A Sword Into Darkness (48 page)

The destroyer’s mission hull was again awash in dim golden light, trapped in stasis, but something still moved, an alien form around which the golden radiance of time-almost-stopped shied away, replaced by a blue-white nimbus.  The segmented, tentacled Patron moved slowly, remaining carefully within the tight boundary of the anti-stasis bubble conforming to it.  If it moved too swiftly, the space-time counter-reaction would not have time to negotiate its motion within the wider stasis region.  It would become frozen, or worse, beset by destructive atomic tidal stresses shredding it at the molecular level.

The Patron—the same one who had first made contact with the crew, not that there was individually much difference between the thousands of its species within the fleet—drifted through the human ship, noting with close analogs to interest and consternation that its prize humans were not where it had left them.  It seemed that the troubling creatures had been in the midst of mischief-making.

The humans were everywhere, all dressed out in vacuum suits and frozen in place throughout the ship behind makeshift barriers and defenses.  Weapons had been broken out from the armory and distributed amongst the crew, as if such simple chemical slug-throwers could ever be effective against an enemy that could cross stars, stop time, and even bend space.

The defenses seemed to center upon the ship’s single shuttle, though how they expected to escape from within their own hull, and then from within the Control Ship itself was unknown.  To even make an attempt, they would have to employ some significant ship-to-ship weaponry, but every missile had been expended, and the Patrons had ripped out the railgun and the laser emplacements themselves.  Also, the reactor was gone, so they could not even have turned that into a weapon, were such a thing possible.

The alien recalled the fictions Earth had heedlessly and endlessly broadcast out into space, with their repeated themes of succeeding and surviving despite seemingly insurmountable odds against them.  Had it been human, it would have grinned and shook its head.  This was their last stand.

This … pitiful display actually seemed to indicate that the crew thought they had a chance of winning, of escaping.  It surveyed the ship, but found nothing to indicate that this plan was anything but the most forlorn of hopes.  It actually made the Patron think less of them, and of humanity as a whole.  To think that they would endanger their precarious position on so feeble an attempt, it almost seemed to express a suicidal intent.

The Patron thought briefly of honoring their apparent wish.  With them frozen like this, it would be no problem at all to end each of their lives, in any of a variety of ways.  But that would almost seem to be a gift.

Better to take their hope from them entirely, to crush even their weak ability to oppose their captors, and then show them the price of their pride, the price of destroying so many irreplaceable treasures for their own selfish survival.  The Patron went to work.

It and its remotes moved through the mission hull, disarming each of the defenders and destroying the weapons.  The crew and the broken remains of the guns were then deposited back in the mess room amidst the shattered pieces of the avatar.  After a time, the task was complete, with Nathan, Kris, Edwards, and the rest arranged in a circle facing one another.

When next the Patrons awoke them, they would return to normal time facing each other, powerless, and spared only by the cruel mercy of the aliens.  And the next thing to which they would be forced to bear witness would be the murdered Earth, reaped of all its treasures, fated to be forgotten by the universe, except as an exhibit for their captors.  Then, at last, these final few humans would know the futility of opposition.

The Patron departed, satisfied and at ease.

19:  “FROM DARKNESS—LIGHT”

December 28, 2055; USS Trenton (CA-1), Flagship, CRUDESGRU One, within the Asteroid Belt on approach to Earth

Lydia
Russ squinted at the wide screen in front of her in the
Trenton
’s wardroom, silently cursing the slow assault of age that wore down her senses, despite the sci-fi future she found herself in.  It was unfair that after all the pain she and the others had been through, all that she had compromised and wheedled to achieve, and all the impossible obstacles that had nevertheless been overcome—that her savoring of this moment would be diminished by something as pedestrian as an old lady’s eyes.

On the wardroom screen, false color overlays pinpointed every significant rock and asteroid in their quadrant of the Belt.  Years of movies and popular portrayals had convinced her inner expectations that the Asteroid Belt would be a jumble of tumbling mountains, filling the night black sky all around.  The reality proved much more mundane.  In terms of the wide vacuum of space, it was a busy mess, but only relative to the emptiness between planets.

Hundreds of kilometers and seconds of arc lay between even the closest of the independent, serenely rotating mountains of iron-nickel ore and silicates, shot through with veins of richer, heavier metals.  Only upon a compressed, simulated view such as this one—from the main tactical screen aboard the bridge of the US task force flagship, where a major portion of the Belt could be displayed at once—did the belt seem as dense as common belief held it to be.  Were the screen a window, however, she would be hard pressed to point out even a couple of dim rocks within view to lessen her isolation.

Some of those asteroids were practically crowded now, however.  Along the projected path of the Deltan approach and behind the bulk of four semi-close behemoths—each unnamed mass many times the size of Mt. Everest—were the total assembled forces of the planet Earth.  As an ambush site, it was as ideal as they could make it.  Of course, it had to be.

This was the last stand, the line which could not be crossed, the best that mankind could collectively muster.  Yet the numerous ships were dwarfed by the asteroids they hid behind, asteroids which themselves were dwarfed by the enormity of the solar system and space itself.  As sparse as the asteroid belt was in reality, the defenses of the human race seemed even sparser in the presence of this unstoppable enemy.  And beyond this were only the pitiful fixed emplacements back on Earth.

Lydia forced her doubts away, convincing herself she felt nothing but fierce pride and determination.  It was an act of will which was only sustainable because of where she found herself—here, where determination would be needed to see them through, rather than “safe” at home.

Her presence and the confidence it implied was not an asset embraced with equal enthusiasm by everyone.  A searing, disapproving gaze bore down upon her from behind.  She hardly needed to note his reflection in the screen to realize who it was.  It was a look he had favored her with routinely, ever since she had announced her intention to remain aboard.

Lydia’s eyebrow arched slightly and she spoke in a patient, amused tone, not bothering to turn around to confirm her guess at his identity.  “Can I help you, Admiral?”

Rear Admiral Calvin Henson—former colonel in the US Air Force, original commanding officer of the
Sword of Liberty,
and current commanding officer of the US Aerospace Navy’s Cruiser Destroyer Group One—smiled tightly.  He pulled himself next to Lydia, the “mother” of the entire USAN, and tried to address her face to face at the very least.  He would do anything if she would just listen to reason.  “Ma’am, our last rescue cutter—
Nightingale
—is ready to cut free and head for cover.  I’m holding her for you.  Please, Ms. Russ, you need to get aboard.”

She turned and looked at him, firm in her resolve, but compassionate for his position.  “I’m sorry, Calvin, but you know I won’t do that.”

He pulled himself in closer, not in any attempt to intimidate, but as an opportunity to speak low and frankly in the presence of the few other personnel present in the wardroom, to save either of them embarrassment over what needed to be said.  “Ma’am, this international fleet wouldn’t be here without all that you’ve done.  God knows every single squadron owes you for its existence, but that gratitude was only enough to get you this far.

“You simply have no place in my operational chain of command.  You’re not a tactician, strategist, or systems tech.  Frankly, all you are is a VIP and a liability.  There is a very good chance that you’re going to be injured or killed when that fleet crests those asteroids, and all you are going to do then is draw resources and attention away from an injured or dying crewman.  Not only that, but your loss would be devastating to the defense back home, and that’s something none of us can afford.”

She frowned, and her eyes narrowed slightly.  “I don’t know if I agree with the value you place on me, especially as far as that planet of sitting ducks back on Earth are concerned, but I’ll concede that I have no place in your battle organization.  What do you intend to do about it?  Throw me off?”

His mouth tightened.  “What I want you to do is see things from my perspective.  Get on that cutter of your own free will.”

The Admiral turned to glare at the handful of officers still populating the wardroom.  Each of them realized his intent and quickly and quietly departed.  Once they were alone, he turned back to Lydia, no longer glaring, but still intent on her concession or explanation.  Neither of them said anything.

Eventually, Henson’s face softened and he slumped in as much as anyone can in freefall.  “I’m not going to throw you off, ma’am, but you at least owe me a reason why you have to be here.  And not simply as a sign of your confidence in us, like you told
Trenton
’s CO, because everyone knows that’s just some PR bullshit.”

Lydia smiled at him.  “Such a cynic, Calvin.  I’m shocked, just terribly, terribly shocked.”  She turned back to the display screen with its false color representation of their ship, the
USS Trenton (CA 1)
and the five escorting
Sword
class destroyers that made up CRUDESGRU 1, tucked in behind a mountain of iron and silicates.

CRUDESGRU 2, similar in composition but headed up by
USS Lake Erie (CA 2)
, lay about 2000 km further on behind another rock, while two other asteroids were held by allied UK/CAN/AUS and EU squadrons, adapted
Sword
class destroyers all.  Support ships, minelayers, and rescue cutters from a variety of countries—countries allied not only by the desire to aid in the defense of Earth, but also by the obligation to produce such vessels as the price of receiving the required technology and designs—fled from the planned ambush site to hide behind still other asteroids, deeper in the Belt.  Each fleeing vessel was careful to remain within the shadows of the large asteroids shielding the four strike-groups, lest they give away the slim hope of a surprise attack against the Deltans.

Most, but not all of the tonnage out there was American—they had, of course, started first and were the original developers of the tech—but all the designs were Windward’s, either directly or as a close adaptation.  In a very real sense, Henson was right.  This fleet would not have been here defending the Earth without all that she had done.

But the honor of parentage was not hers to claim.  She was at best its stepmother, moving in to carry on when those who had toiled and worked and paid with their very lives could no longer complete the fight.  The father of this fleet, Gordon Lee, had never seen a single one of his children fly.  Its other progenitors had been lost to the unknown, and in so doing had gained them the information they all needed if they were to have even the smallest chance of survival.

Every other person who had led this battle for all their futures had made the ultimate sacrifice.  Was she truly a part of its wondrous, miraculous ascendance if she felt unwilling to pay the same price?

Her eyes misted as she stared through the screen, hardly seeing the icons of the ships any more.  How much of what she felt could even be put into words?  How much would someone like the Admiral ever believe?  “I have always been here, Calvin.  But I have not always been part of the solution.  I’ve been referred to as the mother of this fleet.  You just said much the same, yet,—in the beginning—I tried to abort the whole affair.  What if I had not?  What if I had done as Lee begged me to do and thrown the full measure of the government behind his project?  What if I had contained that bastard Sykes earlier?  Would we be where we are today?  Could we have gone further?  Could we be better prepared?

“The Deltans have stolen the lives of all the people who ever meant anything to me, and I owe them a reckoning for that.  But I also owe the people—my friends—who have come before me, who faced this foe with a level of faith I was late in achieving.  It’s a special sort of hell to be the one left behind.  I’m certain you’ve been in that same position, given your career.  You understand.  I have to see this through.  I have to face down the Deltans here.  I have to stand shoulder to shoulder with my family and see this through to the end—here on the front line, facing the same threat they faced, not hidden away on Earth or cowering behind some asteroid.  Admiral, I have to be here, because here is where I’ve always been, here beside the crew of the
Sword of Liberty
.”

Henson locked eyes with her, trying to ascertain her true feelings, her actual intent.  To his shock, he saw a sincerity so true, a resolve so intense, that he had to look away from the fierceness of it.

Lydia followed his gaze down and touched his temple gently, drawing him back to her.  This time she appeared softer, more vulnerable.  “Please, Admiral, don’t force me onto the sidelines.  Let me finish this.”

He glanced over at the screen, then back to her.  He shook his head and raised his comm suite.  Pressing a single button, he said, “Bridge, this is the Admiral.  Cast off
Nightingale
and send them to the reserve point.  There are no further passengers.”  With that, he nodded to Lydia and turned to pull himself away.