Plague Wars 06: Comes the Destroyer (35 page)

“This is more satisfactory,” One said. “Our molecules are rising.”

“The two-ship concept failed,” said Three.

“It is you who fail to understand,” One replied. “This has worked out well both for us and for the Empire. We have advanced our trium, and the True Race had an additional Destroyer to sacrifice when the unexpected Human attack came. Now we have destroyed or avoided their pathetically slow forces and have absorbed most of the substance of 6223-2. Our ship is larger now than when we traveled between stars.”

“But not as large as it could have been,” Two interjected. “Still, all in all, our lot has improved.”

“Thank you for that resounding endorsement,” One said.

“I only wish to maintain accuracy in our assessments.”

“Yes, accuracy is important,” Three chimed in.

One’s gelatinous body shook with irritation. “You could be promoted three ranks tomorrow and still find bad news.”

“I am concerned,” Two said. “You and Command both claimed these Humans would be pushovers. Yet they mounted a significant attack a great distance from their home system. Their forces are slow, but numerous, and if their fusion missiles were more accurate they could easily have killed us. Perhaps we should seek reinforcements.”

“Now you aspire to Command? Perhaps you should forward advice upward on how to proceed. I am sure Commander One would be happy to taste your words. Many things could kill us. Running into a comet could kill us. Larger forces of the Empire are undoubtedly on the way. We cannot hasten that day. We can only try to eliminate Species 666 while we can, or do as much damage as possible. We live for the Empire.”

“We live for the Empire,” the two others repeated, and both subsided in their holding tanks, effectively ending the conversation.

One wondered whether he had been too harsh, but decided not. Three was skilled enough but always worried, but he was surprised at Two’s doubts. The road to advancement was never simple or easy for one of the Pure Race.

Some time later, after much of the routine of their first day on the job had been dispensed with, One called another conference, after ensuring the enemy remained far behind.

“I wanted to pass on what I have found out regarding our future,” he began. Two put on an appearance of guarded interest, while Three seemed worried, as usual.

“Please go on, One. Your observations are always insightful,” Two said.

“Agreed. I have been reviewing the routine reports from all sections, available on the intraship informational web, and I have deduced that we are circling around to enter the enemy solar system from a significantly differing direction.”

“What good will that do?” Three asked. “Our drive cannot be concealed.”

“Perhaps. But before we enter their system, we will be conducting certain operations among these comets around us. I have not been able to determine their exact nature, but we are already slowing our headlong flight in order to match velocities with some of the free-floaters.”

“What about the enemy!”

“Calm yourself,” Two said sternly. “They no longer pursue us, but have turned back for their system. However, they will not get home in time to affect our plans. They are low on fuel and expendable munitions. Machine technology cannot easily resupply, but we are undoubtedly pausing for Destroyer 6223 to consume material.”

“Well said, Two,” One replied. “However, there is something unusual about our projected course. One short stop should be sufficient to resupply ourselves. One long stop would allow us to continue to grow the ship and keep our consumables topped off. Instead, it appears we plan to stop in no fewer than sixteen different places.”

“What could be Commander’s purpose?”

“What indeed?” One said. “What do you think?” He enjoyed the power that greater knowledge and a greater intellect gave him to lord it over his subordinates.

“In Commander’s place, I might employ stellar bombardment tactics,” Two mused. “The recent engagement showed that we are closer in force parity than first thought. Perhaps he seeks to complicate their defense plans.”

“Excellent, Two. That is precisely what I came up with already. Aside from consuming as much as possible, growing and laying in stocks of weapons and auxiliaries, I suspect he will place bombardment modules on all available free-floaters.”

Two rippled his integument, the equivalent of a human clearing his throat. “We should prepare for this eventuality using your deductions. This will allow us to be more efficient than others when the time comes. We might even file a suggestive report to increase others’ effectiveness – but not enough to outdo us.”

“An excellent idea. I see you are finally absorbing my mental processes,” One replied. “If we can figure out how, perhaps I – I mean we – can submit another report that will impress Command in some way. Once we conquer this species, the higher our status, the greater our options. Perhaps we can gain command of a ship again, something larger than a Survey craft.”

Two sloshed in agreement, while Three turned his main eyeball away, as if unsure. One resolved to keep a secondary eye on that one, in case his nerve broke. He seemed to be growing less dependable, though he had performed adequately during the battle.

Some Meme rise to stressful occasions
, One thought,
and some Meme seem to have only so much fortitude before they crumble.
Three seems one of the latter.

It remained to be seen about Two.

The text window popped up as Vango Markis stared out like a god over the solar system. With nothing else to do as he cruised back home, he had been running tactical plots of where he thought the Destroyer went and what he could do about it if he was in command.

A stylized clock counted down with a time-sped blur, presumably to allow him to mentally prepare himself, then the universe went away, leaving him staring at a screen. Obviously whoever had intruded on his waking dream was making sure he paid attention. Then words appeared.

Your A-24 Avenger II is now being automatically processed by the EarthFleet Auxiliary Ship
Gladstone.
When completed, your A-24 Avenger II will be fully fueled and armed, and all battle damage repaired. If any issues occur, you will be informed.

“Huh,” he said to himself, and then the slide changed.

Your A-24 Avenger II service has been completed. All systems read nominal. Good luck, Flight Lieutenant Vincent Jonah Markis, and good hunting.

The screen of words disappeared. Hastily Vango dialed down his time sense back to realtime as he realized that the servicing had actually taken hours if not days, though it flew by in seconds for him. Back in his virtuality, he moved his viewpoint outside his ship to see the
Gladstone
and two other auxiliaries frantically servicing Aardvarks.

Grabships, with their two huge padded waldoes extending from the nose like mechanical arms and hands, seized the little warships one by one and maneuvered them into enclosed docking bays like big missile tubes. As soon as one had been placed inside, the door shut and presumably the atmosphere was restored to allow the maintainers to work in relative comfort.

He tried to move his viewpoint inside the
Gladstone
but encountered a null zone of no data, so instead he waited until one of the docking bays opened its doors. The Aardvark he viewed flew gently backward and out, pushed by a low-speed ram, and a grabship, well,
grabbed
it as soon as it was clear, hauling it off to set it in position several kilometers away. Attack ship drives were too hot to use near the motherships.

Other Aardvarks cruised, lined up in precise rows pointing toward the distant solar system. Occasionally an attitude jet flared, keeping a ship on station. Vango’s display told him they were about three months from the solar system at their current slow speed, but he had to believe that once everyone was topped off they would accelerate to shave off time.

Another query showed the projected path of the enemy, hundreds of billions of kilometers off to the side. Confirmed sightings dropped off near another cluster of comets and asteroids whose distance was better stated as more than a light-week away. That data was over a month old. He wondered if his ship had been updated by the
Gladstone
or was he still running on just the A-24 network.

Next he looked at the orders queue, hoping their reduced force, now given their stings back, would turn to intercept, but it was not to be. Instead, they would proceed by wings and squadrons toward Grissom Base on Callisto, taking advantage of their interior lines, falling back on their defenses, regrouping for the defense.

Of course, orders could always be changed. Otherwise, why bother to rearm the Aardvarks? Though General Yeager was gone, Vango was sure the Fleet’s leaders were keeping their options open.

Besides…he pulled back and oriented himself above the plane of the solar ecliptic, and manually projected a course for the Destroyer. If it kept curving inward toward the sun and Earth, the fleet’s course still generally aimed for an interception. Vango superimposed a scale on his view in astronomical units, a compromise between light-hours and kilometers. Earth was one AU out, by definition. Callisto orbited Jupiter at about ten AU from the sun. Pluto’s orbit varied, but could generally be called fifty AU out.

Vango and the fleet were only one hundred AU out, much closer than they had been for the fight. Expending all fuel, they might be able to get home in a week. Without accelerating, three months. He figured reality would fall somewhere in the middle, so that they could arrive with enough gas to fight, sometime before the enemy got there.

Now he ran the numbers. It appeared just under fifteen thousand ships remained combat capable. The rest had either been lost, or were too badly damaged to put back in service. Presumably their pilots were being decanted and faced a long trip home, even longer if the auxiliaries intended to go out to the battlefield to search for survivors.

Perhaps the drifting men and women would just be written off as too expensive to recover. He forced his mind away from contemplating that, and said a prayer for them.

Speeding up his time sense once more, his apparent velocity leaped forward as the edge of the solar system rushed toward him. It only seemed like hours before he reached Pluto’s orbit and had to slow down to begin to read and absorb the long queue of intelligence updates that awaited him. When he got tired of catching up, he slowed himself further to normal and slept.

In this manner he and the rest of the fleet returned to Callisto base.

While he expected a homecoming, he was not prepared for the sustained appreciation of everyone there and, at a distance, that of the people of Earth.
We’re heroes
, he thought.
The half of us that survived. I guess it’s always that way. Grandpa and Dad always told me that heroism is just about doing your job the best you can, and living through it. I guess they were right.

Never having to buy a drink was nice, but not being left alone got old, so after a while he settled down to a life of hard training, visiting Aunt Jill – too bad Uncle Rick was gone back to
Orion
– and hanging out with Token. A few of the female pilots made passes at him, but after Stevie, he just wasn’t interested in risking his heart again, or even being distracted from the mission.

Nothing mattered but that damned Destroyer, waiting off the rim of the solar system like a lion in the darkness. In his mind, in his dreams, it roared and lusted for his blood.

Today even more people packed in for the special meeting to come, both of the two shifts doubling the usual numbers, plus a slew of other personnel that did not work there. In a room that normally held five hundred, at least two thousand milled.

Because he happened to be on shift and sat in his usual seat, Lieutenant Commander Rick Johnstone didn’t have to stand, or sit on a desk like many. In fact, he cheated a bit and linked directly into one of the teleconference cameras so the system fed his optic nerves with direct views, a good thing because of the crowding.

Johnstone already knew much of what would be briefed, but this was the first time it had been laid out in front of the entire EarthFleet command and staff. At least forty flag officers circulated, their presence a natural result of the growth of EarthFleet and its bureaucracy. Still relatively lean for a military service, many senior personnel commanded elsewhere around the solar system.

Conversation died and everyone came to their feet as Admiral Absen entered and took the podium at one end, his aides and stewards taking places behind him. As usual, he wore his working khakis. Johnstone thought he had seldom met such an unpretentious flag officer.

“Take your seats, such as they are, ladies and gentlemen,” Absen began. “Everyone can read a report, but in less than two days EarthFleet will engage the enemy again, and I wanted to give you all as clear an overview as possible of the big picture. Slide please.”

Behind him the giant screen and all of the supplemental displays scattered around showed a top view picture of the main solar system out to Neptune filling the left half. A red icon and a trailing arrow from the right depicted what could only be the Destroyer, almost to Neptune’s orbit line, though the planet itself was nowhere near.

“As you can see, here is the enemy ship’s position, about forty hours out from Earth, inbound at roughly point three lightspeed. We’ll return to that later. Next.” The unseen audiovisual controller clicked to the next slide.