Annihilation (Star Force Series) (2 page)

“Show me,” she said.

Smiling, I offered her my arm. She clasped it formally and we walked together down the icy granite steps to a portal. Like all the doors in the fortress, this one was made of smart metal. It sensed us, identified us and dissolved to let us in. The opening yawned and warmth gusted up into our faces.

A single operator was on duty. The operator was a young lieutenant who looked up shyly as we approached. Almost apologetically, she lifted a tablet and waved it slightly, trying to gain my attention.

“What’s this?” I asked, taking it from her.

“Something relayed from Welter Station, sir,” she said.

I frowned. “This isn’t the standard daily report. Any hostile activity should have been reported to me immediately.”

The young woman’s face registered alarm. “I’m sorry, Colonel. But it isn’t about
hostile
action. It’s labeled as a diplomatic message.”

My frown deepened. I swiped a finger over the screen, passing the opening bullshit on the first pages. How was it that bureaucracy always snuck into any organization? Already, there were three pages of dates and details on every report and document that came to me. The reports seemed to grow fatter and less informative by the month.

The first useful section dealt with unusual readings—mostly from Eden-12, the homeworld of the Blues. That was nothing new. There had always been unusual readings coming from that gas giant, which was inhabited by enigmatic beings. Today there had been large energy releases of unknown origin. I rolled my eyes. After all, it was a
gas giant
. Huge storms rolled across it every day. Some of my people needed to take a course in basic astronomy.

Finally, on page twenty-seven, I reached the heart of the matter. I read it quickly, then gave the device back to the lieutenant.

“Well?” asked Sandra. “Who’s it from?”

“The Crustaceans,” I said.

Sandra gave a callous bark of laughter. “Oh, those lovable bastards? What kind of love-note did they send you? Are they sending us a big wooden horse this time?”

I shook my head. “No. They’re asking for help. They say they’re under attack, and are requesting any aid we can spare.”

Sandra looked at me, and her smile faded. I knew in an instant what was going on in her mind. It was the same dilemma that raged in mine: should we help our enemies? They’d sided with the Macros in the last conflict, and done us grievous harm. But I had to admit, I still held out some sympathy for the arrogant shellfish. After all, hadn’t I committed Earth troops to serving under the Macros when we’d faced extinction? I’d attacked the Worms, exactly as they’d attacked us. We’d fought with the Worms, but in the end they were alive and the machines that had attacked Helios weren’t.

“They are biotics,” I said. “Maybe this is a chance to mend fences with them. Maybe they’ve finally realized the machines will never let them coexist in peace. We can always use another ally.”

“But we can’t trust them,” Sandra said. “It could all be a trick. Another ruse like the last one. Designed to get us to lower our guard and help the machines destroy us.”

“I know,” I said, “and I agree that we’ll have to proceed cautiously.”

Sandra turned her attention to the star map in the holotank in the center of the room. She reached out her hand and tapped the controls. The holotank shimmered in response and brought up a detailed three dimensional image depicting the Crustacean home system, which was one jump from Eden. We’d named the F-class star “Thor”.

All told, we’d discovered six connected systems. Thor was at our end of the chain of star systems, the last system we’d discovered beyond Eden.

The Thor system consisted of three gas giants and a load of other airless rocky worlds. The central binary stars were tight tag-team, an F class white star and a tiny red dwarf. I’d named the big one Thor and the smaller sun Loki.

We called our closest hostile neighbors Crustaceans, but really they were alien beings that resembled giant, man-sized lobsters. They came from three water-moons that orbited the innermost gas giant.

“What else does the report say?” Sandra asked. “Are there Macro ships orbiting their worlds?”

“No.”

“No signs of conflict? What kind of trouble can they be in?”

“Nothing that we can see from space,” I said, working the tablet. “But there are strange sensor readings from their moons, particularly Yale. Seismic spikes—explosions, possibly. And the oceans…the temperature of the water is rising. They’ve risen one-point-one degrees over the last few days.”

“One degree?” Sandra asked. “Big deal.”

I began to pace.

“I’ve learned a little about planetary climates and geology over the last few years,” I said. “A one degree change in a volume of water that great is very significant over such a short period of time. It means a huge amount of energy has been released.”

Sandra zoomed in on the gas giant that dominated the sky for every Crustacean. It was bluish in color, like the Solar System’s Neptune. The gas giant itself wasn’t inhabited as far as we could tell, but it was in the zone that supported liquid water. Circling that world were several water-moons, the homeworlds of the Crustaceans. Each of these moons was comparable in size to Earth and covered by oceans.

Sandra and I both stared at the planetary system in the holotank. I knew she was thinking the same thing I was:
What the hell was going on out there?

“You’re going to fly us out there,” Sandra said to me. “You’re going to risk Star Force lives to save Lobsters, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think I am.”

“They don’t deserve it, Kyle.”

“You’re probably right. But I have to try to make peace with them.”

Sandra muttered something else, but I didn’t hear her. I’d already left the warmth of the command center and walked out onto the battlements again. The frosty winds were stronger now, as it was nearing midnight. The wind felt good against my skin.

Rather than gazing down onto the night-shrouded treetops below me, I turned my eyes upward into the sky. Above me hung the droplets of fire we call stars. They appeared ice-cold to me tonight, and I saw them as my ancestors must have. They were like the staring eyes of a thousand gods.

I knew something was happening up there, but I had no idea what those heartless, glittering gods had in store for me.

-2-

Just before dawn, we left Eden-8. Sandra and I boarded a destroyer and were taken swiftly up into the sky. The ship whisked us away toward the outer rim where Welter Station circled the coldest rock in the star system.

On the way, I kept checking every few hours for changes in the situation—any kind of update from Thor would be nice. But there was nothing. No new information from our sensors, scout ships, spy-probes or the Crustaceans themselves. The only measurable data that came in was an ominous detail: the temperature of the oceans on Yale had risen another tenth of a degree. This was neither encouraging nor enlightening.

We didn’t get a proper night’s sleep on the long haul out to the battle station. My mind and my command staff couldn’t help playing out grim scenarios. Could it be a natural disaster? Volcanic action? Some kind of civil war? We just didn’t know.

During the final hours of the journey we drew closer to the station and began decelerating hard. For several long hours, the destroyer shuddered and maintained a steady, teeth-throbbing four Gs of braking thrust. That’s what space flight consisted of for Star Force veterans: endless sessions of pulling hard G-forces as we accelerated up to cruising speed then turned around and decelerated just as powerfully so we could dock rather than smashing into the landing bays.

I’d had plenty of time to review what little we knew, but not enough input to decide on a course of action. Since I didn’t have much to go on, I focused on what I could do with clarity of purpose: shore up our own defensive posture.

I was feeling paranoid, and I had very good reasons for it. The last time the Crustaceans had sent us a cryptic message they’d sent an emissary ship along with it. The ambassador inside had blown herself up and the EMP blast had disrupted my battle station, nearly crippling it.  If the Crustaceans were involved in some kind of new conflict, my first concern had to be the security of my own backyard.

I began reviewing our defenses for the tenth time since I’d left Shadowguard. Fortunately, the Eden system only had two points of entry—at least that we knew of. There were two rings that connected this star system to others. Each allowed instantaneous interstellar travel to another system.

One path led to the Helios system, which was occupied and patrolled by our allies the Worms. Beyond Helios and farther down the chain of rings was the Solar System. Unfortunately, Earth could not be considered friendly at this time.

Still, with the Worms and several systems serving as a buffer, I didn’t fear a sneak attack from that direction. In the other direction was a single known system: the Thor System. In my view, it was more dangerous than Earth. If the enemy came at us from that flank we would have only a day or two of warning at best.

We knew there was at least one other ring that connected Thor to some unknown location owned by the Macros. The machines had launched attacks on us via that ring several times.

Judging the Thor system and the unknown numbers of Macro fleets beyond it to be the greater threat, I’d built a battle station on the border, right next to the ring that connected Eden to Thor. Known as Welter Station, the structure had survived its first battles, but only barely.

Things had changed a lot since I’d first built the battle station. She was monstrous now, and instead of being nearly deserted, the fortress teemed with Star Force personnel. The refugees from Earth had stepped up and manned the station with a crew of over a thousand, which was what it had been originally designed for.

“This thing is huge, Colonel,” Commodore Miklos said when the station came into visual range. His tone indicated he believed the battle station was too big.

The Commodore had joined us on this trip out to the border. He was my exec, and overall second in command.

I nodded, but avoided Miklos’ eye. “I’m sure you’ve seen it before.”

“Of course I have. But it’s bigger—the volume is three times greater than what was proposed in the original design documents.”

I nodded again, but said nothing. Miklos was one of my best. I’d come to trust and rely on his judgment and loyalty over the last few years, but that didn’t mean I always listened to his frequently-offered advice. He was Fleet and therefore wanted every hour of production to go into building more ships. It was only natural for him to view any other expenditure as counterproductive.

He looked at me, frowning. “Why did you put so much effort into rebuilding it—into making it bigger? I thought it was a failure.”

“A failure? Hardly.”

“The first battles this monstrosity was involved in were not promising. It was pushed over like a tin can. A
giant
tin can.”

I felt a sensation of growing annoyance with him, but I tried to keep my reaction off my face.

“I was alarmed by how easily our enemies circumvented this behemoth station during her last action,” I said. “I freely admit that the station did not perform optimally in combat.”

“If the station can’t defend itself, it is useless, Colonel.”

“It
can
defend itself,” I snapped back at him, my voice rising in volume. “It took out a great number of ships in its first engagement.”

Miklos fell to brooding quietly. After a minute or two, I heaved a sigh.

“All right,” I said. “I admit, I took a gamble by putting so much of our resources out here at this outpost. After its relative failure in previous engagements, I felt I had a decision to make: either to put the station on the back-burner and build fleets instead, or to expand its capabilities.”

Miklos nodded slowly. “I understand completely, sir. You doubled your bet.”

“Yes. I chose to double-down.”

Miklos didn’t appear surprised. He did look concerned, however. He began to list reasons why ships were superior to fixed fortifications even though fortresses were more cost-effective.

“Mobility is a force-multiplier,” he lectured me. “Big guns do no one any good if they aren’t able to reach the critical battle. Historically, fortresses have always fallen to mobile forces. The Maginot Line, for instance…”

I rolled my eyes. I’d taken his lecture as good-naturedly as I could up until this point, but now he’d annoyed me enough to shut him down.

“The Maginot Line?” I demanded incredulously. “Let me assure you, Commodore, this station won’t go down in the history books as ‘Rigg’s Greatest Folly’. Over recent months, while Crow has been licking his wounds back on Earth, I’ve assumed the Macros have been building another invasion fleet. To meet that inevitable threat, I shored up this battered station. That’s all there is to the story.”

Miklos fell quiet again. He wasn’t pouting, however. I knew him too well to believe his feelings could be hurt by a scoffing tone in my voice. Unfortunately, I also knew his opinions hadn’t been swayed by my little speech. Not in the slightest. He was simply being polite and biding his time to make his case again. The man could be relentless.