The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (213 page)

“Confirmed forty-eight points of attack,” Anna said. “They’re all in phase two space except for Omoloy, Vyborg, Ilichio, and Lowick.”

“Roughly the distribution we expected,” Dimitri said. He didn’t press the point. It was his team that had been instrumental in deciding the distribution of the planetary defenses and allocating starships to complement them, choices that had so far proved remarkably accurate. Only nine of the worlds under attack were without starship coverage.

Wilson took a moment to study the strategic display. The office projectors were showing Commonwealth space as a rough sphere just over two hundred light-years across with a very erratic boundary. The Prime invasion was a hemispherical scarlet stain, centered around the Lost23, and intruding nearly ninety light-years inward.

“They’re trying to gain Wessex again,” Nigel said.

“Can you use CST wormholes to deflect them?” Rafael asked.

“I’ll look into it,” Nigel said. His image froze.

When Wilson flicked his attention to Wessex, the display expanded, showing him the
Tokyo
above the Big15 world, and Douvoir missiles chasing after Prime wormholes, never to catch them. Over four thousand ships were already in-system. There at least they would meet a formidable resistance. The industrial facilities in orbit around Wessex were all heavily protected with force fields, atom lasers, and their own close-range interceptor missiles. Multilayered force fields had roofed over Narrabri. Big aerobots patrolled at high altitude. It had more orbital defense stations than any other planet.

“When are you going to use the quantumbusters?” the President asked petulantly.

“When the tactical situation allows for it,” Wilson told her. “It’s designed to use against primary targets or close-clustered ships. Neither of which we have at the moment. The Prime ships are all flying away from each other. They’ll regroup eventually, as they close on our planets.”

“You mean it’s useless?”

“In these circumstances it is of limited effectiveness,” Natasha said.

“Somebody tell me we will be able to use it
effectively.
”

“When their ships begin to congregate again, then we’ll be able to deploy them with some success,” Dimitri said.

Doi gave him a vicious look.

“I’d emphasize that even switched to a minimal effect radius, we shouldn’t activate a quantumbuster within a million kilometers of any inhabited world,” Natasha Kersley said. “That’s the absolute minimum safe distance. Even if it only has the mass of a single Prime ship to work with, the radiation output would be seriously detrimental to the biosphere. They are doomsday weapons, Madam President. They were never intended to be used in dogfights.”

“You think we shouldn’t have issued them to the navy starships for this?” Doi asked.

“I designed them, I advise on their use,” the physicist said. “Ultimately, the situations in which they are deployed are a political decision.”

“Thank you, Natasha,” Wilson said before the argument and recriminations got out of hand.

“Additional wormhole activity,” Anna said. “Prime wormholes opening near the stars of the planets they’re invading. Damn, they’re emerging close; approximately half a million kilometers above the corona. Seventeen of them have appeared so far.”

“Above the stars?” Tunde asked, frowning. “I don’t understand. What’s coming through?” The faint waves of color surrounding him rearranged themselves quickly, displaying the hysradar returns of starships scanning the new development.

“Plenty of ships,” Anna said. “Everyone is launching Douvoir missiles; the wormholes will be closed down in minutes.”

“Moved,” Dimitri said. “They’ll be moved in a few minutes.”

Tunde and Natasha exchanged a few words. “I don’t like the positioning,” Tunde said. “It’s constant, look. The wormholes are all opening above the equator of the star, and they are directly in line with the habitable planet of the system. In other words, it’s the closest part of the star to the planet.”

“Meaning?” Rafael asked.

“I don’t know, but it cannot be coincidence. Admiral, we really need to know what’s being sent through.”

“Could it be something like a quantumbuster?” Wilson asked. The question generated a few moments of complete silence in the office. Wilson glanced at Nigel’s frozen image; the Dynasty chief was still dealing with Wessex. Wilson wondered what the hell he was doing there that was more important than this.

“I can’t answer that,” Tunde said. “Obviously it is a possibility.”

“What could a quantumbuster do to a star?”

The physicists looked at each other, neither of them willing to take the lead. “It would cause quite a disturbance to the photosphere,” Tunde said. “There might even be some impact on the top of the convective zone. But the overall damage would be minimal.”

“Radiation emission wouldn’t be minimal,” Natasha said. “That would be extremely dangerous.”

“It’s hardly an efficient use of a quantumbuster.”

“What else could it be?” Wilson tried to keep his voice level and calm.

Tunde raised his hands in an awkward gesture of doubt.

“We have diverted-energy-function nukes,” Natasha said quickly. “As do the Primes. This could well be a large-scale application of that process, powered by the star itself.”

“Those planets are an AU from their primaries,” Rafael protested. “More in some cases. And you’re saying this could be a beam weapon?”

“You wanted alternatives,” Natasha said in an accusing tone.

“Our detector network has now found thirty-eight wormholes close to the target stars,” Anna said.

Wilson’s virtual finger reached for the
Tokyo
’s icon. He stopped. He hated, absolutely
hated,
himself for doing this. But this whole attack was pivotal. Any and every action he took today could decide the fate of the Commonwealth. He had to have information he could trust implicitly. That meant the source must be someone he knew he could trust. He touched the
Dublin
’s icon. “Oscar?”

“Hello, Admiral.”

“We need to know what’s coming through that wormhole close to the star.”

“Hysradar is picking up returns consistent with class-four and class-seven Prime ships. We launched a pair of Douvoir missiles to close it down.”

“I know, but we need confirmation. Take a flyby. Stay in hyperspace, but get us a high-definition picture of what the bastards are up to.”

“You want us to leave Hanko orbit?”

“Yes, the planetary defenses can insure no wormholes open close by. If the invasion pattern changes you can return immediately.”

“Acknowledged, leaving orbit now.”

“Boongate reports a wormhole near its star,” Anna said. “That’s completion, all forty-eight stars. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it to each star system they’re invading. Large numbers of ships coming through.”

“The Prime ships must have damn good force fields to operate at that distance from a star,” Rafael said. “It’s hellish close.”

“Can the
Moscow
-class fly in that close?” Wilson asked. He’d automatically assumed the
Dublin
would be in trouble if they were in real space a mere half-million kilometers from a G-class star.

“Yes,” Tunde said. “But I wouldn’t recommend an extended combat time in such an environment. The stress level on the force field would undoubtedly lead to overload.”

“Same for the Prime ships, then,” Rafael said.

“Undoubtedly.”

“What are they up to?” Wilson whispered. His virtual hands rearranged the imagery icons, and the office’s tactical display shrank slightly to accommodate the hysradar return from the
Dublin.
Four hundred eighty thousand kilometers above Hanko’s star, the Prime wormhole was holding steady. Over fifty ships were through now. The pair of Douvoir missiles Oscar had launched were closing fast. Ten seconds from impact, the wormhole closed.

“It’s opening again,” Tunde said, scanning the projection. “Twenty million kilometers away.”

“Douvoir missiles locking on,” Anna said. “Nothing’s coming through yet.”

The
Dublin
’s hysradar return was showing sixty-three Prime ships accelerating hard from the point where they’d emerged. Each of them was firing a flock of high-acceleration missiles. The expanding globe of hardware was already five thousand kilometers across. Nuclear explosions began to blink around the periphery. The hysradar image immediately broke up into an uneven hash.

“What’s happening?” Wilson asked.

“Interference,” Oscar reported. “The nukes are somehow pumping out exotic energy pulses. It’s screwing with our hysradar.”

“That’s certainly one diverted-energy-function we haven’t got,” Tunde said. “A direct inversion to an exotic state. Natasha?”

“Well, it’s obviously possible,” Natasha said; she sounded more intrigued than alarmed. “I don’t understand how the mechanism holds together under those conditions.”

“You’re missing the point,” Dimitri said.

“Which is?” Natasha asked with cool politeness.

“They’re going to a great deal of effort to hide something from us above those stars.” He indicated the image from the
Dublin,
which showed the star’s vast curvature. The uniformity of the image was broken by a shimmering patch of silver and yellow particles that obscured over half of the surface. “This is the only sensor blind spot in the star system. Something is going on behind that interference, something they clearly consider extremely important to their attack.”

“The Primes are generating identical interference patterns in the other systems,” Anna said. “It’s a constant pattern.”

“Oscar,” Wilson said, “we have to know what they’re covering up.” He hoped the tension wasn’t showing in his voice. But if the Primes did have something equal or even superior to quantumbusters this war was already over. A lot of his family would leave on the lifeboats that were in the last stages of assembly above Los Vada.
If they have time to reach them.
He assumed he’d be relatively safe on the High Angel, though God alone knew where it would fly away to.

“Roger that,” Oscar said. “Standard sensors are useless this close to a star. We’re going in closer.”

“Good luck,” Wilson told him.

The first tremor caught Oscar by surprise. His heart jumped in response. “What the hell was that?”

The others were all lifting their heads from the flight couches, checking around the cabin. For what, Oscar couldn’t imagine. A crack in the hull that was letting in solar wind? Crap. He’d always known and accepted that any attack powerful enough to have a physical impact on the starship would simply destroy it. Now another judder ran through the vessel, stronger this time—and they were still intact and alive. “Somebody talk to me.”

“I think the exotic energy blasts from their diverted-energy-function nukes just hit our wormhole,” Dervla said. “I’m certainly seeing a lot of unusual fluctuations around our compression dynamic wavefront.”

“Oh, great,” Oscar said. “A new threat. How badly can that hurt us?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “We never covered anything like this in training. It don’t think it can break our boundary.”

A shudder made Oscar tense his whole body as the couch straps vibrated against him. It was like riding a white-water raft. The hologram display wobbled as his eyes tried to focus. He switched to virtual vision for primary information. Just in time, as the next judder shook his body. Curses were mumbled through the narrow operations segment.

“Ten seconds to the missile formation,” Hywel said.

Oscar consulted the navigational grid. They were flying toward a star at nearly four times the speed of light. He wanted to say something to Dervla about making sure their course was correct, but harassing people at inappropriate moments wasn’t the sign of good captaincy. So he trusted her with his life.

She was taking the
Dublin
in a long curve to solar south of the Prime incursion, heading past them to an altitude of four hundred thousand kilometers above the star. The shaking began to reduce as they left the explosive umbrella behind.

Their hysradar image began to sharpen as Hywel and the RI brought filter programs on-line. Now the exotic energy pulses were displayed as black circular wavefronts, fading as they expanded. “The ships are still in there,” Hywel said. “And they’re expending missiles at a phenomenal rate even by Prime standards. Oh. Wait—” The image shifted drastically as he instructed the RI to shift the main focus a hundred eighty degrees. “What’s that?”

In the middle of the projection, a lone dot was rushing headlong into the star.

Oscar read the associated figures. “Dear God, that’s a hundred-gee acceleration.”

“Two minutes until it reaches the corona,” Hywel said. “What is that?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it at all. Wilson, are you receiving our hysradar data?”

“Yes,” the answer came back. “Can you hit it with a Douvoir missile?”

“Not that close to a solar mass,” Reuben said. “The gravity curvature is too strong.”

“He’s right,” Dervla said. “Our wormhole generator is having trouble maintaining boundary integrity this close. There’s a lot of gravitonic distortion.”

“Oscar, we have got to know what that device is going to do,” Wilson said. “Can you drop out of FTL and observe with standard sensors, please.”

Oscar heard at least two sharp pulls of breath inside the operations section. “Roger that, stand by for full sensor observation.”

“Just how good is our force field?” Hywel muttered.

“It can stand this proximity,” Teague said. “But we need to avoid combat with the Prime ships.”

“I’ll try and remember that,” Oscar said dryly. “Okay, Dervla, take us out of the wormhole. Hywel, full sensor scan as soon as we’re in real space.”

“Aye, sir.”

Oscar couldn’t help himself; his body braced as the FTL drive opened the wormhole and the
Dublin
slid out into real space. Nothing happened. No blinding white light and intolerable heat flooding through the cabin.
Damn, I’m twitchy.
He blinked, and started to study the sensor imagery.

Visual sensors showed a universe of two halves. One white, one black. For an instant he was back above the Dyson Alpha barrier in the
Second Chance,
where space was divided into two distinct sections. This time, there was nothing passive about the sheer white surface four hundred thousand kilometers away. The star’s corona was in constant turbulent motion with waves and surges radiating a gale of particles outward; ghostly prominences danced above the seething gas, flexing and twisting in the intense magnetic field. Space above them was dotted with the neon graphics tagging Prime ships and missiles.