Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit (24 page)

"And so you watched," Loren
stated.

"So we did.  We've spent that last
fifteen hundred years watching, waiting for some biological or other to get
ready to grow into the next form.  It hasn't happened so far, but when it does,
we need to see it, to understand how it happened and with any great measure of
luck learn how to do it ourselves.

"I'm sorry to say, this is one
reason we weren't entirely wrapped up in the Priman invasion.  To be sure, they
are gathering power simply for power's sake, or at least it seems that way. 
Unfortunate, but in a cruel way we simply see it as another possible road to
transcendence.  Shouldn't we hope the strongest survive and flourish?  If that
is to be the Primans, then so be it.  They are of course not new to us; they
predate our earliest ancestors by thousands of years.  But they stayed
sequestered in your spiral arm of the galaxy for so long, and even when they
did expand to dominate the galaxy they already had a policy against machines
like me; the Primans fought relatively few battles in the wars against my kind,
and when they did it was to assist those peoples that they either ruled or had
nurtured along to their current standing.  To be honest, we thought they would
lead the way to transcendence before they became warlike and focused on
conquest."

"So you could care less if the
Primans wipe us all out," Loren said bitterly.

"Not entirely.  There are dozens of
advanced civilizations we've identified as candidates for potential
transcendence.  If the Primans are to reach their stated goal of utter galactic
domination, there is the very real possibility that many or all of those other
cultures could be wiped out, leaving only the Priman race.  Dozens of cultures
provide us with much greater chances of success than a single one, I'd think
you would admit."

"So can I ask where that leaves
us?" Loren dared to venture the question.

"In a very unique position, I should
say," replied Echo.  "We've discussed the matter a lot the past few
weeks because we calculated a high probability someone like you might seek us
out.  Our interests align, in a way.  We need diversity, and the Primans will
squash that.  You want the Primans to leave you alone.  Both of us need the
Primans stopped.  But do you know the cost of doing it the first time
around?"

"I was told entire civilizations
were lost; planets laid to waste."

"Not laid to waste. 
Destroyed."

That stopped Loren in his tracks. 
"That's insane.  How could you destroy a whole planet?"

"Once you figure out the tricky
equations, the rest is simple physics, I'm afraid.  You see, way back on the
way to the Primans being defeated, somebody from this very planet designed a
weapon that could destroy an entire world, much less a mere ship of war.  They
built many of them, used them with abandon on the Primans.  Eventually, a few
others stole or otherwise obtained the design and built their own.  Then they
fought with each other.  It was slaughter on the scale of billions, just as bad
as the Priman War.  Eventually, the Faarians won; theirs was the only planet
left intact.  They destroyed all of their enemy's weapons, then they destroyed
their own along with the plans and all records. They expunged the names of the
people who'd designed, built and crewed them.  Even had a number put to death
as war criminals."   

"But you wouldn't have a presence
here unless there was something left behind, would you?"

"Regrettably," Echo said with
what Loren took for genuine emotion, "enough information remained to be a
danger.  It was lost, then discovered and lost again, and now remains hidden in
the hands of someone who doesn't really understand what he has.  In our quest
for knowledge we haven't been able to bring ourselves to delete it.  So, Loren
Stone of the Confederation, I make you this promise.  I will take you to where
the weapon's secrets lie.  We've decided that only once you've arrived will we
make a final decision on what to do with the data and equipment.  But before
you accept or refuse, first you're going to watch footage of it in action and
see what it looks like for a planet with a billion people on it to come apart
at the seams."                     

Captain Sirian Elco was in an
uncharacteristically foul mood.  His ship was torn up, he didn't know who he
could trust, he hadn't heard from Loren in hours, and now there was a Priman
ship in orbit that had apparently secured diplomatic status from the Faarians. 
He needed good news, and quickly at that.  He'd even left the bridge so that
his demeanor wouldn't rub off on the rest of the bridge crew, not that the
silence of his quarters was any better for his own swirling thoughts.

The chirping of his comm unit brought him
out of his reverie.  He recognized the address as it was routed through
Avenger's communications servers; it was one of the disposable units Loren had
purchased on the planet's surface.  It would be an interesting conversation
starter to ask why he wasn't using his own Confed device.

"Captain," Loren said by way of
greeting.  He seemed to be sitting in some sort of empty diner.

"Commander," Elco replied. 
"I've been considering sending a search party for you.  A lot has happened
up here in the last few hours."

"I assume it has something to do
with a Priman ship in orbit?  That's one of the reasons I'm using a burner
comm.  I was meeting a contact when a squad of Primans showed up.  They'd
tracked us to our hotel and found me at the meet.  I have to assume they're
monitoring our communications so I'm using an alternate method."

“There is in fact a cruiser in orbit.  I
saw two transports headed to the surface a couple hours ago.  It just so
happens that it's one of the ships that attacked us near Callidor."    

"Naturally," Loren grumbled. 
"Well, two things to report.  First, I'm making some progress in my
homework assignment.  I've commed Merritt and Cory and given them holding
instructions.  My new friends want me to stay with them for the duration so I
don't run off, and I've agreed to their terms.  Second, I just now received a
call from our mutual friend Garrett.  He said he's coming to town shortly- he
said thirty-six hours- and bringing a friend for us to meet.  He's a big guy,
works out a lot; he says the man has some big guns.  I guess that's workout
jargon, but I figured you'd appreciate the news."

Elco nodded with some sense of relief. 
The good news was that it sounded like they would be joined by a battleship. 
The bad news was that Loren only informed him of the single vessel.

"Good work, then," Elco
replied.  "Keep me posted."

"Thank you for agreeing to my
terms," Echo stated as Loren shut down the comm unit and removed the power
cell, tossing both in the refuse chute behind the register.  "Other than
as an act of good faith, your staying with us makes security vastly easier to
arrange."

"It's my goal in life to help
others," Loren deadpanned.  "Do you have a bed I can sleep in?"

"We'll move to a safehouse a few
minutes from here and then turn in," Echo continued.  "And please
remember: among all the AI supporters in our little group, you're the only one
here that knows my true identity."

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

"So that's it?" Web asked. 

"Yep," Halley replied
confidently.  "That's the place we're going to put a beating on."

Web just went back to studying all the
intelligence they'd gathered about the target building Halley had claimed would
be the focus of their attentions.

It hadn't taken long for them to identify
places they needed to check out.  The Primans considered Callidor secure, and
while there was always the danger of an insurrection during an occupation, they
conducted business with much less secrecy than Halley had thought prudent. 

They'd found a building matching the
electronic and data emissions profiles that Representative Velk had given them
before they left.  By all accounts it identified the building in question as a
data storage and processing center, and whether the senator's ring data was
stored there or not, they'd be able to request access to it from within and
copy it to their own devices.  The unknown factor was that the building was not
only twenty stories tall, but also appeared to have at least ten sublevels as
well.  Whether it was all data storage cubes and data pads or there was
something else to be found was the uneasy question.

"They have a hell of a security
setup," Web said.  "It's going to be hard to break into, but I assume
you have a plan forming?"

"Yes," she said cautiously,
"but I'm not sure you'll like it."

Web just returned her gaze.  "What's
not to like?  Are we going to sneak in?  Bribe somebody? Parachute onto the
roof?"

"Actually, I was thinking we'd try
blowing up the building."

"Hmph," was all a surprised Web
could think to respond with.  "I'll admit, I didn't see that coming."

"Just listen," she urged. 
"We don't have time to plan out a long-term operation here.  We need that
data and need to get it back to Confed space, so we're going to do this the
quick-and-ugly way.  There are a number of Priman buildings on that street. 
The locals still provide emergency services like police, fire, that sort of
thing.  What I'm thinking is we stage some attacks on the buildings; make it
look like a resistance movement made a big play for the Primans.  In the chaos
that will create, we sneak in as paramedics or firefighters and find the data
terminal that will get us access to what we'll need.  It's the only way we're
going to get in there without making this a month-long ordeal.  It will be
messy and not the high water point of my spy trickery skills, but it will get
the job done."

"I suppose you have explosives
handy?" Web asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

"How long have you known me?"

The next day went faster than Web had
expected.  Halley still had caches they needed to raid as well as contacts to
make in order to secure authentic uniforms and even a vehicle doctored to look
exactly like the local EMS units.  Her associates ran the gamut from relatively
upstanding types like the Fixer Garrett Drayven to scum that had Web
subconsciously reaching for his blaster.

"You know some colorful folks,"
Web said by way of conversation while they were cleaning weapons later in their
hotel.  "It's always fun to try and figure out what their stories
are."

Halley smiled.  "Theirs are as
different as any normal, upstanding citizen, Web.  They just happen to have a
somewhat less legal skillset.  And for what it's worth, there are some people I
just can't deal with; a few over the years have either met the police or a
dismal end."

"The way of the universe, I
guess," Web shrugged as he snapped a tiny processor chip into the frame of
the blaster he was assembling.  "How much longer is on your clock for this
gig?  I seem to remember hearing you could only do stuff like this, clandestine
style I mean, for so long."

"Really, I only have a year left
before I'd return to a regular unit," she admitted, "but with the war
they've let those requirements lapse.  Nobody's gone rogue or crazy yet, which
is the original reason for the time limit."

"Will you stay in after that?"

"I don't know," she admitted. 
"Maybe I can get an engineer's spot on Avenger if I play my cards
right." 

"We both know you'd walk the airlock
out of boredom after a few days of that," Web joked, forcing a smile. 
What would he do if she left the service entirely and they never saw each other
again?

"Maybe we'll have to think of a way
to keep me around."

"Good," Web admitted, "I
didn't want to have to resort to begging."

Evening fell and the pair moved towards
their target, a nondescript building amid an entire sector of the city filled
with identical, boring looking structures.  Only the data provided by
Representative Velk had allowed them to divine the true nature of their target,
which had by extension revealed other buildings with hidden purposes also in
plain sight.  Halley had eventually figured that hiding the buildings in plain
sight have been more effective in the long run than building a fortress for
their sensitive information.

They drove their hovercar, which sported
the colors of the local police force that was assigned to patrol Priman
sectors, around the area, stopping occasionally to walk the beat and be seen. 
Many residents of Faaria were human, so their physical appearance was not
questioned.  As they walked, they also managed to secretly drop a half dozen
powerful satchel charges among the structures, taking almost three hours to do
so.

Finally, after night had fallen, they
stopped at a local diner to have a light supper.  It once would have been
unfathomable to Web that they'd be having a meal and talking about random
issues of the day before blowing up a series of buildings, but he'd become used
to this new life.  He just hoped he didn't get
too
used to it; one day he would actually like to go back to
planning a normal life and thinking about what he'd do after Confed.

"Looks like the buildings are as
clear as they need to be," Halley said softly as she studied the data pad
on the table in between them.  It showed six different floor plans, each one
hand-marked with an X where they'd dropped their explosives, which all happened
to be in places that would be unoccupied or at least sparsely populated this
time of night.  They had both agreed that loss of innocent lives was to be
avoided if in any way possible, since many people in those buildings could very
well be locals that had nothing to do with the war effort.  While some people
would make the argument that those folks inside knew they were working on the
Priman side of things and were therefore fair game, Halley had summed it up
simply by stating that if she was going to kill someone, it was best if they
had earned the privilege.  She'd stopped short of promising a fair fight; the
old maxim among unconventional warriors being that the idea was to stack the
deck as brutally and lopsidedly in your favor as possible.

"Care to do the honors?" she
asked Web, indicating the data pad.

Web shook his head with a smile.  "I
know you love this part.  Go ahead."

One last look at the pad, and she reached
out to tap the key she'd programmed as the trigger.  They weren't too far from
the target buildings; they heard all six explosions distinctly.

"Time to go," she said. 
"Can you leave the tip?"

Unlike Halley and Web, Loren's day had
gone intolerably slow.  He'd briefly called Cory and Merritt and told him he
might ask for a pickup later in the evening, since Echo had told him that after
they inspected the weapon data they might need to leave the area quickly and
apparently AI policy was to travel alone.  Echo had given them only a
mysterious set of coordinates and told them to go there and wait.

They'd sat around, sometimes discussing
the great issues of life, sometimes learning the personal side of each other. 
Echo had been fascinated about Loren's love of flying and how he'd become a
fighter pilot.

Finally, it was time to head to the
location of their quarry.

"The person who purchased the plans
doesn't really understand what he has," said Echo as he drove their
hovercar through the streets of a smallish Faarian city a few hours drive from
the capital.  "He's a collector; rich self-made millionaire who loves
antiquities.  Doesn't much care what planet they came from or what their
purpose was; he just loves the stories, the history.  He purchased the plans as
part of a lot at an auction that also contained some old artwork.  None of it's
been inspected by him, and instead is just sitting in one of the levels of his
mansion's basement."

"And he won't mind us knocking on
the front door?" asked Loren dubiously.

"Oh, we engineered a crisis at his
workplace requiring his presence," Echo said by way of explanation. 
"He'll be gone a couple hours; that's more than enough time to get in and
see the specs."

"So when am I going to have to watch
the thing in action?" Loren asked solemnly.

"Now is as good a time as any,"
Echo replied, and engaged the autodrive function.  He turned to face Loren and
held out a data pad with a video queued up and ready to play.  "This video
was found tucked away in a quiet corner of a public section of the Galactic
Data Net.  Nobody had accessed it in years, so we hid it in an uncharacteristic
act of interference.  We try to be neutral, but something like this was best
left unseen.  You'll understand why."

Echo started the video.  It showed an
immense warship, bigger than a Sabre class fleet carrier, maneuvering to point
at a planet with a swirling mustard-colored atmosphere.  The front of the ship
was a barrel shape, faired down to an opening about the size of a Pulsar class
destroyer.  The rear of the vessel was all engines.  The ship seemed to
shudder, and seconds later a bullet-shaped projectile emerged at blazing speeds
from the barrel that was now boresighted on the planet. 

The projectile raced towards the
unsuspecting globe, gaining speed as the planet's own gravity drew it in
closer.  It plummeted at white-hot speeds through the atmosphere, leaving a
flame wake miles long behind it, but it stayed completely intact, not losing a
single bit of itself to the incredible forces of speed and friction.

Finally, it hit the surface, throwing a
debris plume back up into the stratosphere. 

"How deep does it go?" Loren
asked quietly.  Echo just pointed at the video screen.

A split second later, the projectile
emerged from the other side of the planet, now much the worse for wear and in
several pieces.  In its wake it pulled the guts of the planet with it; rocks,
water that turned to vapor, atmosphere, even a thin trail of solidifying magma
from the planet's core. 

The video switched to a time lapse,
showing continents heaving from the tectonic plates shifting as the planet's
liquid core shifted and changed.  The atmosphere began to dissipate and oceans
heaved as the planet's rotation was altered, picking up a wobble that further
tore the surface apart.

"It takes a couple days after
that," Echo said quietly, "but eventually the planet can't hold
itself together.  The plates collide, roll over each other, volcanoes erupt,
the core empties out or turns solid; basically it flies apart and scatters into
space."

Loren was dumbfounded.  He'd seen some
horrible things in his life, many of them connected to the Priman invasion. 
He'd done some things he wasn't especially proud of, either, but always with
the firm belief that it was the only thing, the right thing, to do.  He didn't
see how the right thing could ever involve destroying an entire planet.

"How in the name of all that's
holy?" he began, looking at Echo.

The AI saw the disbelieving look on
Loren's face and gave him a compassionate smile.  "As I hinted earlier,
it's physics.  The ship is a giant container and gun barrel.  They have a
casing that's the shape of that bullet; it's made out of the hardest material
ever discovered.  The ship contains bunkers of materials that are chemically
fused together as they're injected into the bullet while it's moving down the
carriage inside the barrel; basically, the bullet gets filled up as it
accelerates down the length of the ship.  The material that results inside the
projectile is the heaviest, densest concoction intelligent life has ever
managed to force into existence.  It's heavier than the nucleus of a collapsed
star, which you know can weigh on the order of tons per teaspoon.  It's simply
so damn heavy and dense that nothing can stop it, and once accelerated down the
barrel of that ship to a significant portion of the speed of light it has so
much kinetic energy the people that built the thing couldn't find a way to
measure it.  There's only one shot per ship, and the act of firing it pretty
well tears up the gun mechanism, but that's beside the point, isn't it?  Short
version, Commander Stone, is that they shot the planet.  And it died."