Theogony 3: Terra Stands Alone (28 page)

“
I’m in the hangar bay,
” Wraith commed, “
and there’s no sign of the shuttle. There are some dead Drakuls scattered around, but no shuttle.
” They had made good time...only to reach the hangar bay and find that the shuttle had disappeared without a word.

“Shuttle 02,
Calvin,
” he commed, “
where the hell are you guys?
”

“
Calvin, Foxy
” the WSO replied, “
sorry, we had a Drakul on the shuttle, and we took it outside for a breath of fresh air. It cut up some of our controls, so we were testing them. We’re on our way back.
”

As Calvin entered the hangar bay, he heard explosions behind him. The Drakuls had been pressing them harder as they got closer to the hangar bay
. Turning back around, he saw the shuttle entering the hangar bay. It was noticeably wobbling. “
Is that thing flyable?
” he asked.

“
Yeah, barely,
” Exit replied. “
I don’t want to have to wait around any longer, or I’d call for the other shuttle to come and get you. If there was any way to transfer the passengers in space, I’d do that, too. As it is, we’ll just have to make it work.
” He brought it in to a stop, and the boarding ramp came down.

“Load ‘em up!” Calvin yelled. “We’re out of here as soon as everyone’s aboard.”

“
Hey sir,
” commed Sergeant Zoromski, “
you’re gonna want to hurry. There’s a whole pile of them back here, and they don’t seem to be taking ‘no’ for an answer.
”

“I heard him, sir,” called Master Gunnery Sergeant Kinkead. “We’re going as fast as we can.” She shook her head, watching the menagerie of different aliens
board the shuttle. It wasn’t quite like Noah boarding the animals two by two...but Noah only had to worry about rain, not 10-foot monsters that wanted to eat them.

Calvin saw the last aliens heading up the ramp. “
We’re loaded. Fall back to the shuttle. Foxy, cover them with the shuttle’s laser.
”

“
Got it, sir,
” replied Foxy.

The Gordon brothers came through the door, followed by Sergeant Zoromski. Staff Sergeant Randolph was the last through the doorway. He had borrowed Staff Sergeant Dantone’s Hooolong pulse rifle
to go with his Mrowry auto cannon and paused to fire both of them for nearly five seconds on full automatic, sending over one hundred 20-millimeter rounds down the corridor. He turned to see the other soldiers running toward the shuttle and began lumbering toward it, as well.

The shuttle laser fired
, and he turned back around, ready to defend himself.

“
Sorry,
” the shuttle’s WSO said. “
I was just doing a ranging shot to make sure I was on target.
”

Randolph turned and ran the rest of the way to the shuttle
, shaking his metal head. As he climbed the boarding ramp, the door opened, and two Drakuls came through. Already on target, Foxy shot them as the shuttle lifted off, turned and wobbled its way out of the hangar bay.

As they rose above the asteroid, the shuttle jerked as a counter-missile laser hit
its right wing.

“Shit,” swore Exit, “I forgot we weren’t invisible anymore.”

“Just a second,” replied Foxy. He turned the stealth generator off, waited a couple of seconds, and then turned it back on again.

Exit turned the ship hard to the left, and the lase
r missed with its next shot. Several other lasers began firing, but they were aimed in the shuttle’s original direction and also missed. Exit applied full power, and the shuttle left the asteroid behind.

Calvin came up to the flight deck. “Impressive light show,” he noted, watching as
the computer showed where the lasers were firing. “Happily, I can do something about that.” He switched to his comm system. “
Master Chief, blow the asteroid,
” he ordered.

“
Yes sir,
” replied Master Chief. “
Detonation in three...two...one...
” Fire from the asteroid ceased as the nuclear warheads detonated. Although the battle station’s metal covering was thick and built to withstand a tremendous amount of damage, it was shaped to repel damage from the outside, not to withstand a 200 megaton blast from inside the station. With an enormous flash, the metal covering the asteroid fractured, exploding violently into thousands of large pieces and millions of smaller shards. The asteroid itself shattered into billions of rocky pieces that rocketed outward in all directions.

Exit smiled. “Thank
you, sir,” he said. “That’ll help.”

* * * * *

“I can’t fly like this
,” said Exit five minutes later. “We’ll never make it back.” After the asteroid had been destroyed, the shuttle’s flight control system had become progressively worse. Exit wasn’t sure what happened, but it felt like something else had failed in the spacecraft’s control system. 

“What’s up?” asked Calvin, who had
been called back up to the cockpit to discuss the shuttle’s problems.

“I can’t turn right,” replied Exit. “Something’s
cut or jammed in the flight controls. In order to go right, I have to turn left and come all the way around to the heading I want. If I miss the heading, I have to do another circle. I’m never going to be able to dock with the ship like this.”

“Got any idea where the Drakul was when the flight controls were damaged
?” Calvin asked.

“Yeah, he was not too far behind the cockpit
up on top of the shuttle,” said Foxy.

BANG!

“What was that?” Calvin asked.

“That was a piece of the asteroid,” said Exit. “We haven’t been able to fly fast enough and straight enough to avoid the debris field.
Some of the pieces are still flying around out there.” He moved the stick. “Shit! Whatever just hit us finished off the flight controls; now they’re not working at all. Someone’s going to have to go up top and take a look at it. Got any mechanics in the back?”

“I don’t know,” Calvin replied, “
I can go see.”

“I hope you’ve got a couple; if not, we’re not getting back any time soon,” said Exit. “
What’s worse is we never planned on bringing back this many guests, or we’d have brought extra oxygen. We’re going to be running pretty thin on air before long. I’ve commed the ship, but we’re a long way out. It will take two and a half hours for the other shuttle to get here.”

“How much air do we have left?” Calvin asked.

“Two hours.”

“I’ll go find a mechanic.”

“Thanks,” said Exit, “that’d be helpful.”

“
There’s the problem,
” commed Staff Sergeant Randolph. With the death of Sergeant Hopper, the cyborg had more experience with mechanical things than anyone else in the platoon. He was also less likely to be injured than the 100% biological humans, so he had led the way to the top of the shuttle. Corporal Lawrence was assisting him, as she also had mechanical experience, having designed her own DNA sequencing machines. She was carrying the tools, while trying to stay behind the cyborg; each of the troopers had seen several pieces of the destroyed asteroid whip past.

“
What’s the problem?
” asked Exit.

“
There’s a panel cover missing and some torch marks,
” replied Randolph, “
as well as a spray of blue. Looks like your Drakul bought it in the end. Oh, yeah, the writing around the panel says, ‘Caution, Flight Controls.’ I’m in the right spot.
”

“
Can you tell what’s wrong with them?
” Calvin asked.

“
Not at the moment,
” Randolph said. “
I’ll have to move the rock that is sitting on them first.
”

“
Rock?
” asked Exit.

“
Yeah,
” said Corporal Lawrence, “
a big rock. Looks like part of the asteroid. It would probably weigh several hundred pounds in standard gravity.
” She moved out of the way. “
Stand by; we’ll see if the big boy can lift it out of the way. Staff Sergeant?
”

Randolph
braced himself and pulled, and the rock went flying off into space. “
The rock wasn’t stuck,
” he said. “
It was just sitting on top of the panel, and I was able to move it.
” He looked down. “
Ouch,
” he continued. “
Yeah, I see what the Drakul did. It made a mess of the wiring. I think I can temp fix the cables that the Drakul cut, but it’s going to be a really sloppy repair. There will probably be a lot of extra play in the flight controls.
”

“
That’s fine,
” said Exit, sounding relieved. “
Just get me a little bit of control back, and you’ll be my hero.
”

“
Don’t thank me yet,
” Randolph commed
.
“
You haven’t seen how awful the repair is going to be. Between not being able to hold onto the cables very well and the small area that the wires have to run through...just don’t thank me yet. We’ll see how it goes. Corporal, let’s start with a pair of wire cutters.
”

“
How is the repair coming?
” Exit commed 15 minutes later. “
We’re getting to where I’m going to have to make some hard decisions.
”

“
Doing good, sir,
” replied Staff Sergeant Randolph; “
in fact; I’m just finishing up. Two minutes.
” He finished installing heat-shrink tubing over the solder joint. He just needed to heat it, and he’d be done. “
Hand me the heat gun, please,
” he said without looking up. His hand remained empty. “
Today? Kinda like to get out of here, and it sounds like the pilot is getting antsy.
” Corporal Lawrence still didn’t reply. Randolph looked up in annoyance. “
Could you PLEASE hand me...
” Corporal Lawrence wouldn’t be handing anyone anything ever again. A two-inch wide sliver of metal from the asteroid was protruding from her facemask, which was rapidly filling up with blood. A thin red mist sprayed out into the vacuum from where the metal breached the facemask. As she slowly spun to the side, Randolph could see that it protruded from the back of her helmet as well. “Shit,” Randolph said. “
The thrusters are fixed,
” Randolph commed, “
but we just lost Corporal
Lawrence.
”  

* * * * *

The stargate
spread out in front of the
Vella Gulf
. It looked close enough to touch, but didn’t seem to be getting any closer. “This is the hardest part,” noted Captain Sheppard, “knowing that the Archon attack is imminent, and that we need to get back as quickly as possible, but being unable to go quickly because we’ll give ourselves away.”

“Yes it is,” agreed Calvin,
as conscious of the passage of time as anyone else. He could feel it slipping away from them.

“Dead slow ahead,” ordered Captain Sheppard.

“Dead slow ahead, aye,” repeated the helmsman. The
Vella Gulf
started forward and jumped.

“That’s a lot of stuff waiting for the Archons
when they attack in two days,” said the OSO, using the long range viewer to catalog the Drakul forces at the stargate to Archon space. “They’ve still got a lot of ships there, even without the task force we saw leave, but what’s going to kill them are the mines. I’ve never seen a minefield so dense. Even if the Archons use those robot ships, there’s still going to be a ton of mines waiting for them.” He paused, trying to count all the mines he could see in one area. “Damn,” he finally said. “There’s got to be something we can do to make their entrance easier.” His weapons-release finger twitched unconsciously. The sense of urgency driving the Terrans to do something,
anything
, was at an all time high.

“
What we really need to do,” said Ensign Sara Sommers, “is something for the rest of the Psiclopes left on Olympos.”

“I wish we could,” said Captain Sheppard. “
However, we don’t know how many Psiclopes still exist, and there’s no way to get them off even if we could sneak in there and get them.”

“I realize that,” said
Ensign Sommers. “It’s just that I can’t think of anything worse than sitting around, waiting to get eaten. It would almost be a mercy to put them out of their misery.”

“
It
would b
e a mercy,” said Steropes, as he entered the bridge. “I know it’s what I’d want.”

“Steropes,
I know this has to be tough on you,” said Captain Sheppard. “Why don’t you go back to your cabin or to the gym or something. We’ll take care of this.”

“
Anywhere I go, I’ll only think about it,” said Steropes. “Besides, there ought to be a Psiclops involved in determining the fate of the planet, don’t you think? What are you going to do?”

“
We were just working on that,” said Calvin. “The problem is that we have a couple of things we’d like to do, but probably can’t do either of them very well.”

“What are the
y?” asked Steropes.

“
As you already heard, we are trying to work out what to do about the remaining Psiclopes on the planet, for one,” said Captain Sheppard. “We’d also like to do something about the fleet orbiting the stargate if we could.”

“What can one cruiser do against all of that?” asked Steropes, indicating the holographic display of the enemy forces. “
We couldn’t take them on normally, much less with half of our missile tubes covered with stealth modules. We’d get slaughtered.”

“We
ll, we would have surprise on our side,” said the OSO, “and we could probably get in a few shots before anyone reacted. Maybe we could go back into cloak again after that and get them to chase us? We could probably lead some of them away from the gate...”

“No,” said Captain Sheppard, “We don’t have enough throw weight to make a difference. All we’d do is piss them off and let them know that we’re here.
There’s got to be a better way that we can use our stealth and the element of surprise.”

“Hey,” said Calvin
, looking at the tactical map of the system. “What’s this thing orbiting Olympos’ moon?”

“
It’s a Class 8 replicator,” said Ensign Sommers. “The last time I looked, the replicator was making a super dreadnought. I think the ship was almost complete, too.”

“Can we get a visual?”
Calvin asked.

“Yeah,
the replicator is just coming around to our side,” she said.

She put it up on the screen. The replicator happened to be pointing at the
Vella Gulf
as the replicator orbited the moon of the second planet. So did the nose of the super dreadnought, tied up alongside it.

“Oh, shit,
the ship’s finished,” said the DSO. “That’s one more super dreadnought that the Archons will have to destroy.”

“Not if we t
ake the ship first,” said Calvin. “That would also take care of one of our problems. We could do some real damage to their fleet with one of those things.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” said Captain Sheppard. “How exactly are you going to
capture the ship? And once you take it, how are you going to crew it?”

“Well...what if we ta
ke half of the
Gulf’s
crew over there?” asked Calvin. “I mean, we’d take them over once the platoon secured the ship, of course. The ship has to have some sort of AI, right? We wouldn’t need to have a full crew, just enough to assist the AI in running the crucial systems.”

“If the asteroid is any indication,” said Night, “there may also be some other races onboard the ship that
could help to capture the ship or to man it afterwards. If they’re building the ship, they must know at least a little bit about running it.”

“
Hmmm...You’re right,” said Captain Sheppard. “Maybe we
could
operate it, at least in a minimal status. The problem remains, though; how are you going to capture the ship? You do know that it’s almost three miles long and masses almost ten million tons, right? And you’ve only got like 30 troops to capture it, right?”

“Yes, I know,” said Calvin, “but if
the ship is like the Mrowry dreadnought, the ship is mostly just empty space used to mount really big weapons. There are the crew’s living areas and a few other areas that are manned to run the ship, but much of it is empty, especially if they don’t have any marines, or whatever they use as marines, onboard yet.”

“
That’s our biggest problem,” Captain Sheppard said. “We don’t know if the ship is manned yet, and if so, how many of them there are aboard.”

“Hey, Sara,” asked Calvin, “do you have any indications of whether or not
the ship is manned? How about energy usage? Are any of the ship’s systems operational?”

Ensign Sommers
looked at her system. “The ship is currently operating at a minimum power setting,” she said. “The ship’s engines are running, but only enough to provide basic life support. I don’t think there are too many Drakuls onboard.”

Steropes nodded.
“I concur with that assessment,” he said. “It is unlikely that there are many life forms of any type onboard with that low of a power reading.”

“
I wonder if any of the people we brought back from the asteroid have any experience on the replicator or would be able to help with manning the ship,” Calvin said.

“I don’t know,” said Captain Sheppard.
“I think that most of them were so relieved at being liberated that they went to sleep as soon as they got here. Most of them haven’t been out of their cabins much since. I doubt Intelligence has debriefed any of them yet.”

“
It would be helpful if we knew,” said Calvin, “but it’s going to take too long for us to go door-to-door to get the information we need.” He paused and then had a thought, “But we don’t need to; Solomon can ask them for us. Hey, Solomon, could you please query the folks that we brought back from the asteroid and see if any of them has experience crewing a ship? We’d also like to know how the Drakuls operate their replicators, and if any of them has experience with that.”

“I will ask them,” the AI answered.

“While Solomon is surveying our guests,” said Lieutenant Finn, “I know how to take out the planet.”

“Would that be your
previously mentioned Doomsday Device?” asked Captain Sheppard. “If so, I strictly forbid the use of any weapon that is going to wipe out a planet. I forbid it. That was not in our mandate, despite what the Archons say. I
will not
be responsible for the complete destruction of a planet.”

“
Well, in that case,” replied Lieutenant Finn, “the answer is both a ‘yes’ and a ‘no.’ Yes, in that I would use one of those types of bombs, but no, I wouldn’t use it as a Doomsday Device. It has other methods of employment that you can use. I looked earlier, and most of the Drakuls seem to be clustered near the capital. In fact, I’m sorry to say it, Steropes, but it looks like the Drakuls have emptied all of the other cities on the planet. I can use the device in its secondary mode, which is a nuclear option, and create a burst big enough to wipe out all life in the capital area. Would that be good enough? The rest of the planet would still be habitable.”

“
Somewhere up above,” said the Mrowry, “the gods are laughing at us right now.”

“
Why is that?” asked Captain Sheppard.

“
You are familiar with Arton Churther, correct?” asked Lieutenant Rrower. “He was a Psiclops scientist who devoted his life to understanding black holes and how stargates worked. One of the things he invented was the Churther Box, the device that allowed the Drakuls back into this universe. He was also responsible for another major invention. That creation has many names. The Churther Bomb. World Ender. The Doomsday Device. They’re all names for the same thing, a weapon that makes it possible to destroy a world. It is ironic that the person who made it possible for the Drakuls to come to this universe is also the person who will help us get rid of them again.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lieutenant Finn.

“Have you read any of the documentation on the bomb?” asked Lieutenant Rrower.

“Yes,” said Lieutenant Finn. “As I understand it, there are two modes of employment. One is a nuclear option that generates something on the order of a 200 megaton nuclear explosion. The other option, which I didn’t understand fully, was the option to destroy the pl
anet. The way that mode worked was unclear.”

“It is intentionally left unclear
so that no one can design one of them,” replied Lieutenant Rrower. “I’m no physicist, so I can’t explain the way it works, even if I wanted to. In general, though, the weapon has a massive nuclear/antimatter starter detonation, which is the 200 megaton bomb that you mentioned. That is actually just the primer phase for the other part of the bomb. The purpose of the starter bomb is to compact a mass of material into a state that is more dense than almost anything else in the universe.”

“Almost anything else?” asked Lieutenant Finn. “What? Are you talking about
a black hole?”

“Yes,” said Lieutenant Rrower, with a nod. “Churther found a process to make a microscopic black hole. Happily, the artificial gravitational singularity that is formed is unstable and will eventually disappear
; however, before it vanishes, it has the capability to devour about six times the mass of the Earth.”

“It...eats the planet?” asked Captain Sheppard.

Lieutenant Rrower shrugged, a habit he had picked up from his association with Terrans. “Like I said, I’m not a physicist,” he replied, “nor have I ever seen it used. ‘Eat’ may not be the right word. Maybe it opens a gate to another world or universe or time, and the things just go through it, like they did with his Box.
I don’t know.
All I know is that the one time the bomb was used, the planet that it was used on disappeared, along with three spaceships that were in orbit.”

“That’s just....just...wow,” said Calvin.

“Isn’t it?” asked Lieutenant Rrower. “There’s one other bit of historical reference. The one time the bomb was used was against the Drakuls. The fact that we are now contemplating using it to rid this universe of them for a second time is, I think, ironic. The bottom line is that if you only want the nuclear option, use the blue button. Don’t touch the red button with the guard over it. That is the doomsday switch.”

“Oh! OK,” said Lieutenant Finn. “I got it; don’t touch the red button.”

“You say that as if you think you will be going on the mission, should we choose to send one down,” said Captain Sheppard. “I was unaware that you were a combat trooper.”

“I’m not a combat soldier,” said Lieutenant Finn. “I am, however, just about the only person on this ship that understands at least a portion of how this bomb works. I am also someone that is not required for the assault on the dreadnought. I can accomplish this by myself if you just give me a shuttle and a crew.”

“What has to be done?” asked Calvin.

“
I can put the bomb onto an anti-gravity pallet,” replied Lieutenant Finn. “I’d just need a shuttle to get me to the surface for a couple of minutes to drop it off, and then we could take back off and detonate it remotely from orbit. No problems.”

“There are always problems in combat,” said Calvin. “Nothing goes as smoothly or easily as you planned
, mostly because the enemy has a say in what you’re doing, and he generally doesn’t want your plans to succeed.” Calvin looked at Captain Sheppard. “We only need one of the shuttles for the dreadnought assault. We could send the other with Lieutenant Finn to drop off the bomb. We’d also probably want to send a security detail of at least three soldiers just in case.”

“That makes sense
,” replied Captain Sheppard. “Do you have three troopers that can be spared?”

“Yes
, we do,” Night said. “I’ve got three in mind. They don’t have as much training in special operations, so they wouldn’t be as helpful in the other assault. This is the perfect mission for them.” He paused. “There’s no doubt we can do this,” he said, “but are there any other options that we haven’t considered? Is there any other way that we can do it without sending people down to the surface of the planet?”