Storming Heaven

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Are we there yet?”

Private Ron Friedman sighed inwardly. It wasn’t part of a Footsoldier’s job to deal with small children and Mary, the young girl sitting on his armoured lap, was smaller than most. He rather suspected that she thought he was actually a robot, rather than a man wearing an Armoured Combat Suit; after all, he hadn’t dared crack the suit open for the entire week he’d spent onboard the Family Farm. The suit’s automated scrubbers were doing a grand job of keeping him reasonably clean and active, but he was grimly aware that when he did open the suit, he was going to stink the starship out.

That said, the Family Farm didn’t smell very good at all, at least according to Virginia Basil. The hatchet-faced woman — Ron would have said she had a face like a bum seen sideways, apart from the fact he had been brought up never to speak ill of a lady — had been complaining about each and every thing since they had fled the Asimov System, just ahead of the advancing Killer blitzkrieg. The small freighter was rated for carrying ten passengers at most, but their desperation had led the evacuation coordinator to pack over fifty children and teenagers — along with two armoured soldiers — into the starship. The over-design of the ship’s life support system could tolerate it, barely, but the ship wasn’t designed to carry so many comfortably. It was impossible to find any real privacy on the vessel; indeed, Ron was privately concerned about accidentally hurting or killing one of the kids with his armoured suit. The Footsoldiers had more than their fair share of training accidents and a person without a comparable suit would crack like an eggshell if he walked into them. It had contributed to the tension of the journey…

Which hadn’t been helped by the fact that there was no destination in mind. The evacuation coordinator had been more focused on getting them out of the system than finding a place for them to go, so they had ended up at the O’Neal System, which had promptly ordered them to proceed onwards to a different system. Ron had found it hard to blame them — there were only a dozen asteroid settlements in the system and they were already overwhelmed with refugees — but Captain Basil and his wife had bitched their asses off. The next system had said the same, despite their angry protests, although they had provided additional food and water supplies. The Family Farm’s internal food processors had never been intended to feed so many.

“Not yet,” Ron said, tiredly. The Footsoldiers had been trained to spend months, if necessary, inside their suits, yet no one enjoyed the experience. He was tempted to crack the suit open for a while, smell or no smell, but he didn’t trust Captain Basil in the slightest. The only advantage the two Footsoldiers had was the armour. If they climbed out of it, he wouldn’t have put it past Basil to kill the pair of them, before ejecting them and the kids into space. Captain Basil had bitched almost as much as his bitch of a wife. “I don’t know when we’ll be there.”

Some of the kids, at least, still thought that it was a great adventure, but the older ones knew better. The links to the Galactic Communications network had been weakened badly by the destruction, yet they had been able to establish that many of the children were suddenly orphans. Most of them were complete orphans; their parents hadn’t even been able to upload themselves into the MassMind before the Killers destroyed their homes. Ron didn’t know what they were going to do with the kids. It wasn’t as if they could take the Family Farm to another galaxy and set up a new homeworld there.

“We just got fobbed off from another asteroid,” Captain Basil snapped, coming over to glare down at Ron’s armoured visor. Ron, who had been fighting off the temptation to simply take the Captain’s head in his armoured hand and squeeze hard, scowled at him. He knew that the blank visor would show nothing of his expression to the increasingly frustrated Captain. “How much longer are they going to make us wait?”

“As long as it takes,” Ron said, as calmly as he could. The augmentation that made a Footsoldier helped him to keep his voice calm, even though the frustration was getting to him as well. He wanted to get out there and get stuck into the Killers, who had slaughtered his friends and comrades, even though he knew that it would be almost-certain death. It would be better than babysitting an untrustworthy Captain and fifty kids, even if some of the teenage girls were real stunners. “We have enough resources to cruise for years if we have no other choice.”

“I will not stand for that,” Captain Basil said. “I didn’t sign up to keep my ship at the Community’s disposal for years.”

Ron felt his temper flare. Legally, the Captain was right; the Community lacked the ability to force compliance from its member settlements. Apart from the Defence Force, which was the only arm of enforcement the Community possessed, there was little binding the various settlements together. The settlements guarded their independence jealously and often competed against each other almost as much as they competed against the Killers. Some even turned rogue and opposed their fellow humans, others isolated themselves from the remainder of the Community and refused all contact. There was no way to force them to open themselves to the Community…

But Ron had a card the Captain couldn’t beat. “You signed up to the general protocols when you worked within the Community,” he said. “You had the legal obligation to help with the rescue effort, which you did. You will help us to find them a safe place to stay and then you can fly to the other side of the universe if you want.”

He allowed his voice to harden. “And if you keep pushing us, we will lock you and your wife in your cabin and take control of the ship directly,” he added. “I have obligations to the kids as well.”

“Don’t fight,” Mary said, before Basil could answer. “You’re both adults. You shouldn’t fight.”

“One week,” Basil hissed. “You’d better find them somewhere within one week.”

He stalked off before Ron could say anything in return, so he returned to his direct link to the Footsoldier network. It was almost like being AWOL, in a sense; other Footsoldiers were fighting and dying, while he was on a starship that was safe, if very isolated. The direct link to the network was online, barely, but there seemed to be nowhere to go.

A new message blinked up in the inbox and he allowed himself a sigh of relief. “Captain,” he said, carefully lowering Mary to the ground and standing up, armour and all, “we have a message from the Defence Force and new coordinates for delivery.”

“And then I’ll be rid of you?” Basil asked. “You’re going to be off my ship?”

“Oh, probably,” Ron said, mentally crossing his fingers behind his back. The report he intended to file would probably cost the Captain most of his future earnings. The Community might scrabble from time to time, often over the pettiest of things, but no one would feel inclined to tolerate a person refusing to help out people in trouble. An asteroid settlement was no place for selfishness. The population would understand not risking ones life, but Basil hadn’t been in any danger. Hell, statistically, the children would have been safer on his ship than on any asteroid settlement. “Might I suggest that you set course at once?”

The Family Farm had a fairly primitive form of the Anderson Drive. It was still astonishingly fast by the standards of Warp Drive, or whatever the Killers used for their FTL travel, but it took it nearly an hour to jump into a system orbiting a dull red star. When they finally arrived, Ron was astonished by how much firepower was orbiting the star and its handful of settlements, enough Defence Force starships to lay waste entire star systems. It would still be almost useless against the Killers, he reflected. They might as well have thrown rotten eggs at the enemy starships.

“There are hundreds of warships here,” Captain Basil muttered, angrily. “Where were they when my home system was under attack?”

Ron didn’t bother to reply. Defence Force starships had stood and fought at Asimov and died winning time for the evacuation. There would have been no change in the end result if the other starships were thrown into hopeless battle; it was better to hold them in reserve and use them, if necessary, as a scouting and evacuation force. It was a grim conclusion, in a way; humanity had advanced so far, yet they were still little more than ants swarming around the Killers feet.

“Take us in,” he said, finally. Docking information was beginning to scroll up on the main display, pointing them towards a massive asteroid some distance from the others. He was starting to wonder why the Defence Force had steered them here, of all places, before he saw the other refugee ships. There were few other places that could take so many people in a hurry. In time, the refugees would be distributed out throughout the community. “I would strongly advise you not to deviate. This isn’t a safe place at the best of times and trigger fingers are getting itchy.”

Basil muttered under his breath, but started to key in instructions to the starship’s computer core. It had amused Ron when he’d seen him for the first time; Basil was a starship Captain, with all that that implied, yet he couldn’t or wouldn’t control his starship directly. The starship AI was probably considerably smarter than its commanding officer. It could certainly handle the job of docking with the asteroid and assisting the Footsoldiers to move the children into safer hands. In fact…

His train of thought changed rapidly as the alarm sounded. Space was warping only a few thousand kilometres from their position. He knew what that meant even before the wormhole started to materialise in open space, revealing a very familiar starship design.

“They tracked us here,” Captain Basil said, sheer terror blanching his face. The Killer starship slid smoothly out of the wormhole, its mere presence sending gravity waves racing across the system. “God damn you; you led them here.”

“Quiet,” Ron said, although he was almost equally alarmed. There would be no fight against an equal opponent, only a slaughter. The Killers would probably swat the Family Farm without even noticing them. An AI — if they had AIs — would take the shot and blow the starship into atoms. “Power down the main sensors. I want us to be a rock in space.”

“No,” Captain Basil snapped. “Computer; power up the main drive and jump us out here on a random vector, now!”

“Unable to comply,” the AI said, its smoothly modulated voice somehow clashing with the growing panic of its commander. The AI’s personality overlays had been scaled back to the bare minimum. “The gravity distortion is preventing the formation of a stable Anderson Field.”

“Get us out of here,” Captain Basil repeated. “I want to be away from that thing!”

“Unable to comply,” the AI said. It showed no hint of awareness that they were about to die. “The alien starship is in a position to intercept us regardless of our exit trajectory.”

Ron reached out with one armoured hand and clutched Basil’s neck, lifting him up into the air with ease. “Power down the drive and float like a rock,” he ordered, hoping that the AI would pick up on his commands. The suit could probably hack into the AI, but that would take time, time they probably didn’t have. The Killer starship could hit them at any moment, even though it wasn’t firing or being fired upon. It was just… looming. Its daunting presence was dominating the entire system, mocking the human race by its very existence. “Do it, now!”

“Complying,” the AI said. The lights faded slightly as main power was taken offline. “Drive field disengaged; helm and other systems powered down. We are now on a ballistic course towards Patton Asteroid.”

Ron turned and stared out into space. The Killer starship was so large that he could see it even with the naked eye. It still wasn’t firing.

“Put me down,” Captain Basil protested. He was both pleading and cringing, desperate for reassurance and protection. Ron could offer neither. “What do we do now?”

“We wait,” Ron said. “There’s nothing else we can do.”

“All hands to battlestations,” the AI’s voice thundered. “All hands to battlestations! Condition Red; I repeat, Condition Red. This is not a drill. All hands to battlestations!”

“Belay that,” Admiral Brent Roeder snarled. Any human force could have been fought on even terms. The only way to take out the Killer starship would have been to blow up the star and accept mutual destruction. “Get the evacuation underway; I want everyone, but critical staff on the emergency starships and out of here before the shit hits the fan.”

He turned back to the main display and bared his teeth, studying the Killer starship dominating the Sparta System, the sight he had dreaded since he had assumed his position. The Defence Force was decentralised, but the loss of Sparta and the starships assigned to its defence — to say nothing of the cadre of trained personnel — would hurt, badly. The Killers, either by accident or design, had hit on one of the few vital systems in the Community.

“Evacuation underway,” Captain Waianae assured him. She was a dark-skinned young lady with rare promise as a tactical coordinator, although she hadn’t proven suited to shipboard life. She would never hold a field command, but Brent had come to depend on her and her fellows to assist him in coordinating the evacuation effort. There were thousands of starships, crammed with refugees out among the stars, all of which needed to be sent to safe harbour. Nowhere was safe these days. “Sir…”

Brent nodded. It would take nearly an hour to evacuate even one of the asteroids, an hour they probably wouldn’t have. The Killer starship wasn’t even out of range; if the live feed from the Lightning had been accurate, it could pick off his asteroids from where it was, without even coming closer to the Defence Force.

“The fleet’s requesting orders,” Lieutenant Windsor said. “They’re standing by to engage.”

Brent looked back at the Killer ship. “Order them to hold their fire,” he said, slowly. The Killer starship was just looking at them; somehow, he was sure that it was scanning the base, looking for… what? Only one thing came to mind, but there were no supernova bombs in the Sparta System. It was restricted space, but it was still too public… and, of course, human rules meant nothing to the Killers. “Can you tell if it’s scanning us?”

“Unknown,” the AI said, flatly. Its voice was cold and hard. “If the Killers are scanning us, they are not using any technology that we are capable of detecting. There are no emissions from the craft, as far as we can tell; it’s not even radiating the standard RF transmissions.”

“Repeat the command,” Brent said, staring at the Killer craft as if it were a personal enemy. “I want them to hold their firepower. Let them fire the first shot.”

The minutes ticked past slowly. Brent could feel trickles of sweat running down his back. The whole scene was inhumanly still. The Killer starship was just sitting there, watching them. It made no hostile move, but its baleful present loomed over the entire star system, holding the humans hypnotised by its sheer immensity. Brent was only vaguely aware of messages flooding in from elsewhere, starships offering to rally to the defence of Sparta, or even assisting in the evacuation program. The starship seemed to draw in all of his attention. It was impossible to look away.

“I’m picking up low-level power emissions from the enemy ship,” the AI said. There was a long pause. “I am unable to determine exactly what the Killers are trying to accomplish.”

“They’re trying to scare hell out of us,” Captain Waianae said, grimly. Her dark face was shining with sweat. Brent had a sudden mental image of how he must look flashing in front of his eyes and he almost smiled. “They’re succeeding.”

“Remain calm,” Brent said. The priority communications channel was lighting up, informing him that the President and the remainder of the War Council were watching the display, but he chose not to speak to them. What could he have said? “Let them make the first move?”

He felt his heartbeat racing frantically inside his chest, despite the best efforts of his augmentation. After the destroyed star… were the Killers trying to communicate?

“Analyse their emissions,” he ordered, slowly. “Are they capable of carrying communication signals?”

“Uncertain,” the AI reported. “They do not correspond with any known or theorised communications system.”

“Gravity spike,” Lieutenant Windsor snapped, suddenly. “They’re opening a wormhole!”

“Keep the fleet back,” Brent ordered. His mind was racing; could they — should they — try to reply? If there was a chance to open communications, it had to be taken, whatever the risk. “Communications, attempt to…”

The wormhole flared into existence. A moment later, the Killer starship was gone, leaving no trace of its passing.

Brent ran his hands through his sweaty hair. “Stand down from battle stations,” he ordered, finally. The tension in the compartment refused to face. They had known that they were about to die, that all they could do was kick and scratch on the way to the gallows, and somehow they had been granted a reprieve. “Now… what the hell was all that about?”

No one had an answer.