thought. Rule of thumb for effective weapons range was one million kilometers, though actual engagement distances varied wildly – as the railgun strike from beyond the system boundary demonstrated. At one million kilometers, about three light-seconds, it became possible to achieve hits on a mobile enemy with beam weapons.

Nuclear missiles could be launched from much farther, but at their lower velocity they tended to take heavy losses fighting their way in to their objectives. If they flew faster, then they couldn’t guide on mobile targets well enough.

Meme used hypers because they were made of little but a seeker brain and a fusion engine, and with sufficient food could be endlessly replenished by gestation. With no nuclear warheads, they could also accelerate at hundreds of Gs, doing damage all out of proportion to their resource cost.

Absen’s task force had no such luxury; after the initial high-c volley, each irreplaceable nuclear missile must be used judiciously to maximum effect.

The bridge crew observed as the main holotank showed the enemy moving his cruisers into positions directly into their way, while the frigates spread out in a wide ring and advanced up the sides, like a pack of wolves circling a herd.

“Those frigates are going to scoot around our flanks, try to get in behind us,” Absen said. “Pass orders to bring the carriers to the center and link their defensive grids. Layer them with StormCrows and be ready to mass sortie from the ready bays. Close everyone up a bit. Helm, bring Conquest back behind the carrier group, we’ll cover them.” As much as he hated to put the dreadnought in the rear, the million colonists and the threat from the enemy frigates made it the right move.

“Five-minute Potential, sir,” called Sensors.

Absen nodded. “Right, sound General Quarters.” Klaxons wailed as the fleet put all hands on deck and in pressure suits. Bridge crew pulled their own suits out of the lockers and helped each other into them, Absen and Timmons included.

Fifteen tense minutes passed before computer alarms beeped softly. Scoggins at Sensors called, “Conn: Sensors, all bogeys except the Guardian show fusion burn inbound our position. Doppler reads maximum acceleration toward us. Four minutes thirty Actual to standard engagement range.”

“Battle Stations.” Throughout the fleet men and women made final preparations, sealing their faceplates, tightening harnesses, checking and rechecking gear. Massive generators ramped up to five percent over rated capacity as ship weapons extended through firing ports, muzzles questing.

A minute went by before Scoggins spoke again. “Conn: Sensors. Enemy missile launch.”

Approximately seventy red icons blinked in the tank, half from the Meme cruisers front and half from the wide ring of frigates working their way around the task force. “Analysis says heavy hypers, sir.”

She meant hypervelocity missiles the size of ICBMs, perhaps twenty meters long. Accelerating at hundreds of Gs, they could strike with devastating effect.

At Weapons, Ford grunted in agreement. “All enemy ships are opening the range again.”

“That’s not very many hypers. This is just standard Meme harassment tactics,” Absen commented, “hoping to get lucky. Skirmishing. Using up our countermeasures.”

Absen watched as the frigates and cruisers reversed course, pulling back from their lunge, having imparted extra velocity to their hypers. The incredible accelerations of the Meme ships made this dance possible, while the EarthFleet ships cruised forward. “They’re going to re-gestate what they just fired so they’re fully loaded later,” he mused.

“Three minutes Potential.” Now that the enemy was opening the range again, it was back to only a possibility.

“Begin long-range engagement of inbounds,” Absen ordered. “Helm, I want you to bring the whole task force to a hard retrograde antispinward, keeping formation.”

Okuda nodded, his mind deep in the link as he relayed the orders. Fusion engines flared in the void and the bridge crew felt the G forces build as the gravplates struggled to compensate.

“Weapons, pass the word to concentrate beam fire on the side we are moving toward. I want to buy some time, stretch out the engagement.” The worst thing we can do is let them coordinate their missiles into one wave.

“Aye aye, sir,” Ford responded.

Commander Johnstone at the CyberComm console turned his mind to the decision he’d been wrestling with all day. His ECM systems were functioning at maximum, hammering the incoming missiles with feedback loops and commands in known Meme code, but nothing was working. He knew Conquest’s supercomputers were already chewing on the enemy encryption but that could take days to years. The fleet needed an edge and he had it in the palm of his hand: his new software protocol.

Vango and Helen had reported a significant increase in StormCrow sensory and fighting effectiveness, on the order of more than sixty percent. Translated to the current assault, that meant more inbound missiles destroyed and fewer that would strike ships and kill people. Balancing untested code with potential lives saved, he made his decision, and sent the unauthorized software update to all fighters over their datalinks.

As soon as that was done, Johnstone poured himself back into virtual space, searching with his cyber-senses for anything he could do to influence the battle with his powerful jammers and electronic warfare programs.

“Two minutes to missile impact,” Scoggins called. “Sixty-three remaining.”

Through the layered defenses the hypers continued their advance, and the number fell slowly, too slowly. In the holotank the wave looked like half an old-fashioned key, a ring from the enemy frigates closing around the fleet with a cylinder of extra missiles from the cruisers in front. Task force Conquest powered toward the relative right rear of the ring even while falling fast in-system, thinning the threats on that side and lengthening the time it would take for the others to arrive.

“One minute to impact. Fifty-five hypers remain.”

Absen ordered, “Helm, begin evasive maneuvering at your discretion. Comms, pass all weapons free.”

Each ship reoriented itself, trading maneuverability for a more coordinated defense. The four great battleships lined up their wedges on the nearest missiles and spat cones of railgun balls, Behemoth RL-40s launching thousands of rounds per second.

The eight beam cruisers maneuvered left and right, widening and coordinating the focus of their primary lasers, and powering up their secondaries. The missile frigates launched defensive drones that would maneuver in front of the inbounds, spreading kilometer-wide monofilament catcher nets to slice the living hypers like spaceborne food processors.

Individually none of these tactics granted high probabilities of success, but taken together with the laser drones and close-in weapons, they killed all but eighteen enemy missiles.

Absen watched in grim concentration as those remaining closed with his ships, and he felt the varying pressures as Okuda maneuvered Conquest like a mother bear protecting her cubs, the assault carriers. In the holotank he saw the hypers ignore the heavy battleships – clever bastards. the bigger weapons are smarter – as they headed for his lighter ships.

Two struck the cruisers Georgetown and Sydney, tearing holes in their armor and spewing deadly slime that immediately began eating metal and plastic within. Damage control parties fought back with reprogrammed nanites, flame and cold vacuum.

Five targeted his missile frigates, which employed a further tactic of defense. Ten seconds from impact they blew the explosive bolts on their missile boxes and ceased maneuvering. Now each ship became thirteen targets – twelve boxes and the spindle that was the vessel – and four hypers took out nothing more than disposable cubes full of weapons.

The fifth drove straight through the center of a frigate, snapping it in half and leaving each end spinning wildly in the void, falling away from the rest of the decelerating fleet. “Send two grabships after those!” Absen barked, knowing that there could easily be survivors. “Cover them with Crows.”

One unlucky – or perhaps heroic - StormCrow actually collided with a hyper, destroying both in the process but saving untold lives by its sacrifice. Seven more missiles – an amazing number considering their incredible velocity – fell to the two-man fighters, which twisted and spun like mad hornets in their quests to sting the shark-like projectiles. Conquest herself plucked two out of the black as she maneuvered heavily to shield her charges.

One final hyper bore in, aiming itself at the assault carrier Temasek.

Still in virtual space, Rick Johnstone bent all his electronic weapons to divert it as the deadly weapon lined up on the ship that bore his wife. No matter what he did, the missile stayed on target.

Jill…oh God, please help!

Perhaps He did.

“Sir,” Rick said, his hand unconsciously on his link socket as an earlier comms officer might have pressed a headphone, “Captain Bailey of the Giessen has given the order to abandon ship.” He turned to look at Absen, wide-eyed. “He says he’s staying aboard.”

The assault carrier Giessen, already stricken and gutted by the earlier missile’s Meme phage contamination, blossomed with ejected escape pods, then accelerated at flank speed into the path of the last hyper. It struck amidships and, like a bullet through a spinning top, shattered the vessel into a hundred fragments.

Nothing could have survived that, Absen thought with brief pain. I guess I won’t have to put Captain Bailey in the brig after all. In fact, I’ll have to give him a posthumous medal…gladly.

Absen stared at the main holotank for a moment, searching for new threats, but it seemed the Meme were content to wait. He swallowed. “Comm, send to the fleet in my name: well done, everyone. We lost two ships, which still means we’re far ahead on points – and only a few casualties. Fleet to remain at battle stations. One way or another, it will all be over in a few hours.”

Chapter 9

Absen ran his eyes over the fleet’s deployment for the hundredth time and could find nothing to improve. In a layered sphere ten thousand kilometers across, his most vulnerable ships at the center, there was no better compromise between dispersion and mutual support. This arrangement of ships interpenetrated a cloud of StormCrows and their feathers, laser drones, armed tugs, grabships and even shuttles.

He’d made the decision to launch all the small craft because he believed EarthFleet had a decided superiority in fighters, drones and defensive missiles. If and when the Meme committed to battle, their usual tactics were to launch a steady stream of hypers on offense, and only expend their full living load when they were ready to run, to withdraw to eat and refuel, rearm and re-gestate. Absen had no reason to think this enemy commander would be different, especially one without experience fighting humans. The small craft would help pick off those hypers, and also ensure that losing another AC wouldn’t mean two thousand people dying at once.

Conquest’s bridge crew watched closely as the enemy ships maneuvered. Alien frigates now formed a loose concave hemisphere, slowly closing to two million kilometers range from behind. Cruisers waited in a similar, tighter formation in front, at about five million and closing. The planet and the Guardian were about five million klicks behind that – perhaps half an hour to close engagement, if they did not maneuver. Given the ungodly accelerations the Meme ships were capable of – roughly four times the human ships’ limits – the tactical initiative was theirs.

“Conn: Sensors. The Guardian is breaking orbit, moving toward us.” Its icon blinked, starting a slow trend forward. “Cruisers are falling back slightly and concentrating around it.”

The holotank computer predicted the Meme movement would result in a bull’s-eye pattern with the Guardian at the center and two rings of cruisers, like a target facing Conquest. “It looks like they are coming out to fight. Weapons,” Absen ordered, “launch the defensive spread.”

“Weapons aye.” Commander Ford touched a key and sent the preprogrammed instruction to the missile frigates.

Fifteen hundred defensive interceptor missiles launched and threaded their way through the fleet under careful positive control from their frigate missile officers, until they took up positions in the lead.

“Prep the offensive and the rear defense spread and stand by.”

“Spreads prepped.” As the range closed, it was safer and quicker to position missiles and drones early and control them via datalink, rather than to hold them in their firing tubes.

Absen waited, watching as the enemy held position, allowing the task force ever closer. When they reached two million kilometers, about seven light-seconds, he ordered, “Railguns, execute.”

Four battleships and, finally, Conquest herself opened fire with their Behemoth accelerators. Millions of steel balls sprayed forward at maximum rate, continuous streams with so much kinetic energy that the ships were obliged to use their engines to hold station against the pressure of the reaction mass. Stealthy and fast, these shotgun blasts were aimed at five specific target sets.

First was the Guardian itself. More than half of the ammunition traveled in a cloud arranged in hope that at least some of them struck the enemy’s flagship. Three more groups aimed at the remaining Hippo orbitals. The final set, from Conquest herself, laid small bursts on all of the almost forty frigates to the sides and rear, and kept firing, small defensive blasts designed to force the small enemy vessels to dodge or be hurt.

The task force cruised forward without maneuvering. The railgun blasts would take sixty to seventy seconds to reach their ship targets, much longer for the orbitals – and Absen was determined to do nothing to spook the enemy into dodging. Railgun fire was almost undetectable, after all, since little showed but a bit of electrical activity and the coated steel spheres themselves.

Nothing to see here, he whispered to himself. Just stupid humans cruising blithely forward into your kill zone.

The impact countdown on the Guardian passed sixty, then seventy seconds, then the seven or so seconds for light to travel back to their sensors – and the bridge officers watched as nothing seemed to happen at all to their enormous nemesis.

“No detectable effect,” Scoggins called, and frustrated sighs escaped several throats.

“Remember, that thing is much bigger than Conquest,” Absen reassured them. “It will be able to take a lot of punishment. This is just the long-range jabbing. Stick to the plan.”

Ford whooped unexpectedly, and an icon in the ring of enemy frigates flashed yellow. “Got one, sir! It’s damaged, falling back.”

“Good shooting. Keep it up, we want them to stay back as far as possible.” Absen observed the main enemy formation range closing. “Looks like they’re drifting toward us. Once we’re within a million klicks, start the focused beam barrage.”

“Aye, sir –”

Ford broke off in mid-response as Scoggins overrode him. “Missile launch! I have oh shit massive missile launch, one, two thousand, three thousand, five –”

The bridge crew sat there stunned for a full second, all except Master Helmsman Okuda who, linked to the computers as he was, immediately initiated all emergency protocols in the admiral’s name. Through the babble that followed he closed his eyes and, as fast as lightspeed, sent commands to the fleet with a flash priority override.

Absen watched as his missile frigates and Conquest expelled their entire ready loads of guided weapons, contingency-programmed for just such an extreme eventuality. They’ve never done anything like this before went through the admiral’s mind, and then, oh, this is really going to get bloody.

The defensive drones and missiles already in place shot forward like lancers to meet the enemy hypers – a mixture of classes ranging in size from a hundred kilos upward, all powered by those incredible living fusion engines. In such a target-rich environment they intercepted hundreds, but that still left thousands.

“Helm, fleet acceleration full forward!” This counterintuitive move was actually beneficial, as the enemy hypers gained damage-causing kinetic energy faster the farther they flew. A closer engagement was less lethal, like a shorter boxer stepping inside the reach of a longer-limbed opponent.

Preprogrammed, the backside offensive missile wave spread out to the sides and rear to engage the frigates now falling back after their missile launch. Another wave rolled forward behind the original defensive spread. Both of these offensive groups were armed with seekers and nuclear warheads designed to kill ships. Nevertheless they could be made into a blunt, field-expedient defensive shield.

Commander Ford sent flash priority override instructions to the missile officers aboard the launching ships, which triggered a protocol that sent the nukes into a barrage pattern to interdict as many of the incoming hypers as possible. No matter how fast they went, the enemy missiles could not outrun waves of enhanced neutron radiation sleeting through space, along with the accompanying EMP and their bomb-pumped gamma-ray laser modules.

By this tactic EarthFleet entirely gave up the offensive, but if ever there was a time to do so, this was it. They’ve fired their entire load, Absen thought, and now, they have to run. Clever bastard, he saluted his opponent commander. I might have done it in his place.

The enemy had sent his best weapons all in at once, to overload and do as much damage as possible, then withdraw to replenish, maintaining his “fleet in being” and tempting Conquest to assault the planet with the threat still out there.

This is always our difficulty: they are so much faster than we are.

Incoming thousands of hypers became hundreds as fusion fire raged across the heavens, and every interception weapon operated at full capacity. EarthFleet’s four broad-shouldered battleships threw themselves in front of the largest clusters, daring the missiles to strike them like jousting armored knights of space – and so they did. Hyper after hyper slammed at incredible velocity into the massive ships, whose sole purpose was to dish out and absorb as much punishment as possible.

Final defensive fire – miniature nuclear weapons detonated like reactive armor – blazed along the battleships’ lengths, scouring their own skin clean of irreplaceable fittings, installations and equipment – but better that than the death of whole ships. Dozens of heavy hypers slammed home at horrendous speed, and even hundreds of meters’ thickness of ferrocrystal laminate must at some point yield to physics.

Battleship Nanjing shuddered and bucked, spewing wreckage but cresting the wave of death like a breaching whale, losing half her railguns. Flensburg, by some twist of fate or expertise, accepted her pounding with stately grace and very few casualties. York absorbed a beating equal to her sisters before an unlucky strike reached deep inside to wipe out her command bridge, leaving her in the hands of auxiliary control, still fightable.

Hypervelocity missiles hammered brave Bukavu as bullets butcher a bull. She staggered, every weapon blazing, every system streaming frantic energies as she sought to avoid her fate. Yet as a light bulb burns brightest before its burnout, so the great battleship fell under an impossible storm of predatory alien weapons. Fusion reactors ruptured, the ship blew chunks of itself in every direction.

A collective groan and harsh curses echoed across Conquest’s bridge. Absen felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

The incoming wave of hypers, though much diminished, swept with still-terrifying speed down on the beam cruisers, and two of those eight embraced their fate, soon to spin broken and useless though the void. Hundreds of escape pods drifted, beacons flashing, for the busy grabships and tugs to retrieve.

Missile frigates, bereft of ammunition, did as before, releasing their weapon boxes, becoming slippery spindles among the many possible enemy targets. Only three perished as confused Meme sharks ate dozens of empty missile cubes.

Now came Conquest’s turn to suffer. As a mother hen gathers her chicks in the hailstorm, spreading her feathers to accept the impacts for her brood’s sake, so the dreadnought brought the assault carriers in beneath her great teardrop shape. She kept them so close the ships could have reattached themselves. Instead, she uncomplainingly bore the brunt of alien blows.

One after another, hypers tore into the dreadnought as she twisted and turned. Master Helmsman Okuda performed a virtual ballet, the great ship responding to his every thought and touch. With a born pilot’s instinct he spun to present a new piece of armor to every incoming weapon, in case it should win through the blast of final-fire nukes, electromagnetic shotguns, lasers and masers and grasers and charged particle beams by the dozen. On Conquest’s surface, plasma clouds dervish-danced among vapors of nuclear explosions and the remnants of expended weapons.

Vango and Helen in their StormCrow, mere tens of kilometers distant as they threw themselves at the incoming devils, marveled as they witnessed unseeable colors through virtual eyes. From their perspective, Conquest endured at the center of a tornado, within a cyclone of the energies of bursting alien fusion engines, ravening thermonuclear weapons and lancing beams.

Ranks of StormCrows surrounded their own ships, packed tightly as they could, forming a phalanx, a gauntlet to preserve their meager military homes and their steadfast support crews aboard the assault carriers.

Nineteen fighters died to the enemy, thirty-eight courageous jocks who would never see Afrana or the new colony. Yet they saved many lives, and in the brutal calculus of war, preserved more fighting ability of the fleet than their murder of Crows had sacrificed.

Shock-mounted and gimbaled, still the bridge of Conquest shook and rang with vibrations, rolling gongs of sonics transmitted through her skeleton under the ball-peen strikes of hypervelocity missiles. Though nothing penetrated her mountainous slabs of armor, some crew died simply from transmissional rupture as metal and carbon fiber flexed to take the strain. Mere human flesh, no matter how bolstered, was simply not made to take such pounding.

When the storm cleared, those who survived sailed proud.

There’s nothing so melancholy as a battle won, Absen recited to himself as he witnessed the aftermath, unless it’s a battle lost. He took a deep breath in concert with those throughout his wounded task force, amazed that the entire engagement had taken mere minutes. “Can we catch them?” he asked into the air, and Okuda answered him as expected.

“No, sir. They fired their missiles and lightened their loads. Now they’re running as fast as they can.”

“The Guardian too?”

“Yes, sir. It and the cruiser screen are withdrawing toward the planet.”

“Did we get those orbitals?”

“No, sir,” Scoggins answered flatly. “Looks like they are continually maneuvering to avoid just such a strike.

Absen hissed through his teeth in frustration, then gave his orders. “We just took a pounding with very little to show. Make sure we get all the escape pods and lifeboats recovered. Try to put rescued crews onto similar ships so they have deeper rosters. Have shuttles bring people with wounds too severe for Eden Plague healing capacity to Conquest’s infirmary. Get the missile frigates re-boxed. Hop to it, people, we have two hours before we’re in range of those orbitals and whatever’s on the back side of the moon, not to mention the planet. Those won’t be able to run, but neither will we.”

Murmurs of acknowledgement from the various stations filled the bridge as the officers passed words, coordinating the damage control as best they could.

The admiral stroked his chin and spoke aloud, as he found airing his thoughts helped him think, and maintained his people’s confidence. “On the other hand, they just expended their entire long-range firepower, and declined to follow it in. If their fleet wants to defend the planet they will have to try to close, and slug it out with just their fusor beams. That means we will have the advantage again.”

The bridge crew listened attentively while monitoring their boards. They were used to the Skipper thinking out loud.

Absen went on, his voice firming. “How long until we are in range?”

“Two hours five minutes,” Okuda replied.

“Then pass my respects to all ships. Feed your people, take quick breaks in place for those two hours, but keep alert. And tell them, ‘Well done, that was the worst of it’.”

He hoped he was telling the truth.

***

SystemLord relaxed as he observed the planetary Underlings’ lack of active rebellion. When he had destroyed the Humans, he would punish the devolved Blends and their native slaves for their crimes. Until then merely ignoring them would have to be sufficient.

Tasting reports from Monitor’s many analytical sub-brains, he concluded that the enemy had lost several ships to his hypervelocity missiles, and had used up a great deal of ordnance. Without the ability to gestate new weapons, he knew that every expenditure the Humans made brought them closer to destruction. As long as the Empire’s fleet did not take excessive losses, steady pressure and threat remained the most efficient course.

I will force them to react to me, entice them to chase me, lure them after me, he thought with almost-poetic flavors of communication. Then I will strike with the Weapon.

Monitor calmed with its master’s good cheer.

Communicator remained skeptical.

***

“What? Are they insane?” Sergeant Major Repeth’s blood seemed to boil. She shook the tablet at Bull ben Tauros in frustration, then spun it onto his tiny desk. “How can they pull me off my assignment now? I’m this battalion’s senior NCO, I’m mama arse-kicker and name-taker. We just went through a hell of training and waiting and I’ve lost Marines before we even fought. We may be just hours from a ground assault.”

Her commander straightened the display and sighed. “This comes all the way from the top. Signed by the admiral.”

“Screw the admiral. This has to be personal. I turned the key that launched the nukes that killed his family ninety years ago and he’s never forgiven me for it. So now he’s cutting my legs out from under me the only way he knows how.”

“Come on, SMAJ, think straight. If that were true he’d never have woken you up. And from his reputation he’s too much of a professional to screw over the line troops. Replacing you will measurably hurt combat effectiveness. Do you really think he’d do it if it wasn’t really important?”

Repeth kicked the inside of the door in frustration, her cyber-enhanced strength leaving a distinct dent. “Maybe not.” She mused for a moment. “I smell a rat, a Vietnamese rat. That’s the only way this makes sense.”

“What?” Bull ran his hand over his fat bald pate, a nervous habit. “What does that mean?”

“You ever hear of Spooky Nguyen?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “He’s a phantom to scare recruits. ‘Eat your protein and do your pushups or Spooky will get you’. What about it?”

“He’s here. I saw him in the wardroom.”

“What, he’s real? You know him?” Bull looked at Repeth in awe. “And he’s here on this ship?”

“Probably not on Temasek, no, I saw him on Conquest before the breakup. Now I wish I never had. He’s the only one with enough pull to do this, the only one who could convince Absen to change things around at the last minute. Damn!”

“Look, it says you have to report in thirty-five minutes with full kit. Swede Gunderson will be my acting Sergeant Major. We’ll be fine. You’ve got to do it, there’s no point in raging. We’ll keep your place warm for you.” Bull stood up, held out his hand. “It’s been an honor. Now get your ass in gear and drive on.”

“Ballocks.” Then she relented, slamming her sinewy palm into his callused paw with a sigh. “All right. Semper Fi, brother. God bless you, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

“You too, sister,” Bull echoed under his breath as he watched her march resolutely down the passageway. He dredged up a favorite Hebrew blessing: “Adonai, 'tatzilenu mi-kaf kol oyev v'orev v'listim v'hayot ra'ot ba-derekh.”

Lord, rescue us from the hand of every foe and ambush along the way.

Chapter 10

The Marine assault sled doubled as a shuttle, and the familiar interior calmed Repeth somewhat as she looked over the flight warrant’s shoulder. A few minutes in space and they arrived at one of Conquest’s many small craft docks. “Airlock’s ready.” The pilot pointed.

“Right.” Repeth stood and walked to the hatch, then turned back. “Can you wait for me? I might need to come back.”

“Sure. With that priority code you got, I can do anything.” The portal whirred open.

Five minutes later Repeth stomped into the designated meeting room and slung her back-rack hard at Spooky. “What the hell kind of stunt is this, Spooks? You pulled me off a combat assignment on the eve of battle? It better be good or I’m marching right back to my battalion, orders or no orders.”

The small man deftly caught the object and set it down on the deck. “Very dramatic, Jill, but I need you for a mission.”

She shook her head emphatically. “I’m done with all the covert crap. I did it because I had to and I was good at it but it is not me. I volunteered for TF Conquest to get away from it. And frankly, from you.” She paced up and down the deck in the small room, breathing deeply. “And here you are again. This stinks.”

“Just hear me out,” Spooky replied. “We have a mission. It could be critical to humanity. I need a special operator like you, not some grunt. I need that focus you had when you hunted down the Professor all those years ago, when you were looking for Rick.” He leaned on his hands on the tabletop and waited for her answer.

“Not convinced. Why didn’t you tell me this days ago? I know you’re a calculating son of a bitch and you know this is not how spec ops is done. This last-minute stuff gets people killed.”

“Because I only recently obtained the information I needed. I had to make a choice: take a standard combat team that would probably fail, or assemble one that might succeed.”

“Succeed at what?” Repeth turned again to confront her old teacher.

“You can’t just trust me?” Spooky raised an eyebrow.

“I haven’t seen you in ten waking years plus forty sleeping and now you just want me to take you on faith?”

“Yes, just like you told Bull. Have faith, you said. So have faith in me. If not, have faith in that God you say you believe in.”

Staring at him, she forced herself not to be influenced by his powerful presence. “No, I don’t trust you anymore, if I ever really did. You know who I trust? My husband Rick and my Marines.” She took a deep breath. “But I’ll listen.”

“Maybe this will change your mind.” Spooky made a come in gesture and someone entered the room.

Repeth realized he must have been waiting for the tension to subside before signaling. “What the hell is he doing here?” She pointed an accusing finger at a nondescript young man of medium height and build, with dark hair and strangely indeterminate racial markers. “I thought this was a human-only mission.”

“At least you didn’t refer to me as it,” the man replied. “I’m here because it was thought a Blend might be needed.”

“I hate the way you talk, Ezekiel Denham,” Repeth responded bitterly. “ ‘It was thought’. Always hiding the responsibility. Who thought? You’d think that a hundred years after the Eden Plague improved humanity we’d at least stop bullshitting our own kind.”

“Chairman Daniel Markis thought,” Spooky interjected.

“Is that supposed to impress me, dropping the name of Earth’s ruler?” Repeth snarled. “Remember, I married his best friend’s son, and I’ve poured Scotch with the man. Ezekiel’s one of these half-Meme, and they’ve had their own agenda ever since the first Destroyer came.”

“One quarter, really. Miss Repeth,” Ezekiel began –

“Oh, you can call me Reaper,” she hissed at him with cold narrowed eyes. “That’s what I went by in my covert ops days.” Slowly she extended her claws from her fingertips, crimson blood rimming the blades.

He shrugged, glancing at the deadly display. “Very well, Reaper. The part of me that is Meme is no different from your Eden Plague or your nanites or your cybernetics – it extends my capabilities but does not make me unhuman. People must adapt to survive. I am just differently adapted.”

“How do we know you won’t betray us to the Meme as soon as you can?” She stepped toward him and slid three fingertips lightly down his neck, leaving fine red lines, but he did not flinch.

Another shrug, and a sigh. “You want a logical reason besides loyalty? Besides my faithful years of service? Besides the fact that my father and mother saved humanity at least two distinct times? Here’s one: because the Meme would look down on me with the same bigotry you do.”

Ezekiel stepped back and gestured broadly with his hands, looking up at the ceiling as if pleading to heaven. “To Meme, Blends are impure, fit only to be confined to planets, to work in their manufactories and hold their territories inside inconvenient gravity wells. You know the Hippos on Afrana that we are all supposed to hate and kill? Their Blends are second-class citizens of the Meme Empire and the unblended indigenous Hippos are nothing but slaves. The Meme run a brutal, hierarchical society where biology determines place.”

He leaned forward, spearing Repeth with his eyes. “Is that how you want humans to act too? Should we imitate our enemy? Shall I kowtow to you just because I am different? Am I the new wog, the new darkie here?”

Her throat turned suddenly dry and her face hot with embarrassment. “We become what we hate,” she whispered, and abruptly retracted her claws. “All right, I apologize. If Spooky vouches for you...”

Doesn’t mean I won’t watch you close.

“I do so vouch,” Spooky confidently met her condition. “I’ve worked with Ezekiel before. In fact, I worked with his human father and his blended mother. And you’ve worked with Senior Steward Schaeffer,” he went on as another man, slim with a thin red-blonde beard, came through the door as if on cue.

“Shades!” Repeth’s mood lifted as she shook the steward’s hand.

“Reap,” he responded warmly, taking off his trademark shooting glasses. “Not sure why I’m here but at least they chose the best.”

“Not they,” Repeth said. “Him.” She pointed at Spooky.

“Nguyen? The new steward? He’s coming along?” The other three chuckled, and Shades looked confused. “What am I missing?”

“Remember that ninja that saved our asses on Orion?”

“Yeah. Oh…him?”

“The same.”

Shades laughed uneasily. “I guess I should thank you, then.”

Spooky inclined his head and smiled thinly. “You should.”

Repeth asked, “Spooky, are there any more?”

“No, just us,” he answered.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,” Shades quoted suddenly with a rueful smile.

Ezekiel replied with a flourish, “If we are marked to die, we are enough, to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.”

“God’s will, I pray thee wish not one man more,” continued Shades, winking at Repeth’s puzzled look. “Henry V, act four, scene three.”

“Well said,” Spooky said with a wintry smile. “So shall we happy few get our arses in gear? We may have only a few hours to prepare. Here’s the brief.” He tapped a control on the console and the inevitable operational order appeared on the screen. Running through the plan overview took less than five minutes.

Once they were done Repeth addressed Spooky with a square of her shoulders. “Look,” she said, “I’m flattered you wanted me, and I’ve listened, but I still don’t believe you need me for this plan. You don’t even need Shades. You and Ezekiel could do it – or even him alone.” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s your game here?”

“Dadirri.”

“Don’t give me that Zen bullshit, I’m not buying it today.” She leaned close to him to breathe faint words in his ear, too quiet for even the others’ enhanced hearing. “I know about you. I’ve known for a while, and I don’t care. I’ll keep your secrets, but you don’t need me right now. My people do. Give this one up, and don’t get in my way.” She pointedly retracted her claws, then stepped back, searching his face for reaction.

Spooky showed none at all for a moment before giving her a cock-headed nod of acquiescence.

“Thanks again for the invite, and I wish you all good luck and good hunting, but I’m out.” Shouldering her back-rack, Sergeant Major Jill Repeth, EarthFleet Marines, marched back to take her place, exactly where she belonged.

***

“Interesting; I see the three orbitals are staying on the other side of the planet,” Absen remarked as Scoggins reordered the main holotank, cleaning up the visuals and moving secondary symbology off to side screens. “Must be using a lot of fuel, fighting gravity.”

“It’s one way to not get hit by the railgun strikes,” Commander Ford at Weapons said with his usual grumbling tone. “Computer predicts they’ll unmask about the same time we close in on the planet and moon. The fleet will probably throw whatever hypers they have at us then, to take advantage of synergy.”

“It shouldn’t matter,” objected Commander Scoggins, carrying on their usual disagreements on almost every subject. “We still have the advantage in combat power.”

“As long as the ammo holds out, and assuming their fleet doesn’t close,” Ford said darkly. “Why shouldn’t they? It’s their best chance to fight us on even terms.”

“That’s not the way Meme think,” she argued. “To them, a ship or even a missile is a living thing that they value.”

“Not like you mean. They can’t value a missile that they gestated yesterday and send off to die tomorrow. You’re anthropomorphizing.”

Scoggins opened her mouth to continue when Absen interjected, “You two bicker like a married couple. Perhaps you should consider making it official when this is done.” That will shut them up.

“Besides, I think the Meme commander is perfectly willing to sacrifice his ships if,” the admiral shook an emphasizing finger, “if it’s in his interest. In fact, I think he’s more willing to sacrifice life than we are. And don’t forget, he has his back to the wall too. Whatever passes for judgment among the Meme will fall on him like a ton of bricks if he loses this system. From what little we know of them, they don’t reward failure: he might as well die trying to win, I should think. Or at least sacrifice all his troops while escaping in a fast probe.”

They knew an individual Meme could survive in a ship as tiny as a hyper for decades, uncatchable as it fled across interstellar space.

“Back to the matter at hand,” Absen waved at the holotank. “Is this updated?” He examined the tactical situation carefully: Afrana to their right front, its moon to the left and slightly closer, and the main enemy fleet displayed between those two bodies and a bit beyond. A ring of Meme frigates hung on the EarthFleet task force’s flank and behind, like jackals at their heels.

“How are we doing for offensive missiles?”

Ford responded, “About thirty thousand left all told, Skipper. The twelve remaining frigates hold approximately fourteen thousand. Conquest can launch twelve hundred per salvo with a four-minute reload time.”

“Railgun ammo?”

“About one point two billion rounds, with a few hundred a minute more being manufactured from asteroidal materials we’re sweeping up in our magnetic scoops. That’s about forty minutes of continuous fire.”

“Damn. And the longer this takes the more hypers they can gestate. All right, here’s the plan. Keep up the light and intermittent railgun harassing fire on all targets; preserve ammo. We’re going to accelerate to close the distance and reduce the enemy’s recovery time. Maintain a defensive missile spread between us and their main body. Scoggins, where’s that last robot drone?”

“R-25 should be about here, sir, though it’s staying stealthy so I can’t be certain.” She caused a tiny dot to flash in the tank.

“Does it have a view of the back side of Afrana’s moon?”

“Yes, sir, from long range.”

“All right. Use it up, we need the data.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Scoggins sent the coded signal.

Sixty million kilometers and two hundred seconds away, R-25 took its last look at existence, updated all of its files, and sent its dying data burst. This time there was no need to hide nor run, so it stayed steady, the better to beam every scrap of information to its human masters. It repeated its transmission until, eight minutes later, a small hyper ushered it from the realm of matter into that of dispersed energy.

The admiral said, “Tell Intel as soon as the data comes in I want to know what they see on that moon, the orbitals and any remaining military installations on the planet. In the meantime, lay two hundred missiles to come in low over the moon’s horizon and target anything artificial – maximum spread, no fratricide. Lead them with a dozen recon drones. What’s our range now?”

“Just over one point two million klicks to the moon, sir. The planet is another three hundred thousand farther away, and off to the right.” Scoggins brought up a section of the holotank to show how the fleet’s course would take them past the moon, then between it and the planet.”

Absen stroked his chin, his cagey submariner’s instincts – for he had started out long ago as a sub captain – kicking in. “I don’t like going between the moon and the planet. Look at their main fleet.” He stood up and walked to the edge of the holographic display, to reach inside its projection. “It’s just holding position where a direct path will draw us in. Does it seem to anyone else like they are begging us to go there?” He looked around at his officers. “Come on, honest opinions people. Second-guess me.”

Ford cleared his throat. “It’s also the best tactical position for them regardless. They can dodge behind the planet, and whip around using its gravity well to come at us from the side if they want to. And as we already know, they could have some surprise on the orbitals, so it strengthens their hand.”

“And,” broke in Scoggins, “there might be something on the back side of the moon. What if there are heavy weapons there? No starship can mount anything as large as a ground-based installation.”

“Why would they have heavy weapons in the inner side of the moon, pointing at the planet?” Ford scoffed.

“Yes…why indeed?” Absen paced up and down on the deck, feeling the gravplates straining to compensate for the fleet’s acceleration. Stupid to be standing up when an electrical fluctuation in the artificial gravity generators could kill me, he thought with amusement. But I’m tired of sitting in that damned bio-gel chair. “So is there any advantage to boring straight in?”

“We maintain a steady stream of railgun rounds going along our path,” Ford replied. “That keeps them dodging. We can hold our defensive missile spread in front of us more easily. Everything is more predictable for our fire-control computers.”

Absen pounded gently on a rail. “Predictable…yes. We’ve been predictable, when in space combat with an uncertain enemy, to be predictable is to lose. Their commander did something unpredictable and hurt us badly. He took out six ships and forced us to burn up a third of our remaining missiles.”

He reached inside the holotank to draw a path with his finger. “What if we angle over here – away from the moon, and pass on the other side of the planet. That will allow us to see the back side of the moon as we go past, still well within our own beam and railgun range, but a lot farther from whatever surprise he has waiting on the other side. We also will have a finite time in their sights, until the planet gets between us.”

“What if there’s no surprise, sir?” asked Johnstone from CyberComm.

“Then we call it a recon in force, and come back around.”

Okuda said doubtfully, “Skipper, we will have a lot of velocity to burn off before we can come back, since we’re accelerating right now. If we don’t head directly toward their main fleet and that Guardian, they can just keep dodging behind the planet or moon. Everything that draws out this fight serves them. In fact,” the helmsman caused a glowing track to appear in the holotank, “this is our optimum path for what you propose. After we pass the planet, it would take over four hours to get back even under maximum burn. That’s four more hours for them to gestate missiles, and four more hours of us using fuel.”

“Intel, is that probe data ready yet? Show me something.”

“Raw feed is coming in, sir, just a few minutes,” the Intel officer replied, distractedly tapping keys. She reached to plug a link wire into a socket near her ear, and Absen let her work. Commander Rick Johnstone at CyberComm plugged in as well and soon they were colluding to build a coherent display.

Five minutes later half the main holotank blanked, then showed Afrana’s moon. It grew rapidly as if they approached at warp speed, then rotated to show the area of interest, the side turned inward toward the planet.

“Not much there,” mused Ford.

“Some kind of installation, though,” Scoggins replied. “Looks like spaceport facilities – fusion blast pads all look the same after hard use.”

“Yeah…” Ford agreed, trailing off as his eyes roved over the holo.

Scoggins looked at him in surprise and suspicion at his agreement, then examined the holo as well. She stepped up next to him, reaching out a hand. “What are these?”

“Mountains?”

“Yes, lots of mountains and hills but these look too regular to be natural.”

“Excavated material, dumped in long mounds?”

“I bet they are,” commented Absen. “Intel, get Engineering started on analysis. But what about weapons?”

“No weapons,” Ford stated positively. “At least, nothing I can see that indicates any. They could be well hidden, but what’s the point of camouflaging something on an airless moon that only looks at the planet? There’s this big flat round space in the middle, covered with dust. And what’s that?” He pointed at three torpedo shapes at the end of the massive mounds.

“Cruisers. Feeding on that material, I bet,” responded Scoggins. “Probably rotating them down there to fill up on food.”

“Just one more reason not to divert, sir,” Ford argued, turning toward Absen. “We’d be letting them replenish.”

“I understand your arguments, Ford, but we can handle a few more hypers. What we might not be able to handle is some kind of surprise from that moon. Intel, get all the analysts working on this. They have fifteen minutes to load a report, no matter how raw.” Absen stood staring at the moon, stroking his nose with a forefinger.

Fifteen minutes later the moon’s hemisphere blossomed with hasty markers, circles and arrows, flashing shapes of different colors. They were scattered across the thousands of square kilometers but a cluster in the center drew Absen’s eye. “What’s that?” he asked, turning to the young Intel watchstander.

“Uh, sir, mostly a bunch of anomalies by the landing pads. Some buried heat sources, marks of surface engineering…and those excavation mounds.”

“How big are those mounds?”

A scale grid appeared over the area. “About thirty klicks long, two wide, one high…”

“That’s a hell of a lot of material to dig out. I don’t like it. There has to be something buried there, maybe under that circle of dirt. All right, Helm, pass the word for all small craft to be brought back on board. Once that’s done, bring the fleet to a new course, here,” he traced a line away from the moon, toward the other side of the planet, “and keep our distance from that installation. Once we’re on track, start decelerating to come behind the planet as low as we can, use some of that gravity and whip us around. Maybe we’ll catch them napping, or at least they won’t expect it – and maybe we can use the planet somehow…” Not sure how, yet, but any variables I introduce will discomfit them.

Absen went on, “Ford, keep those defensive missiles between us and the enemy, and get that offensive sortie going in over the moon’s horizon. I want to see what we can stir up. Call it a recon by fire. Once you’ve done that, program a coordinated alpha strike, including our biggest nukes.”

“Alpha strike, Skipper? Everything?”

“Everything offensive, Ford.”

“We’ll be down to our final missiles in the tubes. No more reloads.”

“I know. You can always redirect the missiles toward other targets if you have to, but I want everything we have heading for that moon base on my command.”

“Got it, sir.”

“Skipper,” Master Helm Okuda called, “we’re passing the million kilometer mark. Beginning long-range beam weapon fire.”

The remaining six cruisers fired converging shots at the edge of the moon as the back side unmasked, throwing explosions up as the electromagnetic energies flash-heated the dirt. Blasts marched across the surface, destroying every anomaly Intel had identified, reaching slowly toward the unknown installation lurking over the horizon.

“Are the small craft recovered?” Absen asked.

“Yes, sir,” Okuda answered.

“All right, maneuver in thirty seconds. Everyone get secure.” Absen and the rest of the bridge crew dropped themselves back into their bio-gel chairs and strapped back in. On the mark, Conquest and the fleet turned smoothly as planned, aiming for an outer tangent of the planet, skating away from the unknown surface facility. Distance to the moon descended to eight hundred thousand kilometers before slowly creeping upward again.

“Launch the alpha strike to arrive as soon as the installation unmasks,” Absen called.

Chapter 11

SystemLord kept four eyes in his hemiscreens and several pseudopods in continuous chemical link with Monitor as he watched the enemy through his living ship’s senses. He damned the Humans for suspecting the existence of the Weapon; and he damned himself for not using his Sentries to search for spy drones. Expending them in the initial close-range trap had been a mistake, he now saw, but all war was risk.

No matter, the Humans are prisoners of momentum now, he thought. They cannot alter course fast enough to avoid being targeted, and there is nowhere to run except, possibly, behind the planet. When the Weapon destroys most of them, the Underlings will recognize the inevitable and take action with their orbitals.

***

“Conn: Sensors. All bogeys accelerating!” Scoggins wiped the main holotank of the moon’s image, replacing it with the fleet display. Flashing red icons with short tails showing their direction of movement began to crawl forward. “They’re coming out to fight!”

“Helm, get us onto as tight a tangent to the planet as you can, I want to shave it close. Ford, shift all the long-range beam fire to pick off some cruisers, before the alpha strike.”

Okuda nodded, too busy to speak. The fleet lined up and pumped full fusion thrust to the side, driving each ship, from the largest to the smallest, onto a course that would nearly skim the planet’s atmosphere on the side opposite the moon.

With his expanded senses the helmsman experienced the enemy closing in from all sides, but mostly from what seemed to him like the left front as the fleet skimmed to the right. To the left the virtual eye of the unknown moon anomaly flashed redly with a computer overlay, and between it and the planet, that double-ringed bullseye of enemy cruisers. The enormous Guardian occupied the center and hung slightly back.

It was now a race to see whether the main enemy fleet could get to within fusor beam distance before Conquest and her flock got past the point of intersection and behind the planet. Of course, the enemy could easily follow them around, using brute acceleration to force themselves into their wakes, then overtake.

“One enemy cruiser destroyed with beams,” Ford called, then: “Initiating alpha strike.” Missiles blossomed from the frigates, and Conquest’s launchers opened their quadripartitioned outer doors, enormous slabs of armor shifting like puzzle boxes, for just long enough to release salvos before closing. The bridge crew could hear the groans of their ship’s structure when acceleration came off for a moment, then resumed, as the weapons cleared their launch tubes. Gravplates whined as they transferred loads to compensate for the crushing forces.

The three remaining battleships and Conquest began continuous railgun fire, near-solid streams of hundreds of thousands of stealthy high-tech cannonballs per second, all aimed to blanket the unknown moon installation. Okuda skillfully adjusted for their enormous propelling forces, his fingers and his mind playing battle-music across the pipe organ of thrusters.

Twenty-eight seconds after the last shots left the rails, Ford shifted the beams of the task force cruisers off their enemy counterparts and onto the moon base. Coherent electromagnetics very nearly caught up with the solid ammo before both struck home, and directly behind came the first wave of heavy nukes.

Staring at the holotank, an almost real-time feed from near-space sensors, Admiral Absen thought at first the alpha strike had obliterated ten thousand square kilometers of the moon’s surface. The display showed an enormous energy release at that location. Shining like a laser bonfire it blazed forth, represented on the 4D tank as a dome of red light.

“What the hell is that?” he barked.

“Full-spectrum coherent EM pulse in the exawatt range, continuous duration,” Scoggins gasped.

“Shift targeting, continuous fire on that location!” Absen yelled, something he seldom did, but the implications of an enemy laser of such magnitude had overridden his calm.

“Retargeting!” Ford called, and passed the orders to the fleet weapons officers.

The dome of burning light reached out in a hemisphere as an almost-solid wave, defeated only by its exponential dispersion in three dimensions – every time it doubled in radius it dropped roughly fourteen-fold in power. This still allowed it to utterly vaporize the incoming shot and missiles at one hundred kilometers range, imparting temperatures greater than a star’s corona to anything it touched. It kept pumping vast energies into the void, creating in essence a dome of destruction through which nothing could pass, not even other electromagnetics.

Yet this was a defensive use, to preserve whatever enormous engine lurked beneath the moon’s surface from the continuous impact of human weapons. Ford intuited this right away and ordered the strikes spread out so they dribbled in, forcing the thing to remain as a barrier. His new greatest fear was that the projector would have time to focus offensively. Rough calculations showed such a beam could reach out far past the million-kilometer mark with devastating power.

Thus he ignored the chaos around him and any distracting commands in favor of diving into his link – which frankly he hated, no matter how useful – and fencing with this thing, thrusts and parries measured in milliseconds. Time after time he could see it begin to narrow its focus, only to re-broaden to catch the incoming human missiles that Ford now tried to bring in from every side, one at a time but with no gaps. The three-second lightspeed delay felt infinite and he could not react, only stack attack upon attack in patterns that he hoped would suppress the ravening beam.

Angrily he observed a detachment of six enemy cruisers that swept in from the side to bolster the defense of their moon base. These interdicted enough EarthFleet missiles to allow the ground-based beam to focus and lash out at its narrowest for a full second.

Three seconds later the beam cruiser Midas ceased to exist. All of the Meme weapon’s enormous power struck an area on the ship the size of a hoplite’s shield, and the armor in its path was converted from dense crystalline molecules to free relativistic particles within a nanosecond. This jet bored a hole through the front armor and exited the other side, while the heat dump and plasma wave flashed immediately throughout the entire ship. A thermonuclear weapon detonated at the center of the vessel would have wreaked less havoc, and moments later the remains of the kilometer-wide cruiser expanded on the outside of a sun-hot, teardrop-shaped wave of compressed debris.

Commander Ford spouted profanity through those seconds as, steaming with rage, he redoubled his efforts to lay all available weaponry on the hated installation, knowing full well he could do no more than keep it bottled.

With cleverness borne of desperation he targeted nukes onto the surface just outside the thing’s destructive radius, blasting mountains of debris into the moon’s faint atmosphere. Perhaps the detritus will diffuse the laser, he thought, or the ground shock might damage it.

One idea later he began to throw nuke after nuke into the same hole at the edge, waiting only long enough between blasts for each fireball to disperse before sending another deeper, as if trying to drill though the planet’s crust from an angle.

Which he was.

The squadron of enemy cruisers shifted to stop his ploy, – too soon, too soon! – picking off his missiles with their close-range fusor beams set wide. Despite all his efforts, the gargantuan laser licked out again and touched the battleship Nanjing, and that great city’s namesake also vanished in a brief and newborn sun.

A curtain fell then across Ford’s awareness, distinct, rapid, but inevitable. The weapons officer realized Conquest and her escorts had passed behind Afrana, thus shielding the task force with the only thing that could withstand such a weapon – thousands of kilometers of planet.

Unfortunately this brought them within close range of the enormous enemy orbitals lurking on the other side of the planet. EarthFleet weapons strained to reorient, in some cases a full 180 degrees, to try – and fail – to lock on and fire at the huge fortresses as they flashed through near-planet space.

The holotank told the brutal story. For eight full seconds the fleet was caught flatfooted, sailing point-blank under the menacing guns of three Hippo superdreadnought-sized battlewagons. One enormous particle beam on each orbital fortress fired, the blaze of its discharge lighting up surrounding space as it reached out toward Conquest and the others.

And missed.

“Hold fire!” Absen yelled as realization hit him. “All ships hold fire! That was deliberate.”

Surprised murmurs of assent and relief swept the bridge. Seconds later, the task force was clear.

The orbitals turned to follow with their aim, fired, and failed to connect again.

“Are we sure they didn’t intend to hit us? Maybe they just missed,” Ford said.

Absen raised an eyebrow. “Would you have?”

Ford shook his head.

So that moon laser was their surprise, the admiral thought as they cruised away. And probably the Hippos were supposed to close the trap. It should have worked. That Meme commander is one smart bastard. A shudder went through him from the adrenaline of this near-death experience, feeling in his bones how close it had been.

Chapter 12

SystemLord sprayed a molecular howl of frustration as he watched the Underling orbitals decline to damage the Humans. Efficient and effective, his plan had drawn the enemy into a trap…and it had failed to close. He had been sure the battle stations would hit the Humans hard when the enemy fired upon them, and once they saw how certain the Empire was to triumph.

But the Underlings had been suspiciously inaccurate, and the enemy had not returned fire against the orbitals. Confusion reigned briefly in the Meme commander’s mind. Had the Underlings and the Humans somehow established communication? Yet this was impossible, according to his clandestine agents on and around the planet.

No matter. The Weapon had killed two more of their capital ships, and the treacherous Underlings had only delayed the inevitable. SystemLord’s ships now had enough time to replenish some of their missile capacity, as the enemy was speeding away at high velocity. He remained in possession of the Weapon, and his fleet was still powerful.

But he could not let the disobedience pass. “Communicator!”

“I hear, SystemLord.”

“Determine the tribal centers of the three Underling orbital leaders. Once you have done so, transmit the following on all planetary channels: Underlings: Three fortress commanders have failed in their duties. Consequences are inevitable. Witness them now. Then order the Purelings controlling the Weapon to obliterate those cities.”

“Is that all, SystemLord?”

“No. Order those commanders executed, and their seconds promoted in their places. Perhaps that will motivate them to succeed.”

“It will be done.”

***

“Helm,” Absen called as the fleet exited near-planetary space, “do everything you can to keep the planet between us and the moon. Ford, fantastic work; you saved all of us. Scoggins, keep some drones far enough out so we can see beyond the planet. Commander Johnstone, is there any chance you can hack into their signals?” Like you’ve done in the past…come on, Rick, give me another miracle.

“I’ve been trying, sir. No luck.” Rick closed his eyes again and immersed himself in the world of electronic warfare.

“Okuda, how long do we have before we are under that gun again?”

The helmsman responded, “I can keep us shielded by the planet and moving away indefinitely, assuming their fleet doesn’t chase us. We’re like a bunch of hunters hiding behind one single tree, though, and falling back. The farther away we get, the harder it will be.”

The admiral looked at the holotank, observing that the enemy fleet was not following. It appeared to be regrouping around the planet. “Can anyone tell me what the effective range on that thing is? How far away do we have to be before it can’t hurt us?” Absen waited as silence fell across the bridge, his officers running their calculations.

Scoggins spoke first. “I’d say at ten million klicks it will be no more powerful than a cruiser beam at point-blank. At twelve million it won’t light a cigarette. That’s about forty minutes travel from now.”

“And that thing can defend itself against almost anything,” Ford ground out.

“Anything it can see,” Absen responded. “We just have to maneuver outside its range and come in behind its arc of fire.”

“Already on it, Skipper.” Okuda relaxed slightly and opened his eyes to blink at his admiral. “We’re headed for the star. We’ll swing close around it about six hours from now, slingshot using the gravity well and come back at them from an angle behind the moon, and with our speed intact. It’s a lot safer than reversing course out here in the open.”

Absen nodded, then looked toward the BioMed officer. “Make sure you pass all of that to the medical folks. Prep for heat and radiation. Comms, sound secure from general quarters and maximum rest protocols. Primary watch, go off in ten minutes and everyone get a few hours sleep. Turn it all over to the auxiliary bridge with the tertiary watch standing. No arguments.”

He took a deep breath, let it out and stood up to pace. “They sprung their trap and we survived it. Now we know about the laser. Intel, I need all the analysts working on this thing. I need a way to beat it. And what in the hell is it positioned there for anyway?”

“I think I know, Admiral,” came a new voice from the main hatchway as it swung open. Everyone turned to look as an unknown civilian entered the bridge. Chief Steward Tobias, ever watchful, leaped from his acceleration niche to point his sidearm at the intruder.

Behind the civilian followed Spooky Nguyen, with Shades Schaeffer trailing. The Vietnamese motioned to Tobias to lower his weapon, and the new man went on, “Sorry to startle everyone. I’m Ezekiel Denham, and yes, I’m a Blend.”

“I know what you are,” grated Absen. “What do you want?”

“He wants to explain what’s going on, sir. I think you should listen to him,” Shades said.

“You think. What about you, Nguyen?”

Spooky bowed slightly and nodded in silent acknowledgement. Behind him Shades removed his trademark tinted glasses and shrugged with a wry smile.

Absen returned the smile, but it failed to reach his eyes. “It really worries me when you’re all in agreement. It means either you’re right – or very, very wrong. Let’s let these fine officers get some rest. You three come to my quarters.” He stood up and exited by his private door, and they followed one by one under Tobias’ watchful eye.

Once in his spacious flag office he waved them to seats. “All right. We have ten to twelve hours before we have to fight again, so let’s hear it – but keep it brief. We all need some rest. Denham, you first. You said you know why it’s there.”

“Yes, sir,” Ezekiel said with folded hands. “It is a terror weapon to keep the Hippos in line.”

Absen sat back in his own chair and absorbed that statement. “So you’re saying that without something like that, the Meme might have a full-blown rebellion on their hands?”

“Yes, sir. Bits of molecular memory handed down to me by my Blended mother – remember, I’m really only one quarter Meme – combined with what we recovered from some of the enemy ships indicates those who Blend with ‘lower beings’ tend to identify with their new race. This is exacerbated by the bigotry and prejudice of the pure Meme.”

Absen waved a hand as if fanning away smoke. “I’ve heard all these theories.”

“Theories perhaps - but don’t you see, sir – it lines up perfectly with this weapon. If it was built to defend the planet it would be facing outward, or they would have made two to cover the whole sphere of fire. If they had, they could have picked off our ships as we fell straight toward it. You’re a tactician, sir, look at it from their point of view. Where would you put it if it was to secure the world from alien – from human – invasion?”

Absen nodded slowly, reaching over to his desk drawer and pulling out a carton of cigarillos. He took one and lit it while he pondered, then pushed the box across his desk at Spooky, who passed it around after putting one in his mouth. Soon the room filled with fragrant smoke, an admiral’s luxury.

“It makes sense,” he finally said. “But so what?”

Ezekiel answered, “It means, sir, that if we get rid of that thing, I think the Hippo Blends of the planet will gladly join us – especially if I am the ambassador. They should see me as one of them, as another Blend, and they command the rest of the natives. Tell me, did the orbitals fire on us?”

“Yes…they had us dead to rights but they missed.”

“That proves it then! They want us to win.”

The admiral steepled his fingers and stared at his hands. “Let’s say you’re right. What do you propose?”

Ezekiel turned to Spooky, who put down his smoke and stood up to pace. “I suggest,” he said, “that we engage the enemy fleet to cover a ground assault on the moon base with the Marines. It’s the only way to get close enough. Come in beyond the horizon, deploy where the laser can’t reach them, dig them out. There have to be tunnels. If we can’t find any, just bore in from the sides.”

“That’s going to be expensive. We’ll have to send all the Marines to have a chance, and that’s all we’ll have – one chance.”

Spooky’s mouth twitched and he shrugged. “If we take that base, that weapon, we control the planet and a lot of the space around. We have the stronger fleet, barring any more surprises. The positions will be reversed. If we own the mega-laser and get it functioning, they will have to deal with it – and we will also have the ultimate bargaining position with the Hippos.” He flicked a glance at Ezekiel.

“What, after all this nice-nice,” Absen said with a sweep of his hand, “you don’t trust our Hippo potential allies?”

Spooky picked up his cigarillo and dragged, his eyes narrowing over the curl of ash. “Admiral, I don’t trust anyone.”

“Of course.” Absen blew a smoke ring. “All right. Let’s say we do it your way. What about your team and your mission?”

“Why sir,” Spooky replied, waving at his two comrades, “we are the team, and the mission. You don’t think the Hippos will commit to ally with us over a commlink, do you?”

Absen shook his head in resignation. “I suppose not. What happened to Sergeant Major Repeth?”

Spooky’s nostrils flared as he took a calming breath. “She declined my offer.”

“I thought she might.” Absen smiled without humor. “Can’t have it all your way, Nguyen.”

“I’ll quote that back to you sometime, Admiral.”

“You do that,” he responded roughly. “Now brief me on your intended mission, and then get out of my sight. You give me a headache, and I need to think.”

***

Ezekiel laid a hand against the softly thrumming hide of Steadfast Roger, his personal corvette. Part of the vibration was from Conquest herself, but most was the quiver of Roger’s living processes. Open, he said via molecular transfer from his fingertips, and a doorway irised to let the three men in.

“So this is a Meme ship?” Shades said, zipping his glasses into a breast pocket in the dim light. The room was blank-walled and organic, containing nothing but three sarcophagi that sprouted from the floor.

“More or less,” Ezekiel responded. “He’s descended from the original Meme scoutship that came to Earth in the early twenty-first century. We Blends made some improvements using Earthtech, and he’s adapted for human use.”

“I notice you say ‘he’. Is the ship conscious?”

Ezekiel nodded. “Absolutely, and he grows slowly more intelligent over time. Right now he is perhaps as bright as a rather stupid dog. Eventually he should attain intelligence similar to a dolphin, perhaps even more.”

“I guess we’re lucky one Meme decided to help humanity.”

Ezekiel bowed his head reverently. “Raphael, he who blended with my mother Sofia Ilona, saved Earth by his defection from the enemy. If we have time as our colony grows, I intend to write a biography.”

“Sounds fascinating,” Spooky broke in, “but we must launch soon. The longer we wait, the longer it will take to reach our destination.”

“All right. Remove all clothing and get in the cocoons.” Ezekiel demonstrated by stripping to the buff and hopping into one. Spooky climbed nimbly into the second biotech construct, feeling it conform to his naked body. Beside him, Shades did the same. Living cowls rolled around their heads like bizarre parka hoods before sealing the three men in. They all felt the questing probes of biomechanical plugs slotting into their cranial connectors.

Ready? Ezekiel asked through his link. The other two answered affirmative, and a moment later the cocoons vanished from their consciousness. All three stepped into a comfortably appointed cockpit, rather old-fashioned and steam-age-themed, brass and wood, as in a Jules Verne story. Transition to virtual space had been smooth, and now the three seemed to stand looking out a large glass window into space.

In the real world tubes extruded, filling all of their body cavities, a distinctly unpleasant sensation that they were glad to avoid. The conduits to their mouths and nose pulsed and abruptly ran with liquid, and soon their lungs filled with oxygenated fluid, necessary to keep them from collapsing under the heavy Gs to come. This ship had no gravplates.

Out their virtual window they saw an artificial representation of the battlespace, with Afrana, its moon, and the enemy and friendly fleets displayed for convenience in ridiculous proximity. Ezekiel reached out his hand to move a round-knobbed lever and their ship shot forward, mimicking its real actions. “We’re outside Conquest now.”

“Why don’t you just show what space really looks like?” asked Shades.

“Because there’d be little to see,” Ezekiel answered. “This simulated picture is better than the real thing, believe me.” He moved more levers forward and they accelerated away from the Earth fleet, diving toward the back edge of the planet. Some of the acceleration sensation leaked over and the VR bridge wobbled.

“Are you sure they won’t see us?”

“Our initial burn was one among many in the midst of our fleet, so the Meme shouldn’t notice. Once that ends, we will be on a ballistic course until we near the planet, so we are almost undetectable. Once we reach the planet, Steadfast Roger will mimic a Meme signature as we maneuver.”

“So that means yes.” Shades crossed his arms in amusement.

“Yes that means no, they won’t see us, I believe. Sorry, just proud of my ship.” Ezekiel caressed the console. “He and I have been a lot of places together.”

“Weird to think we’re inside a living thing.”

“All right, enough small talk,” interjected Spooky. “Let’s go over the plan again.”

“Don’t you ever relax?” Shades asked.

“He does,” replied Ezekiel, “at least once per decade, whether he needs it or not. And he’s right. We’ll be in planetary space in a short time.”

***

Task Force Conquest cruised planetward now, having swung around the system’s sun in a punishing arc, under continual thrust. By brute force they powered through a tight half-orbit to arrive at Afrana well out of the moon-based laser’s arc.

“What do you think?” Chief of the Boat Timmons stood beside the admiral’s chair as they both stared at the holotank. His question was likely less about eliciting information than about getting his admiral to talk.

Absen realized he had been silent for the last hour, and it was making the bridge watch nervous. I think I’m starting to wonder if we can pull this off, he wanted to say. Instead, he cleared his throat. “I think it will work.” He deliberately strengthened his voice. “It’s a good plan. The analysts are to be commended. I assume everyone is ready to execute?”

Affirmative noises from his officers helped him feel the confidence he tried to project. “Then sound Battle Stations and you are free to begin sequence by computer mark.”

“Assault force launching,” Okuda said. “Defense missiles launching.” After long minutes he went on, “Fleet defense posture at maximum. Altering course.”

Now the sweating began. Absen raised the cooling on his skinsuit and watched the holotank as the two parts of his little fleet separated.

All the warships began to diverge from the assault force to gain an angle tangent to the laser base, where they stabilized out of its arc, and inbound. If they did not maneuver, they would skim the surface of the moon above the enemy installation.

But that was not the plan.

The assault force they had launched – more than seven hundred surviving StormCrows, one thousand Marine assault sleds, and a cloud of pinnaces and cargo shuttles – floated stealthily forward under silent running procedures, left behind by the fleet.

At these distances they hoped to be invisible, because they had no capital ships to protect them. If they were detected, the fighters were the only defenders.

Ford at Weapons spoke. “Railgun barrage initiating. Nuclear missiles barrage initiating. Blinding barrage initiating.”

Absen hoped the blinding barrage – all of his beam weapons in wide-spectrum mode, aimed at the main enemy fleet – would disrupt and confuse the enemy sensors with a storm of electromagnetics. More particularly, he watched the holotank as the computer icons for thirty missiles trailed a cloud of ten million railgun shot.

Timing of those items was critical.

“Enemy fleet moving forward,” Scoggins called, and it was so. The Guardian and its cruisers slowly maneuvered up to take positions between the planet and the moon – firmly in the center of the base laser’s zone of control. A faint cone of red showed the computer’s projection of that deadly space, and it appeared as if the fleet headed right for it.

“Decelerating,” Okuda said on the mark, and Conquest thrummed with the powerful forces now slowing it to avoid that fate. Throughout the fleet all of the warships were doing the same.

Far ahead, the railgun cloud and the missiles approached the edge of the enemy base, as if sneaking up on a hilltop. To the Meme it would appear the missiles were coming in under the radar intending to strike on a nap-of-the-ground trajectory, in hopes of detonating as close to the base as possible.

I’d take that, Absen thought, but it’s not the real plan.

Rising from the surface, the six Meme cruisers defending the base moved to meet the missiles, and on cue, two EarthFleet beam cruisers shifted their dazzling rays to blast them with electromagnetics. While far too far away to do direct damage, this tactic was more than sufficient to degrade the enemy sensors.

Taking positions directly in the missiles’ paths – by far the most effective way to line up on the fast-moving weapons – the Meme cruisers waited, undoubtedly confident that they could handle a mere thirty projectiles with their multiple heavy fusors. Between the blinding barrage and the railgun shots’ stealth coating, Absen hoped they could not see the swarm of steel death precisely ten seconds ahead of the missiles.

They might have recognized their fate for just a split second, as Absen could have sworn they lit their fusion engines and tried to run – but it was futile. Ten million railgun rounds, a shotgun blast worthy of Zeus, flensed the six ships to hamburger.

Most of the spheres traveled onward, as did the missiles.

A cheer went up from the bridge crew, and Absen allowed himself a smile. “Well done, Mister Ford. A superb trap.”

“Base laser firing, defensive mode,” noted Scoggins. “Shot and missiles impacting.”

Above the moon’s surface the laser converted thousands of round shot into ferrous gas as they flew into the quasi-solid dome of light. However, most of their number slammed into the edge of the installation, just outside of its reaching blaze. They plowed up millions of tons of surface material, gouging a bite out of the perfect bowl its heat had polished, and briefly obscured the site.

Into this inferno plunged thirty undamaged high-yield thermonuclear missiles, carefully spaced and timed to avoid fratricide. One after another, their blasts bored underground, ripping through the moon’s crust a kilometer at a time, tunneling under the surface.

Commander Ford had precisely predicted this phase, and his calculations did not err. In the end, a shaft one kilometer wide and thirty long angled downward, aiming toward a place beneath where the laser must be.

Chapter 13

SystemLord’s consternation at losing six cruisers to the Human commander’s cunning trap turned to relief as he saw the failure of the enemy nuclear missiles to destroy the Weapon. A valiant and clever effort, he silently saluted, but I have you now.

Monitor’s brains synthesized data from its senses and displayed it visually on hemiscreens. They showed the Human fleet aiming for the edge of the moon base with obvious intention to finish the job. Should that force reach its beam range, it could probably bore the rest of the way through the surface and begin to damage the installation.

Therefore, this was the time to close with the enemy.

Not without finesse, of course. SystemLord ordered Monitor and his cruisers to remain behind the invisible line in space that marked the farthest traverse of the Weapon. Geometry, like physics, had no mercy; as both fleets approached the base, they must inevitably converge, and this would force the Humans within his weapon range…or they must break off.

Either case should bring victory.

***

“That laser still firing?” asked Absen.

“No, sir, it switched off after the last missile blew.”

“Any chance we got it with the nukes?”

Scoggins shook her head. “I don’t think so, Skipper. The surface radius of the laser dome is about forty klicks. The nukes wouldn’t have reached it with blast or radiation, and if this base is as tough as their ships, ground shock won’t have done it either.”

“Fair enough,” Absen responded. “The plan is still on track.”

“Their fleet is moving to get between us and the base, sir,” Ford said, pointing at the holotank while Scoggins was distracted with her analysis.

“As expected. Mister Okuda, just make damn sure we stay out of that thing’s arc.”

“Yes, sir. We are decelerating along roughly the same path as the railgun blast and the missiles, as if we are also going to attack the base from the edge.” Okuda touched a control and their pathway appeared in the tank, showing the enemy coming in from the front side on a converging course.

Scoggins spoke. “Conn: Sensors, I have missile launch. Approximately eight hundred.”

“Acknowledged. Stick to the plan.” Absen white-knuckled the arms of his chair, with no orders to give and no way to further influence the battle – as long as the enemy did as expected. The lack of StormCrows is going to hurt, he thought, but at least the hypers won’t have very long to get up that damaging speed.

In the holotank view, the task force closed up as planned. With no small craft to fill the gaps and pick off missiles, it was imperative to tighten their formation, maximizing mutual support. In fact, they packed themselves in far tighter than doctrine advised, but doctrine had never envisioned a fleet of twenty-seven warships under acceleration absorbing a heavy missile strike with no fighters. Only the hundreds of tiny laser drones would assist, but as these could not maneuver with the fleet they would only be useful for a few seconds after launch, until the hard-driven ships would draw away.

This tight deployment allowed Absen some measure of absolution for what he was about to do, for this was the last cast of the dice, and thus he could afford to trade away ship hulls to save lives. He watched as his remaining twelve missile frigates, empty of weapons and crew, and under computer control, placed themselves deliberately in the path of the heaviest hyper groups and released their hollowed box launchers. One hundred and fifty-six distinct targets absorbed an equal number of missiles, giving their mechanical all in hopes of preserving the rest.

“Nukes!” Scoggins suddenly cried. “I have nuclear detonations among the frigates and boxes!”

“Damn. I should have thought of that,” groused Ford. “With these hypers launched so close and slow, they could afford to put some nuclear warheads on them.”

“Can you tell which are which?”

“Too late, sir –” Ford was right; the incoming wave was only seconds away.

***

At the CyberComm station, Rick Johnstone listened, much of his mind in the link and watching virtually. Most never knew what he did for them, but he constantly facilitated computer projections and analyses, pulling information from Intel in anticipation, tweaking certain weapons to make them more effective – in short, he was the unseen grease in the gears. Much of the time what he did went beyond regulations, and he often stepped on others’ authority, always sub rosa. He’d never told them, though he thought Absen suspected.

In this case it took him, the chips in his head, and Conquest’s supercomputers only a fraction of a second to identify the nuke-equipped hypers, from the slight differences in their signatures, and reprogram the priorities on the fleet’s integrated defense system. Now, whenever the automatics made a choice, the defense beams, electromagnetic shotguns, antimissile missiles and laser drones targeted the deadliest threats.

***

When the hyper storm was over, one more beam cruiser and two assault carriers – along with all of the frigates – were broken, and the remaining ships survived varying levels of further damage. Only the battleship Flensburg, by now with a reputation as a divinely lucky ship, had lost almost none of her crew, neither from original complement nor from those it had rescued from its sisters.

“Conn: Sensors, bogeys closing.”

Absen could see the projected tracks of the Guardian and the remaining seventeen enemy cruisers accelerating to intercept them. Now the calculus reversed: the Meme fusor weapons, powerful as they were, had much shorter reach. Threatening the moon base was forcing the enemy to charge into EarthFleet’s optimum ranges, as he had hoped.

Absen ordered, “Helm, adjust course toward the landing force. When they get spotted, the enemy will probably lunge at them. Begin harassing fire with railguns and keep the beams spread to dazzle. Let’s seem weaker than we are.” He kept his eyes on the holotank, where the hundreds of StormCrows and assault sleds showed as a cluster of icons. “When do they start their decel?”

“Coming up right now, sir,” Ford responded. A pause. “There’s the burn. They’re decelerating and visible.”

Scoggins joined in, “Enemy is reacting…sir, their frigates behind us just went to maximum toward the assault force. Main fleet is still on intercept with us.”

Absen snapped, “Tell the fighters to go after the frigates. Ford, use Conquest’s weapons and support them from long range.”

Ford did so, concentrating the dreadnought’s beam weapons to focus their entire output on the lead frigate. Under that electromagnetic pounding, the enemy sheered off and dove away wounded, perhaps dying.

StormCrow fusion engines flared full as they clawed their way to the rear of the assault formation, thrusting toward the overtaking Meme frigates. Soon two score fighters englobed every enemy ship, diving and swooping, stinging with their masers and tiny close-in weapon suites like swarms of killer bees.

***

“Yee-hah!” Vango hollered as he stitched his maser blast along the skin of an enemy frigate, leaving trails of bubbling flesh. The microwave laser, frequency-optimized to heat water just like a microwave oven, instantly turned all H2O in its path to steam, bursting cells a meter deep.

Consciousness expanded under the total concentration of combat, he and Helen became an integrated being, a flying creature with killing joy in its eyes and death in its wings. Skidding sideways to avoid a collision, they clawed Weaver around and fired again as soon as their weapon recharged even while flying backward. The maser, like an old-fashioned fighter gun, was aimed by moving the whole fuselage, but in space, nothing said the ship had to be going forward.

Vango-Helen watched admiringly as one of their squadron made a close fly-by, turning to shoot sideways as momentum took them past. Admiration turned to grief and rage as a fusor beam blossomed from a suddenly expanding sphincter in the frigate’s hide, washing across the other Crow with deadly effect. Melted remains spun onward in a ballistic course, barely recognizable as a fighter.

Son of a bitch! In the link, neither was sure who said it.

By then Weaver had come back around. Lining up carefully, they dropped a targeting lock onto an ugly wound on the frigate’s side and fired again.

“That’s the way to take these bastards down,” Vango recited. “Keep hitting them where it hurts. Don’t let them heal.” He thought he saw a shudder of pain ripple through the enemy as they flashed along the length of the ship.

Near space filled with tiny projectiles as Helen strafed secondary weapons fire into the enemy at point-blank range. “Engine!” she screamed through the link. In response Weaver yawed sideways, gouging a bubbling trench in the enemy skin with her lit fusion drive. Then they were past.

In response the frigate ignited its own much larger engine. The edge of the stacked-plasma propulsion wave, a makeshift weapon, caught the StormCrow and flung her end over end like a twirled baton.

Within the link, Vango fought to keep away from the torch of the enemy drive as it swung ponderously, a blunt instrument no less deadly for its unwieldiness. Lighting his engine in precise spurts, he both reduced their rate of tumble and kept Weaver out of the plasma fire until they were far enough away, amazing even himself. “Rick’s software is saving our asses out here,” he said pointedly.

“Yeah, you told me so, I get it. Damn, we lost two whole wing-pods to that thing,” Helen replied. “Everything in three and four is melted to slag.”

“At least that’s all we lost,” Vango responded. “It could have been a lot worse.”

“I hate your cheery attitude, you know that, don’t you?” she said.

“How can you complain? Did you ever feel so alive?” With Weaver stable once more, he looked for the nearest enemy frigate, checked his fuel supply – just under half – and lined up for another run.

“You’re just happy because you got the biggest gun,” Helen grumbled.

“Better believe it, baby,” he laughed, high on survival. “Get ready, here we go again.”

***

Absen watched the holotank as, each time a frigate died, its Crows swarmed and pecked at others, chewing up still more of them. Enemy warships clawed frantically through the flock, murdering as they went, but only three won free to race for the Marine landing force with that ungodly Meme acceleration.

“Ford, retarget those three frigates, I want them dead!” Absen pounded his gloved fist on his chair as he watched the three vessels – small compared to his capital ships, but still dozens of times larger than the Marine landing craft and a thousand times as deadly.

Ford’s fingers played across his controls, physical and virtual, issuing instructions to the targeting computers that aimed Conquest’s weapons.

Unbeknownst to him, Rick Johnstone’s mind brushed feathers of thought through the system, refining computer plots using his virtual intuition. Between the two of them their lasers destroyed the first frigate, the second – then the third blasted among the landing craft.

“I can’t get it, they’re too close!” Ford yelled in frustration, then cried in shock as somehow his command to cease fire went ignored. “What the hell? We’re still firing!”

Concentrating on the final frigate even as it threaded among landing craft, slashing helpless assault sleds out of space, Conquest’s entire energy output channeled itself through her beam generators, cooking the enemy ship, along with one of the Fleet cargo pinnaces and an assault sled full of a dozen Marines.

“I have no idea how that happened!” Ford cried, searching his console for answers. “We killed our own people.”

A string of sailor’s profanity ended only when Admiral Absen brutally overrode him. “Get a grip on yourself, Ford. You destroyed the last frigate. You had to, or it would have eaten many more of our ships and Marines. Two boats is a small price to pay.” The admiral glared at the weapons officer a moment more before sweeping his eyes across the bridge. “It had to be done.”

They all have to believe it, Absen thought, or lose their souls.

***

At CyberComm, Rick ran his hand across his board below his bowed head, wiping a few stray droplets from the surface and shaking his head to clear his vision. I had to do it, he thought to himself. That’s what the admiral said. I had to do it, God forgive me for those I killed, and please don’t let it be Jill.

Reaching out slowly with his mind, he intended to wipe the record of his interference before letting the idea lapse.

If I erased the evidence, I would be admitting it was wrong. I’ll just have to let the admiral judge me, and take whatever punishment he gives…though nothing would be enough, if I just killed my wife.

***

Ford called, “Sir, missile launch, two dozen hypers from the Guardian…targeted at the landing. Must be all they have left right now, plus their remaining ships coming toward us. One minute ten seconds Actual.”

Absen replied, “Helm, move Conquest to try to pick some of those hypers off; Ford, get on that. They probably have nuclear warheads, we’re so close. Rick, tell those Crows to haul ass back to cover the landing and try to intercept those hypers. Warn the assault craft. Keep the battleships and cruisers harassing their fleet; if they’re healing damage they can’t be gestating more weapons. And now that there’s nothing sneaking up on us, send the assault carriers behind the moon; they’re a useless liability in a ship-to-ship fight. Tell them to go EMCON and rig for silent running.”

Acknowledgements echoed around the bridge as the admiral examined his shrunken combat command on the monitor. Battleships Flensburg and York remained, cruisers Georgetown, Sydney, Kolkata and Oslo – and Conquest herself. Seven combat ships, his toughest, best – and luckiest – against sixteen Meme cruisers and one superdreadnought. Absen imagined the fusors on that ship, a vessel that made even Conquest look small, and he shuddered.

“Five seconds Actual…opening fire,” Ford called as the two fleets closed to within a million kilometers.

“Stick to the plan, Mister Ford,” Absen said calmly.

“Beams firing. Launching the warheads.”

One specially configured railgun on each ship launched larger shot, spreading in a pattern to widely disperse and overlap the enemy’s predicted course. These projectiles were massive, in the neighborhood of one ton apiece, big enough to be easily detected by the Meme, therefore simple to dodge. At the same time, the beam cruisers burned holes in the enemy ships, forcing several to fall back behind the Guardian to heal.

Now the two remaining battleships’ primary railguns, coordinated with those of Conquest, released streams of steel balls by the millions: chased by gravplates into the hoppers, flowing down the feed tubes, and spat toward the enemy. Each round shot would take about thirty seconds to reach its target, catching up and passing outside the large, slow shot just before those arrived, trying to drive the enemy into the kill zone.

Absen knew the Meme could also detect those streams at these ranges, as densely packed as they were. Like great lines of machinegun bullets, the twisting strings of railgun shot forced the enemy to dodge, or be badly hurt.

Dodge, hopefully, into the path of the special weapons.

Most of those projectiles were simply what they looked like – balls of steel laced with a matrix of ferrocrystal for strength. Perhaps one out of a hundred concealed something else entirely.

Fusor beams lashed out from the Meme, some picking dozens of the heavy balls out of space at a time, some washing across clusters of thousands or even millions of ordinary rail shot, turning the metal briefly to gas before it cooled to fine molecular dust. With a quarter of a billion steel spheres to engage, however, the enemy simply could not destroy them all.

“Come on, you sons of bitches. Come to papa…” Ford chanted as he caressed his console. “Now!” His finger mashed down on a large, deliberately anachronistic red button.

Three seconds later two hundred neutron-enhanced nuclear mines, disguised as large railgun shot, detonated in a rough globe that surrounded and interpenetrated the enemy fleet. When the EMP faded and the sensors cleared, every one of the enemy cruisers drifted crippled through the void, or had been destroyed outright.

All the bridge crew cheered until Absen waved a calming hand. “Good job. As I said, stick to the plan. But it’s not over yet. Reverse drive and keep firing. Hold them at optimum range as long as you can.”

The Guardian, shrugging aside the deadly blasts with seeming indifference, still thrust forward at its maximum acceleration, intent on bringing its massive close-range weapons into play. Absen did not need to know their exact specifications to believe they would be devastating. Conquest was built to go head to head with a Meme Destroyer – a ship of a size equal to her own – and win every time, but this thing…he had not known fear for his own life in some time, but now he felt as if Death itself approached.

Worse even than death was failure, and that was unthinkable. At least a million human lives depended on him and his valiant crews.

“The Marines are down, sir,” Scoggins called, bringing Absen’s mind back to the greater battle. “They are all in the tunnel and the StormCrows killed off all the hypers.”

“Then our job is to duel with this thing as long as we can, and buy them time.”

***

Battle armor is almost as good as a crash couch, Sergeant Major Repeth lied to herself as the G forces squeezed her like toothpaste in a tube. Active link feeds from the assault sled’s sensors gave her a sense of place: one of hundreds of boats streaming down the wide tube leading thirty kilometers underground.

Under full deceleration she could feel her eyes sinking in her sockets as Eden Plague and combat nanites struggled to repair cellular damage. Gravity waves roiled her inner ear as the minimal gravplates in the assault sled tried to keep the Gs within human tolerances.

Just barely.

At least they’re not shooting at us yet, she thought as the forces moderated and the pilot put them on the surface of the tunnel in what could only be describe as a controlled crash. Drop-ramps slammed down front and back, venting residual air in a swirl of oxygen snow.

Repeth stood up, hefting her PRG-45 and checking its action. She took a deep breath and deliberately channeled her favorite drill instructors, yelling over the suitcomm link, “All right, everyone up and get off my sled! This ain’t a ruttin’ dayroom, you sodding diggers. You got two choices: kick alien arse or get my size eight where the sun don’t shine. Get off this vehicle and go kill something! GO GO GO!”

Nine out of ten of the troops inside did just that, but one remained hunched over, suited arms wrapped around his armored knees. “Holstetter!” Repeth yelled, stomping over to shake him. “Get the hell up and moving.”

The man just stayed there shaking, so she linked in to his suit and overrode his comms to hear him sobbing, blubbering. Snatching his weapon, she unbuckled him then placed a booted foot on his shoulder, shoving him sideways to tumble down the ramp. As soon as his battle-suited body rolled beyond the sled’s gravplates he bounced off the ground, to settle again slowly in the one-tenth G.

Cursing at him, she slung her own weapon and grabbed his suit’s tow handle, setting him effortlessly on his feet. Projecting her words into his suit, she whipped him with her voice. “Holstetter, pull your head out of your arse and get moving. Your squad is already a hundred meters ahead of you. Are you going to let them down?”

More blubbering was all she heard. Dammit, she told herself, every once in a while a newbie can’t hack it. Most are brave, but some are just cowards when it turns real.

Calling up the location of the medical sleds, she hauled the worthless troop through lines of Marines debarking from their craft until she found the one she was looking for. Throwing Holstetter roughly at the corpsmen there, she then stripped him of his back-rack and weapon, tossing it down near an empty sled for a better Marine to use.

Hurrying after her troops, Repeth soon came to Bravo Company’s assembly area and informed Holstetter’s sergeant that her squad would be a man down. Suitcomm HUD showed her where Bull was, standing on top of a heavy tank, surveying the situation. Jumping lightly five meters up, she clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry, boss. Had to deal with a li’l troop issue.”

Bull grunted and pointed at the ragged thousand-meter wall in front of them at half a klick’s distance, where the heavy transports disgorged the brigade’s six remaining laser bores. “Seismics say it’s only eight hundred meters to the nearest tunnel. They should be through in two minutes.

The bores, enormous lasers on squat crawlers, disembarked ponderously, then wheeled around in unison. Their carriers took off on minimum thrusters, clearing the area to the rear. Moments later the Marines’ visors dimmed to almost black as the blazing beams began to chew into rock and soil.

At first there was no sound, only some trembling felt through boots as debris blasted backward to fall slowly to the ground, but as the huge tunnel filled with released gasses the Marines began to hear the rumbling hisses and pops of disintegrating materials. Within the predicted two minutes the lasers winked out, to reposition themselves and do it all over again. Soon twelve hot glassy tunnels, each twenty meters high and equally wide, stretched forward into the underground.

Side by side, the Marines’ armored vehicles lined up to enter: heavy tanks each with a railgun in its turret and four smaller lasers facing the cardinal points. There weren’t many of them – Marines were mostly battlesuited infantry – but there were enough to assign a pair to each tunnel.

Eight hundred meters was very close range for heavy fire, so over the heads of the tanks the laser bores, keeping their narrow beams high, became support weapons. Repeth and Bull watched as they fired pulses every few seconds down the rapidly cooling tubes, hoping to suppress whatever was at the other end.

“Okay, here we go,” Bull said as the initiation order came over the command net. “Second Battalion, you know the drill, assault muster as briefed.” He watched as each company took its place, then broke into platoons. Below him a heavy-weapons section picked up their two semi-portable beamers, squat crew-served lasers attached by armored cables to fusion generators. Eight Marines carried each awkward two-part load with practiced ease in the low gravity: after all, they had trained in 1.4 G for the planet below.

Rumbling forward over the fused tunnel floors, the heavy tanks kicked up fantails of scree with their biting metal treads. As soon as they disappeared into the tall tubes, Second Battalion Marines streamed into the leftmost two tunnels behind them.

“We’ll follow behind Bravo Company on the far left,” Bull decided. “The flanks will either have the hardest fighting, or the biggest opportunity to break through.” He led the way into the chosen tunnel.

“Or both. This feels like a deathtrap,” Repeth said to Bull privately as they jogged behind Bravo Company. “We haven’t a clue what they have waiting for us. Sure wish we could just send a missile ahead and nuke the crap out of them.”

“What, you wanna live forever?”

“Yeah, I was hoping.”

“You heard all the briefings, SMAJ. We’re Marines, we’re here to assault and hold this thing.”

Repeth chuckled grimly. “Preachin’ to the choir, Bull.” An almost-invisible laser bolt flashed by above, briefly igniting the flying dust over their heads. A moment later the tunnel shook with concussion.

Up ahead, one of the two heavy tanks skewed sideways and burned, its main turret blown off and dangling by conduit. Flames blazed up, then snuffed as they used up all the oxygen leaking from the crew cabin.

“Kak,” Bull cursed without heat. “Bravo Company, get up there and support that remaining heavy. Anyone see what got it?” A rush of armored troops covered the hundred yards at a bounding glide, the low gravity more of a hindrance than a help. Taking positions on each side, they began firing intermittently down the tunnel at unseen targets.

“Some kind of rocket, sir,” came an unidentified voice.

Bull ordered on the Bravo Company net, “Keep suppressive fire forward. Start popping some grenades at them, they should have almost no arc. Only four hundred meters to go.” He and Repeth moved forward next to the two semi-portables, half the company in front and half behind. Soon they could see sparkles beyond their own troops, though whether those were enemy muzzle flashes or friendly impacts there was no way to tell.

Incoming ordnance streaked over their heads to detonate against the ceiling behind them. Their instinct was to duck, but battlesuits were proof against flying debris. Falling rock was another story. Screams and curses came over the net, and Bull snapped to Repeth, “Go see to that. I’ll keep pushing.”

“Aye aye.” Hurrying back, she grabbed Marines and turned them around in the direction of the rock fall that half-blocked the tunnel behind them. “Delta Company, this is Sergeant Major Repeth. Everyone near this cave-in start digging our people out!” she ordered, then, “You too, Lieutenant, if you please, sir, get your people working!” Her words requested, but her tone made it an order.

The green officer looked torn between supporting the attack and doing what the battalion sergeant major said, so she switched to a private channel and went on, “Sir, do what I ask or you will lose their respect. We have to clear the tunnel; we have to get our people out from under the rock.”

“Right, Sergeant Major,” he responded shakily, turning toward the mound of rubble. “All right Delta, you heard the sergeant major, start putting those fancy augmentations to use!”

Marines swarmed over the mountain of rock, picking up and throwing hundred-kilo stones with cybernetic strength, digging loose dirt and gravel with their hands, and soon began pulling armored figures out from under. Repeth, now certain the rescue effort was well in hand, slapped the lieutenant on the helmet to get his attention. “Sir, you take charge here please, I’m going forward. I suggest you clear a path along the edges and direct the rest of the company to hustle by you and support the assault. Once you’re sure you have everyone, follow along.”

“Got it. Good hunting, Reaper.”

“You got it…Safari, is it?”

“Sarfati. Safari is close enough; I’ll take it.” He grinned through his faceplate.

“You just earned your handle then, el-tee.” Slapping his armored shoulder, she bounded off at full speed after Bull.

Coming upon the second heavy tank, she could see most of its treads blown off but its gun was still operational. The Marine infantry had swept past, so it had no targets in the narrow corridor. Its crew was already outside the vehicle breaking track to effect repairs.

Hopeless, she thought to herself as she jogged past the immobilized vehicle. No time. Ships are dying up there, and Marines are dying up front. Ahead she could see the tunnel exit, with one squad holding in place, weapons ready but not firing. “Swede,” she called, recognizing the stripes and name Gunderson painted on the back of his armor, “what we got?”

“Bull said to hold until the next company gets here. He took most of Bravo and the semis down that tunnel.” Swede pointed to the leftmost of three ten-meter wide tunnels exiting the large room their position overlooked.

“Crazy bastard gonna be a hero, or dead.”

“Or both,” Swede deadpanned.

“And they ask me why I don’t want to be an officer.” Cautiously Repeth approached the lip of the tunnel in which they stood, ten meters up from the floor. The laser bores had dropped a large mass of rockslide against the back of the stadium-sized chamber, crushing alien machinery beneath it. Above and across, two smaller tunnels showed above the rubble.

“There!” she said, then shoved Swede sideways. They fell slowly as impacts pocked puffs of rock-shrapnel off the floor where they had been standing. “Tunnels, ten o’clock high!”

The rest of the squad lit up both entrances with their PRGs, portable railguns that fired heavy ferrocrystal BBs at breathtaking velocities. Thousands of rounds funneled crashing into the openings and the enemy fire stopped immediately in a cloud of rock shrapnel.

“Have we even seen the enemy?” Repeth asked.

“Neg. That was the first fire we took,” Swede replied as they bounded to their feet. Looking back the way they had come, he pointed. “Here they are.”

Repeth turned to see a double line of Marines approaching fast, so she said to Swede, “Go follow Bull. I’ll direct traffic here.” As soon as he and his squad had jumped down to the floor, she held up her hands to slow the approaching troops and tell them what to do.

***

“All right, now that the landing force is down they’re on their own,” Absen declared. “And so are we. Leave one wing of Crows there to cover the Marines, the rest to rendezvous with us. Any fighters that can’t fight, return to the carriers.”

“Aye, sir,” Commander Johnstone responded, passing the orders.

“Sir,” Okuda spoke up, “the Guardian is still chasing us faster than we can fall back. They will catch us behind the moon.”

“No, we need to stay in view of the planet, and those orbitals,” Absen replied. “Thrust to the oblique; don’t let it eclipse our view.”

Okuda opened his eyes and turned to stare at the admiral, who gazed back imperturbably. The helmsman’s eyes seemed to ask, what is it you’re not telling me? Absen shook his head imperceptibly, and Okuda closed his eyes again. Turning to his cockpit again, he plunged back into his virtual senses.

“Crossing six hundred thousand klicks,” Ford called. “I think we’re getting more standard railgun hits, but only because their fusors are picking off all of the specials.”

“How’s the ammo holding out?”

Ford shook his head. “We’re using a lot, flinging it at them at long range like this. Most of it is missing, and I have to keep the pattern spread or the Guardian will just dodge the whole thing. It’s a tradeoff between concentrated damage and hit probability.”

“I didn’t ask for a tactical analysis, Ford. Tell me how long can we keep up our fire.”

Ford dipped his head. “At this rate we’ll run out of railgun shot well before he catches us. Perhaps ten minutes.”

“Cut it back to harassing fire, then. Keep tossing a few large rounds, force him to destroy them, but save the nukes.”

Fifteen long minutes went by as the Guardian chased them and they held their range open, pecking away at the giant sphere as they crabbed like a boxer circling the ring. Advancing inexorably, it seemed like a force of nature instead of warship.

***

Your job is not to stand in the front line, Repeth reminded herself. A Sergeant Major’s role is to lead, direct and support. That’s why she waved platoon after platoon past her and into the tunnels, until finally Third Platoon, Delta Company jogged up to her, Safari in the lead.

“Echo Company is three hundred meters back, by the broken tank,” Safari explained. “Captain Choi insists on getting his armor past the disabled heavy before his infantry deploys.”

Her first instinct, to go back and browbeat the cautious company commander into moving, lost out to her duty to the battalion as a whole. “All right. I sent Delta First and Second platoons through that center tunnel, Fourth to the right. They are meeting light resistance and report pushing forward toward a large tunnel complex. I can’t get through to Bull on suitcomm, so I respectfully suggest we haul arse up and find out what’s going on. Sir.”

“Yes, mother,” Safari quipped. “THIRD PLATOON, FOLLOW ME!” Forty Marines bounded forward in two loose lines, leaping lightly to the floor ten meters below, then charging into the leftmost tunnel. Automated stabilization programs fired tiny bursts of suit jets to keep them upright and moving correctly, but even so more than one of the green diggers managed to bounce himself off the ceiling from overjump.

Repeth brought up the rear, sending her ultra-wideband radio ranging ahead, querying on the command net. Finding nothing, she tried Bravo Company’s freq. Nothing. Then she switched to Delta First platoon, then Second.

Bingo.

Gabbles of combat noise came through in broken pieces, sounds of a firefight. “Third Platoon, I hear Second in a furball up ahead. Look sharp.”

A moment later something slammed her sideways, driving her into the starboard tunnel wall. Zero-G reflexes took over as she turned off her stabilizer and flipped upside down in midair, kicked off the ceiling, then rotated back upright. Something big…

Out of a steampunk nightmare reared a boring machine, rotating cones covered with carbon teeth tearing at the tunnel walls. It had struck her from the left and thrown her across the room in a spray of rock, and now ground forward into the right side of the tube, crossing as if to create a perpendicular access. A few seconds of drilling and it was through, spitting gravel and dust behind it as it bored toward the next tunnel.

On its heels came armored Hippos, enormous beings three meters tall, weighing a ton each with armor and carrying weapons to match. She found herself all alone behind the mass of enemy pushing into the tunnel as they turned to take Third Platoon from the rear.

“THIRD, AMBUSH REAR!” she screamed across her suitcomm, but it was too late.

Pulses of plasma from the Hippo’s huge guns ripped apart the rear ranks of Third Platoon. In response, Repeth detached all eight grenades from their niches in her armor and used her link to set them for command detonation even as she pitched them in a group under the enemy’s feet.

Only one creature was looking her way; the Hippo unit had obviously had some form of observation that allowed them to time their ambush to when the Marines had gone past, and did not expect resistance from the rear. Perhaps, also, they underestimated the much-smaller humans, not taking them seriously.

Repeth changed their minds.

Snatching her PRG up again, she drilled the Hippo as it swung its weapon in her direction. On full auto, a one-second burst blasted out over one hundred ferrocrystal BBs in a tiny reproduction of the battleships’ railguns, different only in its scale. At thousands of meters per second each one-gram projectile penetrated her target’s armor and, after slowing inside flesh, ricocheted around inside the creature.

It collapsed boneless on the ground, but not before a return bolt of green plasma bounced off the tunnel wall and washed over her in a wave of heat.

Sending the command to detonate her grenades, she leaped backward and curled into a ball. Shockwave sent her rolling for a hundred meters down the tunnel before she could skid to a halt. Her HUD showed the Hippos knocked down like bowling pins, but several were still firing and, except for the one she had railgunned, none seemed dead.

Tough bastards, she told herself. So much for the briefing about maybe coming in on our side.

Then the pain hit her.

She felt as if her entire body had been steam-cooked. Perhaps it had. Dead epidermis ripped loose all over and shot debilitating agony though her nervous system. Gasping, she sent a link order to her suit to give her a double dose of painkiller and stims, and then tried to keep still. I’ll heal, just need time, she told herself. Automated systems pumped nutrient solution into her veins to give her Eden Plague and bloodborne nanites something to work with.

Repeth switched to the brigade net, as Bravo Company had been on the southernmost tunnel and had been attacked from the south, hit first. “Brigade TOC any station, this is Two November One with flash traffic. Hippo digging machines attacking from the south, have already intersected friendly tunnels and Hippos are counterattacking in at least company strength. Repeth out.” No time for more; that will have to do.

Repeth’s grenades had bought Third Platoon a chance to recover, and now thousands of stray BBs came her way as her comrades fired at the Hippos. “Third Platoon, fire low. Skip your rounds,” she yelled on the platoon push. “I’m still back here.” Hugging the ground, she hoped they understood. As long as the tiny spheres struck the floor, then a wall or two, her armor would probably keep her safe.

Green plasma flashed her direction again as more Hippos poured through the hole in the side wall. Too damned many. They are cutting us off, she thought. They’ll roll us up if that bastard Choi doesn’t get here soon. Low-crawling backward with her suit jets holding her to the floor was a nightmare of pain and torture, but soon she scrambled around a bend in the corridor and tried to make contact with Echo Company.

Finally she got ahold of Captain Choi on the command freq. “Echo One, this is Two November One, Bravo Company is cut off and Delta has been hit by a Hippo counterattack. We need you to push up and relieve.”

Choi replied, “We are having difficulty getting our tanks down the slope. You will just have to hold.” With that, he cut the connection.

Swearing a blue streak, Repeth used her suit jets to blast herself down the corridor, using all her zero-G skill to avoid slamming against the walls and ceiling, the pain finally dulling. Bursting out of the tunnel mouth into the open space where they had paused before, she saw confusion reigned as a couple of hundred Marines moved rubble by hand, apparently trying to build a ramp for the two heavy tanks to crawl down.

In normal gravity that would have been insane, though on this small moon it could probably be done – barely – but her people were dying back there. Switching coded frequencies, she addressed Echo Company’s senior NCO, First Sergeant Charlie McCoy. “Charlie, this is Jill, I got three platoons cut off by Hippos up there in the left tunnel; we have to get the infantry up to relieve them! There’s no time for these tanks!”

McCoy’s steady voice came back. “Roger, Jill, I’ll handle it.”

A moment later two line platoons, along with Echo Company’s two semi-portable heavy laser sections, scrambled down the slope toward her. She didn’t speak, just waved them to follow and began moving with all deliberate speed back toward the firefight, hoping there was someone there to rescue. She also didn’t ask whether Charlie had bothered to clear the diversion with Choi. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Coming upon the tunnel break, she found nothing but several dead Hippos and two dozen fallen Marines farther along. It looked as if most of Third Platoon had been wiped out. She rolled one broken command-armored figure over, already knowing what she would see. Safari. Nothing has a shorter lifespan than a brand-new lieutenant in his first battle, she thought.

Flashes and shocks rippled up ahead while the borrowed Echo Company troops caught up. Repeth said to their lieutenant on the local freq, “Suggest you leave one man at this intersection and when the rest of Echo comes up, send a probe each direction. You might catch some Hippos napping or kill that digging machine. The rest, let’s get going.”

She didn’t bother to wait for a response. Pushing herself to her limits – not of strength or endurance, but of balance – she bounded down the low tunnel, skidding and using suit jets profligately, leaving the others behind. Suit air showed less than half now, but she knew she could always recharge off a dead Marine’s armor, so she ignored the risk. At every corner she slapped a repeater on the wall and turned on its beacon strobe.

Five hundred meters and several turns later she saw the flashes of the Hippos’ green-plasma weapons. Stopping short, she eased her head around the bend in the tunnel to observe a mass of enemy firing in the other direction, perhaps thirty to forty deployed in a wide spot. Two of them faced her way, but did not see her yet.

It appeared the enemy was bottlenecked in front of a narrow place, with brisk Marine fire coming at them through the small opening perhaps two meters wide. One alien edged up to try to discharge its weapon around the lip of the circular entrance, but was cut down by a bright orange laser flash.

They have at least one semi-portable still functioning, she thought. That’s the only thing that can do wholesale damage to these monsters. Peering back, she called, “Get up here. We can hit them in the back! Form on me!” Repeth pulsed her suit marker lights once to show them where she was in the dark, for the battle HUD overlay skipped and shuddered in these tunnels.

It seemed ages, but was probably only thirty seconds before almost one hundred Marines lined up in a very old-fashioned, almost Napoleonic line formation. “All right, like a door, people, like a parade ground right wheel. The two semis are the hinge on the right; crews will take ten steps forward and emplace. Everyone else keep your dress. I don’t want any fratricide, and just like the days of old, don’t fire until you are lined up nicely. I will give the order.” Everyone followed her instructions now as in the heat of battle no one cared that she was not in command, in fact not even part of their unit.

“Forward, MARCH!” As one, the line moved, keeping admirable discipline except for a few diggers that their fellows had to grab and haul back from charging into the kill zone. Ten steps later the semi-portables slammed to ground.

Green fire sprouted from the two Hippos on rear-guard first, cutting down five or six Marines as they played their plasma weapons across the line.

“FIRE!” Repeth ordered the Marines, as the rest of the enemy about-faced and began to draw beads.

Five score personal railguns and two semi-portable laser cannon turned a disciplined enemy formation into a pile of squirming meat in less than three seconds. Hippos fell in half as the lasers sawed them in two. Ten thousand PRG rounds per second struck and knocked over every foe. A plasma rifle ruptured and exploded in a spray of green, sending body parts and pieces of armor everywhere.

“Cease fire, cease fire!” Repeth called. Walking among the savaged and fallen foe, she kicked plasma guns away from hands and looked for any still alive. “Try to take prisoners.”

One of the Hippos reared up suddenly to point a weapon, and she blasted it herself, joined by a line of actinic orange from the semi. “All right, change of plan. Finish off the wounded,” she called. “It looks like they ain't gonna give up.”

Against the admiral’s policy, but these nonhuman sons of bitches show no sign of surrendering or rebelling against their Meme masters. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d face a court of inquiry for her actions. Sometimes the battlefield didn’t square with policy.

Pushing past the messy pile, she hailed through the bottleneck. “It’s all clear here; who’s back there? Bull?”

The hulking figure that stepped out could be only one man, with that garish Star of David painted on his oversized armor like a Jewish bull’s-eye. “Thanks, SMAJ. Good to see you. Now let’s go finish this hatichat harah job.”

***

Absen tapped his chin with a gloved finger as his diminished fleet’s Parthian shots at the Guardian continued without apparent effect. “Status report on the landing?”

“They’ve broken through into the underground complex and are driving back heavy resistance. Casualties are high, but Brigadier Stallers says victory is inevitable,” Rick relayed confidently.

That’s what I said about the fleet action too, Absen thought to himself. Now I have to make it true.

“Skipper, the Guardian is turning…it’s diverting back toward the landing!”

“What’s the range from the Hippo orbitals to the Guardian?”

“Eight hundred thousand and extending,” Scoggins answered. “Why, sir?”

Absen ignored the question. “Helm, bring us about on my mark, straight toward that bloody bastard. Just keep us away from the moon laser’s arc of fire. Ford, I want a phased barrage with all our remaining offensive missiles and all the railgun fire you can give me – including specials. We throw everything we have at him; empty the stores. Time it to strike all at once, missiles to converge from as many directions as possible, right about when we get within one hundred thousand klicks of him.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Ford turned back to his board, unable to suppress the look of naked desperation he exchanged with Scoggins, and she smiled reassuringly in return.

Taking a deep breath, he fed in the admiral’s instructions.

In the holotank their fleet’s relative motion seemed to slow in its retreat, then move back at the Guardian, which described a slowly increasing arc toward the moon. Red lines and icons sprouted from Conquest and her task force as the computer projected the ships and weapons’ paths. Railgun fire streamed to intercept, while clouds of missiles fired by Conquest’s launchers first spread outward, then converged, their plots intersecting at the Meme supercapital ship’s projected position.

Dozens of enemy fusors licked out to pluck the human weapons out of space, but there were thousands of targets for the Guardian to fend off, even discounting millions of individual railgun shot. As the range closed, more and more EarthFleet weapons struck the massive vessel, only to be absorbed, ignored.

On the main optical screen Absen saw the enemy ship alter course back toward his fleet. “Good…we’re pulling him off the landing.”

Abruptly a hole grew in the center of the Guardian, a swelling eye that opened where none had been before. “Helm, Conquest only, full reverse!”

It was a horrifying order, a true commander’s decision made on intuition and instinct. Falling behind for a moment, the dreadnought decelerated at maximum even as its six escorts bore forward like an honor guard, placing themselves squarely in the monster’s sights.

Suddenly the bridge saw battleship York’s fusion drive ignited to flank speed, at the same time a handful of escape pods and ejectable modules shot forth from her doomed body.

“What the hell is she doing?” Absen asked into the air.

***

The only one on the bridge who knew refused to answer. In his virtual space, Rick Johnstone had foreseen the doom of the battleship as soon as he had calculated the aim of the Guardian’s superprimary fusor, and had used his stolen command codes to order York to abandon ship. He then forced the ejection of all occupied lifeboats at the last possible moment. Simultaneously he had caused York to sprint directly at her enemy, ensuring the monster would focus on the battleship and nothing else.

They were dead anyway. At least I saved a few, damn me to hell, Rick thought. And maybe its armor will hold.

From the Meme ship’s eye jetted a fusor beam greater than any they had ever seen, ten times at least as powerful as any a Meme Destroyer had created – though not so incredible as the moonbase laser. It reached out and, like a blowtorch to a wax candle, struck York with a blazing belch of fused plasma hotter than a sun.

For perhaps ten seconds her thick armor, the best EarthFleet technology could produce, held. Sloughing away in chunks and scales, soon even that stupendous shield gave way, and the rest of the ship and its remaining crew ignited as one, vaporized, and vanished.

Yet again, lucky Flensburg dodged a bullet, sailing on as the inferno extinguished her sister ship and the Guardian’s deathly eye closed once more.

“Full forward!” Absen longed to lead from the front with Conquest, but clamped down on his spiritual agony. He knew that the million colonists in his dreadnought’s womb must be protected, even at the cost of the rest of his ships. Now trailing behind her screen of four cruisers and one lone battleship, Conquest continued flinging every weapon at her command.

“There’s no way we can stand up to that fusor beam, so we have to kill that ship – or at least, destroy the emitter,” Absen told the bridge crew as he watched. “Aim everything at its center so if that eye opens again we jam hit it with all we have.”

“Approaching the hundred thousand kilometer mark. The Crows have joined us. Our multi-weapon convergence in three…two…one…mark.”

At least a dozen nuclear missiles reached the Guardian and a double handful of new suns briefly blazed against its skin, joined a moment later by two more of the special rounds. Great chunks of the enemy ship vaporized in the blasts, and holes hundred of meters wide left ulcers on living flesh. Radiation and bomb-pumped grasers reached deep into the living moonlet, destroying quadrillions of cells of the organic machinery that sustained the beast. Railgun rounds tore into it and the fleet’s beam weapons burned holes in it.

It’s not enough. Admiral Absen and his officers watched in horror as the moonlet-sized thing still came on, swelling on their screens and absorbing everything they could throw at it with utter indifference.

“All missiles and specials expended,” Ford spoke into the silence. “We’re empty. Railgun ammo below one percent. We do have the StormCrows now.” The holotank showed a cloud of almost four hundred of the fighters passing Conquest, hell-bent on course for their nemesis.

They know what’s at stake too, Absen thought. They didn’t even need orders. But they’re mosquitoes attacking an elephant. No, a dinosaur.

And then the eye opened again.

Straight into that maw the tiny task force poured all of its remaining energy weapons, hoping to at least force it to close, to stop that one vomiting surge of energy from visiting death upon another human ship.

It was not to be.

Again the torch blazed, a firework fountain not of celebration but of doom, and the cruiser Georgetown was annihilated, made nothing.

As that terrible ship-sized weapon port closed to begin its inevitable recharging, dozens of secondary fusor beams licked out to wash over the last four stalwart escort ships, but this they could resist.

Again and again the blasts touched; again and again the human vessels buttoned up firing ports and turned their armored shoulders to the enemy, and thus won through to continue savaging the Guardian with their energy weapons.

Yet it was still not enough.

Zombie-like, Admiral Henrich Johannes Absen committed himself to the inevitable: as they closed to point-blank range, he would have to sacrifice some, perhaps all of his command, using the only weapons remaining to him.

“Helm, tell our ships to enable automated engagement and flank speed, ramming procedure. Have every navcomp set fusion drive overload protocols to detonate on contact. Then abandon all ships except us. We’ll pick survivors up later.”

He licked his cracking lips. “Tell them…tell them this: Godspeed and well done. For your families, for the human race, Conquest fights on.”

***

Afrana swelled on Steadfast Roger’s virtual screen, growing by the minute until it filled the windshield. Ezekiel manipulated anachronistic knobs and turned large metal rheostats, meaningless representations of the exact instructions he gave to his stealthy living ship.

Earth-like, the planet glowed green-blue beneath them, with less water but smaller land masses broken into dozens of large island continents. Cyclonic weather systems raged across its face, and its ice caps were small.

“Hot world,” mused Shades.

“Yes, it averages ten degrees C higher than Earth, but the Hippos like it even hotter, keeping to the equatorial regions. Unadapted humans would have to live poleward of the arctic circles,” Ezekiel responded. “At least the atmosphere is Earth-like. A moment…” Manipulating controls further, the view swung sideward even as the men felt G forces leak through.

Long minutes later he went on, “Okay, we’re in a fast elliptical orbit. Our deceleration burn is sure to be noticed. Now it gets dicey; we know the Meme do use bio-radio and bio-lasers to communicate and exchange data, but we’ve never caught them simply using an identity code. They do have several different electromagnetic beams aimed at us, trying to establish encrypted comms.” Ezekiel turned to Spooky. “Plan A or B?”

“Plan A, as we agreed,” the slim man said, smoothing his virtual moustache. “Maintain silence. We can always transmit an open Meme signal if they target us with a weapon.”

“As you wish. We should reach the orbital in about nine minutes.” Behind the virtual planet they could see a small yellow circle, a symbol of its location fast approaching the side. Moments later its eclipse ended as its leading edge cleared the planet. Like a speeding sun the spherical fortress rose and raced toward them in VR space, though in reality it was Steadfast Roger that overtook the space station.

“Now it gets interesting.” Their approach slowed perceptibly and the VR environment trembled. “Fast decel,” Ezekiel explained. “We’re completely visible as an unknown Meme ship coming in at emergency speeds. If these Hippos are anything like humans, they won’t risk firing on their masters…yet.”

The three men exchanged glances, then returned their attention to the picture in front of them until the enormous orbital defense station loomed huge. Second only in size to the Guardian, it measured four kilometers across, larger than Conquest. Shades grabbed a brass rail as they maneuvered to the side, and Ezekiel shot him an amused glance. “Your body is in a cocoon. You don’t need to brace your virtual presence.”

“It makes me feel better,” he said defensively.

Growing larger and larger, the station filled the screen. It didn’t seem so different from some of the defense fortresses back in Earth’s solar system. Unlike the Meme ships, this one looked distinctly machinelike, with metal fixtures, radar arrays, lasers and missiles recognizable on its surface. Disturbingly, a number of these weapons systems tracked them as they moved closer.

“If they haven’t fired by now, they won’t,” Ezekiel said with a confidence he did not entirely feel. “See, I’m riding an unencrypted guide beam that smells like welcome.” Tapping a glass button, he highlighted the opening toward which they glided.

“Into the belly of the beast…” Shades misquoted.

“Indeed.” Spooky reached into the air and plucked a cigar from nothingness, took a deep drag, and made it vanish once more.

“Nice trick, that,” Shades remarked.

“Hmm. I have more,” he responded distantly as he stared at the tunnel they approached. “Put us back in our coffins, please.”

“See you momentarily,” Ezekiel responded, and then the VR space faded about them.

Both men woke up coughing as their lungs cleared, and watched as the living cocoons melted into the floor and left them lying naked upon it.

Spooky was the first to move, rolling to his feet and reaching for his skinsuit and lightweight armor.

Shades copied his actions. “I still wish we were taking our sidearms,” he grumbled.

“Shall you fight a whole station full of thousand-kilo Hippos? If they really want to kill us, our only chance is to escape in Steadfast Roger. Besides, we are taking weapons.” Spooky tossed Shades a straight-bladed sword. “As briefed, their warriors wear edged weapons as a mark of status, but our best chance is Ezekiel talking to them. If that doesn’t work…just try to disarm them and force a parlay. Speak of the devil…”

The two men watched as Ezekiel’s cocoon split and deposited him on the floor, absorbing into the substance of the bio-ship. The human Blend rolled lithely to his feet and then dressed himself in an elegant saffron robe, as Intel reports said befitted a high-status Hippo Blend.

Shades and Spooky checked each other over, then turned to Ezekiel for approval, who nodded. “Remember, you’re an honor guard. Let them make the first move. If they do go hostile, try not to kill.” Touching a wall to open the iris, he said, “Showtime.” Flanked by the two human warriors, the Blend strode forward five steps and stopped.

Heat immediately struck them like a wet sauna, but the smell was more disconcerting: a swamp and a pigsty rolled into one. Facing them, an honor guard of four armed but unarmored Hippo troops stood at rigid attention. Within its angle knelt a figure whose yellow robes matched Ezekiel’s.

Aptly named, the creatures’ gray skins, beady eyes and wide mouths resembled Earth hippos, but they had hands with four surprisingly delicate digits – each still far larger than those of a human – and stood upright, completely bipedal.

For almost a full second the tableau held its shape.

Then all hell broke loose.

Clawing for their blades, the enormous Hippo warriors scattered in separate directions, clearly unnerved by the alien creatures appearing unexpected before them. Two managed to draw. The other two fumbled, as if out of practice. In the center, the yellow-clad official sat stunned on his haunches.

Spooky was already moving, Shades only fractionally slower. With cybernetically enhanced strength and nanobot-driven speed they struck with their swords, stabbing in a precise whirlwind that within seconds left four Hippos with their weapon hands useless and dripping bluish blood. Implements of destruction clattered on the floor unused.

One Hippo warrior, braver or more foolish than the rest, reached again for his sword with his uninjured paw, until Shades leaped a half-dozen meters to place his own blade at the offender’s throat.

“Kaja!” the Hippo Blend cried, raising a fist high. That one stared at Ezekiel in front of him, a comparatively tiny figure ripe for crushing. Its other arm reached slowly out toward the yellow-robed human.

Ezekiel reached as well, and they touched fingers.

Eyes on Hippo and man fluttered, then closed. Both Blends seemed to relax, and their hands clasped for a long full minute in chemical conversation, then released.

Ezekiel stepped back and bowed, the Hippo climbing to his feet and then gravely doing the same. They stood upright in unison, and from the creature a coughing hiss issued, an alien sound that nevertheless suggested an immensely pleased chuckle.

Turning around, he spoke a rapid series of syllables, and the embarrassed warriors carefully retrieved and put away their weapons, pairing up to apply combat dressings from pouches on their harnesses.

The Hippo leader waved the humans forward, and Ezekiel explained, “Urkoch and I have reached an agreement. He will present us to this station’s military commander and guarantee us safe passage no matter what the outcome.”

“Could he be lying?” Shades asked.

“It’s very difficult to lie while exchanging chemical communication. They use the same Meme bio-language I do, so I am almost certain he’s being truthful.”

“Almost?”

Ezekiel shrugged. “I’m betting my life.”

“Good enough,” Spooky interrupted, eyes full of urgency. “Our people are fighting a battle out there. Get moving.”

They moved.

Hurrying through the station at a human trot to keep up with the aliens’ long-limbed strides, it was not long before they were ushered in to the presence of an especially large, uniformed Hippo of immense gravitas, a yellow sash with many ornaments decorating his harness. Standing behind a large desk, his beady eyes displayed searching intelligence, but his hands remained locked behind his back, away from his ceremonial dagger – unlike the guards, who had to restrain themselves from reaching for their weapons.

The commander barked, and reluctantly his soldiers withdrew from the room, though they left the door open. Urkoch briefly touched hands with the military officer, the conversation of Blends. After a moment the latter made a brusque inward-waving gesture at Ezekiel, as if to say, come here.

Fearlessly the human clasped hands with the Hippo, leaving Spooky and Shades carefully watching the banished guards crowding the doorway.

Tense moments later the Blends broke the touch-conversation, and Ezekiel turned to his comrades with a frown. “The General says he and his fellow officers will only change sides if the Eye of Terror – the moon laser – is inoperable. Once it is, he will take action, but not before. He says the Meme have already burned three cities for failing to strike our task force. He will risk no more.”

“Agreed,” replied Spooky. “Urge him to talk to his other commanders to make sure there is no misunderstanding.”

“He already has,” Ezekiel said. “The General said he and a cabal of senior Sekoi – the Hippos – have hoped and planned for this day ever since they learned of our first defense of Earth almost a hundred years ago – as they hope and plan and despair every time a new species is found and…absorbed, I think is the best translation.”

“Then they do want to rebel!” Shades exclaimed, grabbing and shaking Ezekiel’s saffron sleeve with excitement.

Spooky smiled inscrutably and blinked, bringing two fingers to his lips in an odd motion, almost as if kissing their tips, before dropping it back again. “Sorry, VR confusion,” he remarked; then reaching inside a pocket, he drew forth a packet of cigarillos and a silver-chased lighter, to repeat the procedure, this time with actual materials. “Smoke?” he asked as the aliens stared at him in uncomprehension. “No?” He lit one, then demonstrated by drawing in a lungful, holding out the pack.

The General laughed and reached delicately for the rolled tobacco. Dwarfed in his hand, he held a tube to his lips as Spooky gravely lit it, then drew in a puff. He coughed and laughed again, a deep raspy thing, before turning away to touch his desk. A large projection screen rolled down on one wall and a moment later they saw an iconic representation of the battle going on around the planet, their orbital defense station at its center. Then he sat down, motioning to the others to do the same.

“Hurry up and wait,” Shades muttered helplessly. “Even in an alien army, it’s always the same.”

“At least the smoking lamp is lit,” Ezekiel said, reaching for the pack.

“You people are lunatics,” Shades replied with amazement.

“What else can we do?” Spooky asked, putting one hand behind his back. “The die is cast. Our message is delivered. We are in the hands of the gods.”

Shades nodded his head slowly. “If the gods are Hippos.”

Chapter 14

SystemLord felt the pleasure molecules of triumph wash through his body, but kept himself under rigid control. Anticipation was not reality and more than one fool of his compatriots had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the war against Species 447, the Ryss. Those memories echoed in his protoplasm, still accessible from his honored ancestors.

Admittedly, his attempt to stop the ground force landing near the Weapon had failed, but he had confidence the fanatical Purelings would defend the facility. Even if they failed, enemy use of the great laser was impossible without molecular codes that only Meme could generate. If worse came to worst, once he dealt with the enemy fleet he would simply destroy the installation, Weapon and enemy ground forces together. Its loss would be painful, but as long as Monitor lived, he could control the Underlings, the planet, and the system.

Even the costliest victory was better than defeat.

Two of seven enemy capital ships had been destroyed with Monitor’s main fusor, and he could see the Humans, finally understanding the futility of fighting, trying to escape in their puny life-craft. He left them alone; they could be captured and enslaved at leisure. Perhaps he would spawn some progeny to Blend with them, infecting the alien bodies with a phage to eliminate their sentience. Yes: his own personal Human Underlings to serve him, living trophies to his victory.

Musings dissolved as one of his Watchers alerted him to the strange behavior of the enemy before him. “SystemLord,” that subordinate said, “the four remaining smaller ships are accelerating on collision courses with us!”

“How long until the primary fusor recharges?” he asked.

“Too long. They will strike us before it can fire.”

“Can we avoid them?”

“No, Lord. Even these sluggish human ships can maneuver more nimbly than Monitor.”

“Then use all the secondary fusors on the closest enemy. Suspend main fusor recharge.” SystemLord instructed Monitor to prepare itself for even greater pain and emergency healing. In response, the faithful animal began to thicken its skin and muster millions more squidlike patch cells, mindless creatures whose only function was to close wounds.

“We will be damaged, but will survive,” the Meme commander announced to all his subordinates, broadcasting also to the Underlings. He ordered them to fire on the enemy. If they feigned incompetence yet again, he would have to destroy more tribal centers.

But now, he watched as the first enemy cruiser bored in.

***

“The gnats say it’s that way,” Bull said, pointing down one of the myriad of intersecting tunnels toward where the tiny spy drones had been sent. “Energy readings are off the charts. Ah, they just killed one. That confirms it. Follow me.”

Grabbing his elbow, Repeth spun him around. “Sir,” she hissed on the private channel, “let your Marines do their jobs. You’re the battalion commander, not the point scout.”

Bull yanked his arm out of her grip and opened his mouth, staring down at her angrily through his armored faceplate.

Her eyes blazed back at him from below and the protest died in his throat. Think, you dumb ox, her expression seemed to say, and he took a deep breath and forced himself to listen to her advice. “Right you are,” he said mildly, then ordered, “Scouts out.”

Watching as the lead squads detailed two Recon Marines forward, he checked their link status to make sure they had good feeds from the fist-sized gnat drones hovering around them. His command suit was more capable than a line Marine’s, so he could see what any one of them was seeing – which just reinforced his Sergeant Major’s coolheaded counsel.

“All right, standard deployment behind the recon. Keep spread out.” Watching as a full platoon filed into the tunnel, Bull turned to those bearing the three semi-portable laser cannons he had left, one from Bravo Company and the two from Echo. “Heavy weapons next.” Delta Company’s lasers lay behind them, wrecked by the Hippos attack.

“There’s nobody behind us.” Repeth grabbed an ultra-wideband repeater off a nearby Marine’s back-rack – every troop had one filled with easily accessible devices, ammo and special weapons – and activated its sticky side. Leaping high in the low gravity, she slapped it against the tunnel ceiling at the last corner they had turned, ensuring comms to the rear.

“Good thinking. All right you maggots, you wanna live forever?” Bull grabbed a corner of the first semi, hefting a quarter of its thousand-kilo mass with ease as he and three others lifted and set off at double time behind the line platoon. The crews of Echo Company’s two semis and the remnants of Bravo and Delta Companies’ Marines followed immediately.

Repeth shook her head ruefully. Gotta flex those muscles, she chuckled to herself. Turning to the last platoon leader she said, “Lieutenant, please bring your platoon in behind me, and watch those sides and rear. Turn seismic sensors to maximum, and if you get something, tell me. They have boring machines and they like to sneak in and flank us.” With that, she followed the heavy weapons.

Dialing in a picture from one of the scouts, she could see the man ease toward a sharp corner, with a vertical jamb and smoothed floor, rather than the rough cut of the ones they occupied. Like a VR game, the view slid leftward to reveal a short length of well-lit and polished corridor with two Hippos standing fifty meters down it. Beyond them, a heavy armored door squatted, looking solid as a bank vault.

Bull watched the same picture as the view pulled back and showed the scout popping another gnat off her partner’s back-rack. Activating it, she launched it up to fly on tiny gas jets down the tunnel. It made it about halfway down before one of the guards spotted it and blasted it with his plasma rifle. A wash of green swept past as the scout withdrew.

“Only two,” he reported unnecessarily. “Easy take.”

Too easy, Bull thought. “Scouts, put two rockets on the doors. Keep in good cover, just shoot and scoot. Sergeant Velasco, get four or five guys to start chucking grenades down that corridor with variable fuses. Use some smoke, too. That looks too much like a gauntlet to me.” Who knows what sneaky surprises they got – stealthware, mines, ambush ports?

By this time the ragtag unit had closed up and Bull could see the two scouts as the rest lined the corridor hard against the walls. Prepping rockets, they leaned out low and high and fired them one-handed, jumping as they impacted.

Clouds of debris filled the tunnel and drifted back to the scouts. Four Marines ran up and rapidly rolled frag, shock and smoke grenades around the corner like left-handed bowlers. Small bursts blew more dust and explosion gasses around, creating a brief artificial atmosphere that obscured all vision.

Bull ordered, “Semis, move up and emplace before that smoke goes away, three across. As soon as you can, light up the walls, floor and ceiling. Strip everything off the whole surface. Someone launch another gnat and send it right down the middle.”

Right down the middle it went, surrounded by the red-orange beams of the heavy lasers as they peeled the walls, floor and ceiling. Abruptly it vanished in a blast that came from the floor. “The corridor is mined. I knew it,” exulted Bull. “Send another one. Keep sending them, and a couple more in ground mode to crawl on the floor.”

Five more gnats gave their all before the sixth found the armored door. Scanning all around showed the remains of the two Hippos, and the door barely damaged. “As soon as you’ve stripped the walls, give me a concentrated drill on the left lower corner of the door,” Bull told the laser gunners. “Pull that drone back but keep it focused so we can see the impact spot.”

A moment later the three semis aimed their beams at the indicated place, questing for coordination as the gunners watched through the gnat’s infrared sensors. “It’s breaking through!” one of them cried after ten seconds of drilling.

“Cut upward together,” Bull ordered. “You may have to burn around the entire circumference, but I want that way opened. Keep aiming at the outside of the door; the rock it’s anchored in is probably weaker than the door itself.”

“Aye, sir,” the gunners responded in unison. A long moment later they had cut all the way up, over, and down, and the massive barrier seemed to teeter.

“Two more rockets near the top – knock it down!” Bull called. “Semis keep firing, widen your beams.”

Two Marines launched explosive missiles over the heads of the semi-portable gunners and with a ponderous crash, the door fell to the floor and the dust blew back at them with a rush of wind.

“Atmosphere behind it is venting our way,” Repeth called.

Immediately the heavy lasers stabbed through the clear space the door had occupied, but not before something came back at them.

A creature out of nightmare, it resembled a chromed spider, filling the five-meter-wide corridor with skittering legs. Reflected light seared the walls in a blaze as the gunners focused on it, but its reflective surface simply turned the beams aside.

“War drone!” Repeth yelled from behind. “Rockets and railguns!”

Too late. The monster belched plasma from its nose, incinerating one gun crew in a blanket of verdant flame. The two remaining crews dove back around the corner, abandoning their machines as others prepped rockets. Wind whistled around them as the base’s atmosphere continued to vent through their ingress tunnel.

“Back up, back up!” Repeth hollered, knowing that to try to attack the drone in its own tunnel was suicide. She pointed emphatically at a spot on the ground well back from the bend. “Line up HERE and engage it all together when it comes around the corner.” Roughly she thrust Marines into position, some prone, some kneeling, some standing: a phalanx of handheld weapons she hoped would be enough.

Maybe we should have waited for those heavy tanks after all…

She damned him as she saw Bull take a place in the line. “Hell…” she muttered, and got ready to jump.

Around the corner barreled the spider, met by a barrage of anti-armor rockets. Most of them flashed right by, between its thin silver legs or over, but several struck its round abdomen and exploded.

It staggered, but rose again, just in time to meet a hail of thousands of hard-driven railgun bullets. Leaping in the light gravity, Repeth added to the mix, firing over their heads before her own burst pushed her backward and she drifted to the ground.

“Keep hitting it!” Bull called over his comm, then as it began to advance against the steel sleet, he snatched a heavy antitank mine off a nearby back-rack and dropped his PRG. “Cover me!”

Charging forward with the square cased charge in both hands he dodged the monster’s reaching legs. Plasma hot enough to crisp him missed Bull but struck off-target, splashing from a wall and deflecting into the end of the firing line. Three Marines fell with grievous burns, to be dragged back by their comrades.

An inarticulate battle-roar ripped from Bull’s throat as he raised the mine overhead to stick it against the thing’s torso. Railgun rounds ricocheted off the walls as the firing lifted to avoid hitting their commander, covering him with rock chips as he rolled forward past the spider. He scrambled around a corner beyond, taking cover.

“Fire in the hole!” Bull called from out of sight, waited a beat, and then sent the detonation signal.

Shockwave slammed the Marines down the tunnel in a jumble of flailing limbs, but their armor and their bodies were built to take that kind of pounding and they quickly picked themselves back up.

Nothing but wreckage remained of the war drone.

“Get up there,” ordered Repeth. “You diggers gonna let the major fight them all himself?” That got them moving in a rush to support their commander. When they rounded the corner, they found him righting one of the remaining semi-portables.

“Pick this up, with me on it. We go in firing, now,” he said, swinging himself into the gunner’s seat. Never made to be used this way, even so eight Marines grabbed the hardpoints of the laser and its attached fusion generator. Like palanquin slaves of some ancient warlord, they carried the whole arrangement forward at the double time.

“Holy crap,” Repeth muttered, then, “Get up there with him!” She hustled Marines up, shoving them along indiscriminately as Bull charged in his high-tech Marine-borne chariot, snapping off laser shots to his front.

This mob burst through the entryway, fighting the wind of the atmosphere still pumping against them. Air resistance slackened as they made it into the huge open space beyond, and Bull could see from his perch the explosions and skating orange laser beams of EarthFleet Marines assaulting into other parts of a stadium-sized room, mingled with the green flashes of enemy plasma weapons.

In front of him loomed an enormous piece of complex machinery that thrummed with power, three stories high. “Ground me, now!” Bull yelled.

Immediately upon setting down he pressed the firing stud. Red-orange light licked out, mostly invisible now that the dust had been blown down the corridors, but his aim point glowed red, then white, to melt through the machine’s casing in front of him. Whatever he was hitting could not stand up to a heavy weapon like this.

“Spread out and engage!” Repeth ordered, waving her arms left and right to emphasize her words. Marines moved forward to cover Bull on the semi, firing across the whole arc of the enormous, machinery-filled room. “Target the ones along the walls,” she said, plying her own PRG.

Hippos and their war drones defended other openings along the edges of the huge amphitheater, repulsing Marine assaults even as Repeth’s had been, until concentrated fire from her ragtag band killed the Hippos at the nearest armored door and began to pick at the accompanying war drone.

With the pressure off, the Marines in that tunnel charged forward and barraged the spider with rockets, allowing them to maneuver two more heavy lasers into the room.

But rockets and lasers couldn’t stop the spider drones before, and they didn’t now. The creature surged forward and cooked two nearby Marines with its plasma weapon, then skittered sideways and speared two more with pointed blades on its leg tips. Everyone in that platoon opened up on it with their railguns and it staggered backward, but clearly this advantage was only temporary.

Sod me sideways, I’m gonna be a hero, Repeth snarled to herself as she hurried toward the hapless platoon. Several of her Marines followed out of sheer instinct and loyalty, but she bounded far ahead of them as her jets assisted her in a long leap across the open space. Snatching a mine from a fallen Marine’s back-rack, she crouched and sidled toward the war-drone, looking for an opening.

Suddenly something knocked her flat. “Sorry, Sergeant Major,” a voice said – Sergeant Velasco, she thought – as the figure snatched the mine from her hands.

“Bloody –” Her complaint cut off as the man jetted forward to land atop the recovering war drone, slapping the ten-kilo rectangle against its bulbous body. His leap to escape aborted abruptly as a spider-leg reversed and speared him, dangling him quivering in the air like a pig on a pitchfork. Then the mine detonated, knocking everyone within twenty meters to the ground.

Pieces of Marine and spider rained down, but Repeth was already moving toward the stunned troops. “Get moving, wake up, don’t just stand there gawping, pick a target and attack something else! Lieutenant,” she screamed hoarsely at the platoon’s nearby leader, “one of my people just gave his life for us, so get these diggers moving and make it count. Now you know how to kill them.”

Staggering among them she cajoled and shoved the punch-drunk Marines into some semblance of discipline, aided by their lieutenant. In reasonably good order they turned and charged along the wall toward the next cluster of aliens. Repeth fell to one knee as fatigue and her wounds finally caught up with her.

Stims wearing off… She was just about to administer another jolt when the lights overhead went out, accompanied by a sound like spoons in a sink disposal. Her HUD automatically brought up low-light vision and she sagged to the floor as she saw all the enemy war drones freeze in place. Broadcast power, she thought, or maybe their remote control failed. Bull must have burned through to the generator.

The armored Hippos fought on but without their spider machines they were meat for the Marines. None of them surrendered, not even when Bull ben Tauros, trailing a jumbled mix of every Marine he could scrape up, broke into the moon laser control center and captured three amoeba-like pure Meme in their teacup-shaped control chairs.

Repeth watched it on her HUD as she lay there gasping, content to let him have all the fun.

***

Each one of the bridge crew made peace with whatever they believed during the long moments when four emptied capital ships sped toward the Guardian. They watched as first one, then the final two computer-controlled beam cruisers, blunt kilometer-wide missiles with all guns blazing, slammed into the enemy moonlet like golf balls striking a melon, and then blew their fusion engines.

Gaps appeared along the edges of the enemy behemoth, flaming bites that burned and vomited debris the size of buildings as it rotated the damaged sections away, wounds closing even as they watched on the optical screens.

“It’s not going to be enough,” mumbled Scoggins. Her hair had come loose and now hung in her eyes, and she nervously pushed it behind her ears.

“Yes it will. You’ll see,” growled Commander Ford in a low, intense voice.

“Sir,” Johnstone spoke, “Brigadier Stallers reports on all channels that they have disabled the laser and will soon mop up resistance on the moon.”

Absen responded, “Excellent news. Too bad they couldn’t have seized control of it in working order.”

Ford shook his head in cynical negation. “Real life is never that easy, sir,” he declared, pulling on his outer gloves. “We’ll see how they do when Flensburg hits them. She’s eight times the mass of the cruisers.”

“We have to assume the worst,” the admiral replied. “Mister Okuda, make sure we have enough separation from Flensburg.” He licked his lips, took a breath, and committed them. “As soon as she’s blown her engines, I want you to shove us straight down that stinking thing’s throat.”

“Sir?” Not only the helmsman, but all the rest of the bridge officers turned to stare at their admiral.

“We aren’t going to self-destruct – not with all the colonists on board. But maybe, just maybe, a collision with Conquest will kill it. We’re big enough and going fast enough to do a hell of a lot of damage just with kinetic energy, all our weapons firing from inside its guts, and our fusion drives and control thrusters burning. Maybe it’ll choke on us and die.”

“I don’t think we’ll survive that impact, sir,” Okuda said distinctly. “Even if we spin and go in drive-first, sealed inside our crash couches, in suits and with overloaded gravplates…”

“You don’t think?”

“The computer says perhaps five percent of the crew will live through it.”

“And the colonists in their cocoons?”

“A moment.” He ran the numbers. “Ninety-five percent. That’s fifty thousand deaths.”

Absen steeled himself. “So with Conquest’s crew of five thousand or so, there will be two hundred fifty people left aboard to fly this ship. Those on this bridge or the auxiliary bridge should survive, because they are well-protected areas with the best gravplates. With those and the automated systems, and the enemy all dead, we can still colonize this world.” He stared coldly back at his officers. “This is what we signed up for, people. The Ultimate Liability Clause. Anyone who doesn’t like those odds can run for an escape pod right now.” The admiral looked deliberately at the holotank. “You have two minutes.”

No one moved.

Commander Ford cleared his throat and spoke for the rest when he said, “To hell with that, sir. We’re with you.” The rest nodded soberly.

Absen sat back and folded his hand, eyes hooded. “Then pass my orders, and make sure the computers know what to do if we’re unconscious.”

“Already done, Skipper.” Johnstone smiled wanly.

“Good man. Now everyone button up.”

As they moved to seal suits and enclose themselves in their crash chairs, Scoggins suddenly bolted to her feet, staring at the holotank. “Sir – look!”

Like the machines they were, the linked display computers faithfully depicted space around them. In this case that odd reality consisted of three pulsing lines reaching out from the forgotten Hippo orbitals, intersecting the Meme superdreadnought from the rear.

“What is that? Are they firing on it?” Absen stood up convulsively to put his face almost inside the space the holographic projection occupied.

“Affirmative, sir. Some kind of charged particle weapon. It’s…sir, the Guardian is turning away!” Scoggins brought up a real-time optical image of the enemy ship to fill the main flatscreen, where they watched it ponderously wheel.

As it rotated, great bubbling valleys of inflamed tissue came into view, burn scars a testimony to the destruction wrought by the orbitals’ enormous primary weapons. A bilious glow formed a nimbus around their enemy and then, a few seconds later, all activity from the Guardian ceased. Then so did the particle beams.

“They could have fired those at us any time,” Ford breathed in wonder. “We’re well within range. They could have killed us and won. Why did they attack their own ship?”

Scoggins whooped, leaping to hug Ford and kiss him full on the lips. “You idiot, don’t you remember the briefings? Didn’t you read the admiral’s memo? He was right! The Hippos are rebelling against the Meme! They held off on attacking us, hoping for a chance like this! Once they saw the moonbase laser was disabled, they took their shot – at the Guardian!” She kissed him again, and this time he returned the lip-lock with mounting enthusiasm.

“All right you two, that’s enough, back to your posts,” the admiral said without rancor. “We’re not done. Get the Crows and grabships working on retrieving the escape pods. Tell the computers to shut down lucky Flensburg’s self-destruct and rejoin us; I want her back in action post-haste. Cease all weapons fire but keep solutions locked on that thing. Get analysts started on deep scanning; I want to know whether it’s dead, dying, or just knocked out. Remember their ships are alive and have tremendous regenerative capability.”

Absen took a deep breath and let it out. “Fun’s over, people. Now the hard work begins.”

Epilogue

SystemLord, much reduced in size, returned to brooding inside the tiny escape drone. As large – or as small – as a missile, it held his concentrated essence in far too little protoplasm to feel comfortable. As he departed the system under high acceleration, he decided after all that he would not take a personal name. After this ignominy, it would be the height of foolishness to distinguish himself from all of the other SystemLords in the Empire.

Not that he would retain his title once he reported in. He’d be lucky to remain a mere ship commander.

This will be a long trip, he thought. I don’t really think I’ll mind.

***

Two weeks later, formations of Hippos stood honor guard alongside the thinned ranks of surviving Marines. Once Admiral Absen – briefed by Ezekiel Denham – explained the difference between planetary Underlings and moon-based Purelings, the human warrior force took to their new allies with surprising ease.

It helped immensely that the Underlings helped hunt down and ruthlessly exterminate the Purelings in the moon base with all the enthusiasm of medieval Mongols slaughtering Russian peasants.

Overhead, the massive Weapon was briefly turned to a gentler use. Emitting at a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of its power, it lit the ceiling of the enormous main chamber with a warm yellow light. One hundred thousand newly awakened civilians sat in hastily cut rock bleachers overlooking the ranks of Marines and EarthFleet personnel.

Bodhran drums rolled thunder, and slowly, to the measured dirge of bagpipes and the pounding of the beat, one hundred separate lines of coffins emerged from the tunnels to the right.

Over the next hour more than nineteen thousand boxes, draped with banners of Earth’s many nations, were placed before them in neat rows, each carried by four comrades. Many contained nothing more than a token DNA sample from BioMed records, or some object of remembrance, yet to their brothers and sister in arms every one of them held the sacred remains of EarthFleet’s finest.

Setting down the latest coffin along with Bull, Swede and Charlie McCoy, Jill Repeth ran her fingers slowly along the name stamped into the converted shipping carton, now a coffin. Staff Sergeant Juan Rodriguez Torres Velasco, EFM, it read.

Thank you, Juan. If not for you, that would be me lying there. She snapped to attention and presented arms crisply, holding the salute for a long moment before turning to march back to pick up another fallen hero.

From his position on the reviewing stand above, Admiral Absen held his own salute throughout the long hour. The growing ache in his arm was nothing compared to the demands of honor.

I wish I could have the whole million civilians here to see this, he thought. I’ll mandate everyone watch the video in full holographic sensurround when they wake up. They need to understand the price we paid for their lives, and never forget.

Never forget, and be ready for more sacrifice…because this is only our first conquest.

End of First Conquest.

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READ ON for an excerpt from the next book in the Stellar Conquest series, DESOLATOR:

DESOLATOR Excerpt

“Where there are three people, there are politics.”
– Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli.

Flight Lieutenant Vincent “Vango” Markis eased his StormCrow Weaver out of the launch tube and into open space. New Jove, the fifth planet in the Gliese 370 system, hung enormous above him, blue and green striations reflecting from the gas giant’s ragged rings and its nearby ice moon Reta. Rolling the StormCrow fighter once around her long axis, he kicked her tail sideways and started his run out into the black.

In the back seat his Weapons Systems Officer, or wizzo, William “Wild Bill” Hickman, said, “Last patrol for you, eh, V? Twelve hours and you’ll be on that transport back home to mama.”

“Yeah, thanks, Bill. Hard enough to concentrate on work without you making it worse.” Vango ran his eyes over his displays, both the physical, and the virtual overlay that used to be called “enhanced reality.” Everything appeared in the green.

“Sorry.” Wild Bill didn’t sound contrite. “You ready to open the package?”

“Sure, hit me.” Vango’s hands and feet rested on his manual controls, stick and throttles and rudder pedals familiar to pilots throughout history. Some fighter jocks relied only on their links, but his grandfather David Markis, who had taught him to fly on an old Cessna 180 at the age of eight back in South Africa, had branded the concept of redundancy onto his brain.

Wild Bill sent the command through his link that loaded the latest updates into the enhanced reality overlay. Optical vision faded, for a time replaced by the brain-fed virtual world. Together he and Vango swooped into artificial space, examining everything the thin fleet of fighters and recon drones dispersed throughout the Gliese 370 star system had reported in the last twelve hours.

“Whole lotta nothin,’” Vango said disgustedly.

“Nothing sounds fine to me,” Wild Bill replied philosophically.

“That’s because you’ve never been in combat. Nothing more fun than to blast the living snot out of some blobbos that are trying to blast you back.”

Wild Bill snorted. “Flyboys.”

“Yeah…all boys now,” Vango mused. “Too bad all our women are back on Afrana or Enoi pumping out babies, so we’re back to a bachelor military. Like the old days.”

“Old days you never saw.”

“Yeah but my dad and grampa told me a lot of stories. So,” he changed the subject, “how’s your girl? What’s her name, Yuki?”

Wild Bill replied flatly, “Ah, we broke it off. The first kid changed her. She loves being a mom but she doesn’t want to be a wife. Said she can get any man she wants now, with all the breeding they are pushing. Guess she doesn’t want me.”

“Aw, man, that’s hard. Sorry, I didn’t know.” They cruised in awkward silence for some tens of minutes. Over their shoulders, at more than ten AU, the system’s orange dwarf sun shone just another star in the background.

“Ready to deploy the feathers?” Wild Bill finally asked as they approached their patrol area well outward of New Jove.

“Not yet. Let’s do something different on our last patrol.”

“As long as we don’t become the lost patrol…you’re the pilot. I’m just along for the ride.”

Vango thought to himself that he might prefer his old wizzo Helen’s combativeness to Wild Bill’s laissez-faire attitude. “Okay. There’s a high-albedo comet about two million klicks out that got missed on the initial railgun strike and has migrated out here. I don’t think anyone’s ever taken a good look at it. No drone on it. Who knows, might be an old Meme installation still there.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“Do you ever get excited about anything, Bill? Or is that handle a complete contradiction?”

“With the right stimulus I might. Your wife got any single friends?”

“I’ll ask her the day after I see her. Burn in fifteen. Let’s see how much ol’ Weaver can handle.” Vango set up the trajectory then on the mark lit their fusion engine, accelerating at over one hundred Gs. Balanced gravplates inside the cockpit kept the forces inside manageable, but even so they both felt the brutal acceleration bleed through the link. Eden Plague healing virus, bloodborne nanites and cyberware kept both men functional, but not comfortable.

Half an hour later they turned over and decelerated just as vigorously, in the end to approach the iceball slowly, carefully. Drifting by at easy scanning speeds, Vango brought the Crow around to the other side of the five-kilometer sphere. “Big bastard,” he muttered. “Hardly see anything this large anymore. Meme must have put something on it.”

“Yeah, right there.” Wild Bill put an icon over the anomaly he’d spotted, then made it flash. “Just an old Sentry base. No heat sig; it must be dead.”

Delicately Vango eased the fighter in closer, tapping the thrusters to keep Weaver lined up properly. “Looks like a center hit with a maser. Patrolling Crow most likely, early on before we got real organized. They killed it and just left it here, didn’t file a report.”

“Well, somebody’ll eventually want to use the comet. Lots of good stuff in there. Fifteen or twenty cubic kilometers of water for starters. Prep a marker package and an eyeball.”

“Roger that.” Bill readied a listen-ping beacon and a static sensor as Vango maneuvered them in close. “Package away.”

Plunging into the icy surface, the little drone immediately extruded clamps and crampons, digging itself into the frozen water slush. As soon as it registered solid, Bill commanded the sensors to extend. Soon the thing resembled a metal plant with a two-meter stalk, complete with comm-dish flower.

“Excellent.” Vango goosed the fighter slightly to get it moving away from the planetoid filling half their view. “Wait a minute.” Strengthening the virtual overlay, he pointed with a mental cursor. “What’s that?” He swung the fighter back and forth on its thrusters, suddenly alert.

“Hmm. Not sure. Asteroid fragment?” Three years ago the battle for this system had turned hundreds of thousands of asteroids into hundreds of millions of pieces, characterized by their rough-edged appearance. “Quit squirreling around and let me deploy the high-res scope.” From under one of the fighter’s four wings a hatch opened, and out slid a telescope. Focusing on the anomaly brought it into sharp relief.

Vango mumbled, “Uh…what the hell?”

“Can you stop fidgeting and hold Weaver really steady? There…laser doppler ping…max magnification on the optics.” Bill took a deep breath. “Oh. My.”

“That’s no fragment. That’s artificial. That’s a ship, and not one of ours. What’s the range?” Vango asked.

“Unknown. The pulse hasn’t returned.”

“Hasn’t returned? That thing can’t be that far away.”

“I ain’t arguing, boss. Just saying, it hasn’t returned. Every two more seconds means 300,000 klicks farther away…and it’s been twenty seconds.”

“What do you think that means?” A plaintive note had crept into Vango’s voice.

“I guess it means it’s big and distant. At ten million klicks, simple geometric comparison says it’s…bigger than Conquest. By a lot.”

“And we just fired a ranging pulse at it.” Suddenly a feeling of deep unease came over the pilot. “Time to go.”

Wild Bill barely pulled the delicate telescope inside the fighter before Vango swapped them end for end, pointing Weaver’s nose back toward New Jove and the carrier Temasek. “Tell that eyeball to lock onto that thing and transmit video on command. I’m dropping a feather,” he went on, releasing one of the Crow’s tiny scanning drones. “Set it to stay near the comet in beamcast relay mode.”

“Yeah…okay. Done. But I think we’d better go. Now.”

“Setting up the burn already…why?”

“Because the doppler says it’s coming this way.”

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Books by David VanDyke

Plague Wars Series
The Eden Plague
Reaper’s Run
Skull’s Shadows
Eden’s Exodus
Apocalypse Austin
Nearest Night
The Demon Plagues
The Reaper Plague
The Orion Plague
Cyborg Strike
Comes The Destroyer

Stellar Conquest Series
The Plague Wars continues 100 years later!
First Conquest
Desolator
Tactics of Conquest
Conquest of Earth
Conquest and Empire

Star Force Series - with BV Larson
Outcast
Exile
Demon Star

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Table of Contents

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue