Storming Heaven

Chapter Twenty

Tabitha Cunningham materialized in the centre of the perceptual reality, looking down on a star system from high above as the Killers systematically destroyed most of the human settlements and the handful of starships that dared to oppose them. The virtual reality was — she confirmed with a quick check — a real-time display of what was actually happening. The Killers were killing even as she watched. It brought back memories of what had happened when the Killers had arrived at Earth — but now, somehow, it was worse. The human race had accomplished so much, with technology so advanced that it might as well be magic, but the Killers still came, saw, and destroyed.

She turned her attention away from the sight as the remainder of the War Council materialised in their places. Some of them looked a little disgruntled at having been summoned so sharply — and by the President herself, no less — while others were either better at controlling their expressions or were altering their images to show no emotions at all. The President might have been the chair of the War Council, but she didn’t have the long-term power of some of the other representatives… and she’d be gone in three years anyway. Tabitha herself existed inside the MassMind, while the others were all powerful in political terms and, unlike the President, lacked any actual need to face the voters. Matriarch Jayne was, perhaps, the only exception, but who would dare vote against her? Tabitha had often felt that Jayne reminded her of herself.

“Thank you all for coming,” Patti said. The President’s face was so composed that she had to be using image filters, showing the remainder of her council only what she wanted them to see. Her voice was flat and emotionless. It was, Tabitha decided, an ominous development. “Admiral, perhaps you would care to brief us on the continuing situation?”

Admiral Brent Roeder nodded once, showing nothing of his own thoughts. “As of ten minutes ago, the sum total of systems attacked and… well, killed is over seventy,” he said. “The attacks follow no pattern that either we or the MassMind can follow; there are systems that should have been targeted, but weren’t, and systems we thought were safe that were attacked and utterly destroyed. The Defence Force has attempted to stall the Killers as much as possible, but we all knew that it was a losing battle from the start. The only good news was the destruction of a Killer starship in the Asimov System.”

He took control of the display and showed an image of a small supernova — or what looked like a small supernova. “The starship attempted to come out of warp drive right in the centre of the Killer starship, interpenetrating with the matter in the starship and causing a massive explosion,” he explained. “We call this a Cochrane Twist — and, despite appearances, it is incredibly difficult to pull off successfully. It also means the complete destruction of both starships. We’re not sure why it succeeded here when we tried it before and it failed, but we do know that it succeeded. The Killer starship was vaporised.”

There was a long pause. “That didn’t save the remainder of the system, however, and only a relative handful of survivors made it out,” he concluded. “In other systems, the defenders were far less successful and only stalled the Killers for minutes, if that. The Killers tore through them and destroyed the settlements, killed upwards of twenty billion humans and sending billions more to flight. We are attempting to coordinate now and get the starships that need help desperately to safe harbour, but we don’t really know where is safe, or not. Even the most heavily defended locations in the Community would turn into tissue paper when the Killers arrive.”

“It seems to me,” Administrator Arun Prabhu said, “that you could automate your starships and send them out on kamikaze missions. If they started to lose starships in significant numbers…”

“Several other starships attempted the same tactic,” Brent said, slowly. “In all other cases, they either failed to interpenetrate or… well, we don’t know what happened, apart from the fact that the Killer starships were not destroyed. It is actually fairly simple to defend against such an attack if you have the right technology; none of our settlements would be destroyed if the Killers used such tactics.”

“They failed?” Father Sigmund asked. “How could they fail?”

“They have to bring a starship out of warpspace within an area that is — pardon me — completely fucking tiny compared to the vastness of space,” Brent snapped. Tabitha blinked in surprise. It was unlike the Admiral to swear, although she admitted that he had a point. The Defence Force was taking a beating and they’d only taken out one enemy starship, just one. “At the speeds they move, coming out of warpspace in the right area is often just a matter of luck… and that, Father, assumes that the Killers aren’t trying to defend themselves. A single low-level warp field would simply knock the starship away from their target and probably burn out the warp drive as well. That may well be what happened to the missing ships; they hit a warp field, were destroyed, and the debris was scattered over hundreds of light years!”

His voice hardened. “Does that answer your question, Father?”

“It does,” Father Sigmund said, carefully. “I apologise for my tone. The dead will be remembered with honour.”

“They’re dead,” Brent snapped, “and billions more died with them. You’ll forgive me if I don’t consider it a victory, all right?”

He turned and looked over at the President. “The tempo of their attacks is falling,” he admitted, grimly. “It is possible that we’ll see the end of it soon, but frankly — we’re being exterminated. Even if that attack” — he nodded towards the image in front of them — “is the last, we’re still going to take years to recover from this disaster and rebuild, or perhaps move as many as we can out of the galaxy. Recovering all the starships with evacuees alone will take months; we’re trying to coordinate, but it’s impossible to get frightened people to work together easily. If we didn’t have Footsoldiers on some of the ships, some of the crews might dump their unwanted passengers into space and flee. God knows we don’t have the resources to track them down at present.”

Tabitha winced inwardly. The Community was a disparate society; it could hardly be anything else. There were asteroid settlements that were effectively rogue states — to use a term that had been popular back on Old Earth, before the Killers wiped them all out of existence — that wouldn’t hesitate to exploit or abuse the refugees, or turn them away into the cold to die. They’d probably justify it to themselves by claiming that they didn’t have the food or equipment to care for so many refugees — and they might even be right — but Tabitha knew that that couldn’t be allowed. If humanity didn’t work together, the Community might as well no longer exist. The only thing that bound them together would be the MassMind.

“I see,” Patti said, finally. “Admiral. What do you recommend that we do?”

“The only thing we can do,” Brent said, slowly. “We keep moving civilians out of harm’s way and continue studying the captured craft. We have already made some discoveries about their technology and, given time, we will discover how to counter their weapons and technology. On that day…”

He altered the display to reveal the handful of Killer starships that were still under observation. “On that day, we hit the bastards so hard that they won’t even recover,” he said. “If we had equal technology to them, we’d kick their ass.”

“I believe that one such weapon already exists,” Patti said, slowly. “What about the supernova bomb.”

The Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator, Tabitha thought dryly, before the import of Patti’s words caught up with her. The President wasn’t on the list of people who needed to know about the starbomb. Patti would be gone in three years, while others on the Council would be around forever. The Defence Force and the Technical Faction had kept it a secret to prevent premature demands for its use — no one knew how much damage using it would really inflict on the Killers — but Patti had somehow discovered its existence. How? No one in the know should have — could have — informed her.

She saw Brent’s face, very composed, and frowned as he spoke. “The supernova bomb is highly classified,” he said, finally. “It was never discussed before because…”

“It will be discussed now,” Patti snapped, cutting him off. Tabitha felt a moment of sympathy for Brent. The President’s look was fearsome. “Does the weapon exist and can it be deployed now?”

“The supernova bomb exists in two different forms,” Brent admitted, finally. “It has never been tested — we believe that testing such a weapon would definitely attract attention from the Killers — but it should work, either on a star or a gas giant. It could be deployed within the week if there was a requirement.”

“Well,” Patti said finally, “I would say that twenty billion dead humans constitutes a requirement, wouldn’t you?”

She leaned forward and carried on, in a manner recognisably political. “We have a weapon that will hurt the Killers badly, hurt them as badly as they have hurt us, and we have not used it,” she said. “I refuse to believe that anyone could seriously consider holding back such a weapon now that the Community is under constant attack.”

Brent took a long breath himself. “There are concerns,” he said, “that use of the weapon will merely encourage the Killers to move against us…”

His voice trailed off. “They are already moving against us,” Patti snapped. Tabitha wondered, suddenly, what had changed her mind. Patti had been reluctant to engage the Killers before the mass attack had begun. “If we can delay them, even for a short period of time, it’s worth the risk. Can the weapon be deployed now?”

“It can be deployed within a few days,” Brent admitted. “A starship would have to be equipped with the weapon, a target would have to be selected, and then the mission could be launched at any time.”

“Good,” Patti said. She looked around the table. “I propose that the supernova bomb be deployed at once against a known Killer star system, perhaps more than one. Is there any dissent?”

Father Sigmund spoke into the silence. “We know nothing about Killer politics, or what they have in place of a nation, but it strikes me that using a bomb designed to blow up a star is genocide,” he said. “We would be targeting any number — a vast number — of Killers and slaughtering them. I believe that such an action would be grossly immoral.”

“With all due respect, Father,” Rupert snapped, “the Killers have been committing genocide against us ever since they discovered Earth, a thousand years ago. They have committed complete genocide against hundreds of other alien races, perhaps even thousands of races we will never know existed. I hardly think that this is the time to have doubts. It’s them or us!”

“That they do it doesn’t make it right,” Father Sigmund snapped back. “We cannot slaughter billions of them in cold blood!”

“They’re slaughtering billions of us in cold blood,” Rupert replied, sharply. “Do we have a right not to be exterminated?” He bulled on before Father Sigmund could answer. “Where are the Angels of the Lord who stand between us and extermination? Where are the thundering thunderbolts of the gods who will smite those unholy killing bastards and save us from certain death? Where are the miracles that will deliver us from this tormented galaxy…?”

“I will not be mocked,” Father Sigmund thundered, angrily. “I speak for billions of people, human people, not half-metal cyborgs with delusions of grandeur or godhood!”

“Ask them what they want,” Rupert mocked. The Spacer’s eye-implant buzzed angrily. “Ask them if they want to hurt the Killers — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth — or if they want to turn the other cheek, so the Killers can slap it as well. Ask them! You are not a dictator, merely their representative.”

“I am perfectly aware of my position and my responsibilities,” Father Sigmund said, coldly. He stood up and glared at Patti, who didn’t flinch. “I cast my vote against destroying a star and with it, their planets. If my people choose to remove me for my decision, then I will accept their judgement, but it will not change my position. I will not be compliant in your crime.”

His image flickered once and vanished.

“Show off,” Rupert muttered. He cleared his throat noisily. “I cast my vote in favour of moving at once to destroy a Killer star. Anyone else?”

The vote was tallied quickly. “We have four in favour, one against and two who refused to cast a vote,” Patti said, finally. She looked over at Brent. “The Defence Force is hereby ordered to select a target and destroy it — to kill a Killer star. Meeting adjourned.”

Tabitha scowled to herself as she dropped back into her own private perceptual reality. Whoever had revealed the existence of the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator to Patti had committed high treason, yet she couldn’t think of anyone who had had a motive for doing so. They might even claim that keeping information from the President was treason itself, if it came to trial, but… it made no sense. She had discussed the possible use of the weapon with others, true, but they had decided to wait until they had a stockpile of starbombs to use. The President was pushing them to act faster than they had wanted to act… and there was no avoiding it. Legally, now the vote had been taken, it would be treason to delay.

Unless Father Sigmund manages to round up opposition, she thought, but she knew that that was unlikely. The Deists would want to hit back at the Killers themselves, as hard as possible, and it was unlikely that more than a few million would try to oppose deployment. The Father would probably lose his position over his opposition…

She shook her head and forced herself to relax. Whatever happened now — and, after seeing Earth die, she knew just how bad it could become — the die was cast. The Killers would know that they had been hurt. She just hoped that it would make them sit up and take notice of humanity. Who knew — maybe they would even talk to the human race…

And then she knew she was dreaming.

Admiral Brent Roeder snapped back into his office on Sparta, thinking cold thoughts about politicians in general and Father Sigmund in particular, although he also included the President on the list. How had she learned about the starbomb? It had been a classified secret for good reason — not least to prevent demands for premature deployment against the Killers when there wasn’t even a massive reserve of the weapons — but somehow the secret had leaked out. He considered the possible suspects, including Administrator Arun Prabhu and his staff, but dismissed them. No one had a reasonable motive for leaking the secret. It was a mystery that wouldn’t be solved easily.

“Damn it,” he muttered, and keyed his personnel console. The console wasn’t linked to Sparta’s own internal computer network and supervising AIs, let alone the MassMind and the Galactic Communications Network. It was the most secure system on the asteroid and housed his personal files, including the highly-classified simulations of what would happen when the starbomb was deployed. “Computer, show me the projections for a standard Class-I gas giant.”

The images unfolded in front of him and he scowled. The Killers used gas giants as habitats — and, now one of their starships had been studied, it was easy to detect planets that might house a Killer colony — but there were millions of possible targets. Gas giants emitted radio waves regularly and it wasn’t easy to determine if a Killer colony occupied the gas giant, or if it was merely random radiation. If they wasted weapons on uninhabited gas giants, the results would be, at best, nothing more than a waste of time. At worst, the Killers would see the threat coming and move against the human race. The only fitting targets were the systems with large structures — the strange devices they were building out of the rubble of entire planets — but they presented their own risks. What if the Killers captured an intact starbomb?

“We should have tested the weapon,” he muttered aloud, but the old argument against testing the weapons still held true. They couldn’t risk attracting the attention of the Killers until they had a proper defence in place, yet the Killers were already attacking. “Where can we attack?”

Only one target suggested itself, the only planet where they knew for sure there was a Killer colony world; CAS-3473746-6, the system that had claimed the Observer. Brent studied the records quickly and made his decision. If they were going to commit themselves to detonating a massive gas giant and a star, they might as well push it right to the limits.

“Get me Captain Ramage,” he ordered, finally. The Captain’s report from New Hope had passed across his desk days ago, reminding him that there were worse people in the universe than Father Sigmund. He just hoped that Rupert was right about the Deists wanting revenge as much as anyone else. A faction fight at the moment would be disastrous. “Tell him I have a special mission for him.”

“Yes, sir,” his aide said. “Do you want a direct communications link or do you want him to report in person?”

“In person,” Brent confirmed. He glanced down at the Defence Force update and placed the Lightning several thousand light years away. The Anderson Drive would have them at Sparta within seconds. “Inform me when the Lightning docks.”