The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle (134 page)

“Four minutes until cislunar incursion,” said Admiral Singh.

“Their long-range weapons could have opened up on Heaven’s Gate long before this,” said General Morpurgo. “They seem to be showing some restraint.”

“They didn’t show much restraint toward our torchships,” said Garion Persov of Diplomacy. The group had been assembled an hour earlier when the sortie of the hastily assembled fleet of a dozen Hegemony torchships had been summarily destroyed by the advancing Swarm. Long-range sensors had relayed the briefest image of that Swarm—a cluster of embers with cometlike fusion tails—before the torchships and their remotes quit broadcasting. There had been many, many embers.

“Those were warships,” said General Morpurgo. “We’ve been broadcasting for hours now that Heaven’s Gate is an open planet. We can hope for restraint.”

The holographic images of Heaven’s Gate surrounded them: the quiet streets of Mudflat, airborne images of the coastline, orbital images of the gray-brown world with its constant cloud cover, cislunar images of the baroque dodecahedron of the singularity sphere which tied together all farcasters, and space-aimed telescopic, UV, and X-ray images of the advancing Swarm—much larger than specks or embers now, at less than one AU. Gladstone looked up at the fusion tails of Ouster warships, the tumbling, containment-field-shimmering massiveness of their asteroid farms and bubble worlds, their complex and oddly nonhuman zero-gravity city complexes, and she thought,
What if I am wrong?

The lives of billions rested on her belief that the Ousters would not wantonly destroy Hegemony worlds.

“Two minutes until incursion,” Singh said in his professional warrior’s monotone.

“Admiral,” said Gladstone, “is it absolutely necessary to destroy the
singularity sphere as soon as the Ousters have penetrated our
cordon sanitaire
? Couldn’t we wait another few minutes to judge their intentions?”

“No, CEO,” answered the Admiral promptly. “The farcaster link must be destroyed as soon as they are within quick assault range.”

“But if your remaining torchships don’t do it, Admiral, we still have the in-system links, the fatline relays, and the timed devices, don’t we?”

“Yes, M. Executive, but we
must
assure that all farcaster capability is removed before the Ousters overrun the system. There can be no compromising this already slim safety margin.”

Gladstone nodded. She understood the need for absolute caution.
If only there were more time
.

“Fifteen seconds until incursion and singularity destruction,” said Singh. “Ten … seven …”

Suddenly all of the torchship and cislunar remote holos glowed violet, red, and white.

Gladstone leaned forward. “Was that the singularity sphere going?”

The military men buzzed amongst themselves, calling up further data, switching images on the holos and screens. “No, CEO,” answered Morpurgo. “The torchships are under attack. What you’re seeing is their defensive fields overloading. The … ah … 
there
.”

A central image, possibly from a low orbital relay ship, showed an enhanced image of the dodecahedronal singularity containment sphere, its thirty thousand square meters of surface still intact, still glowing in the harsh light of Heaven’s Gate’s sun. Then, suddenly, the glow increased, the nearest face of the structure seemed to become incandescent and sag in upon itself, and less than three seconds later the sphere expanded as the caged singularity there escaped and devoured itself as well as everything within a six-hundred-kilometer radius.

At the same instant, most of the visual images and many of the data columns went blank.

“All farcaster connections terminated,” announced Singh. “In-system data now relayed by fatline transmitters only.”

There was a buzz of approval and relief from the military people, something closer to a sigh and soft moan from the dozens of senators and political advisors present. The world of Heaven’s Gate had just been amputated from the Web … the first such loss of a Hegemony world in more than four centuries.

Gladstone turned to Sedeptra Akasi. “What is travel time to Heaven’s Gate from the Web now?”

“By Hawking drive, seven months onboard,” said the aide without a pause to access, “a little over nine years time-debt.”

Gladstone nodded. Heaven’s Gate was now nine years distant from the nearest Web world.

“There go our torchships,” intoned Singh. The view had been from one of the orbital pickets, relayed through the jerky, false-color images of high-speed fatline squirts being computer processed in rapid progression. The images were visual mosaics, but they always made Gladstone think of the earliest silent films from the dawn of the Media Age. But this was no Charlie Chaplin comedy. Two, then five, then eight bursts of brilliant light blossomed against the starfield above the limb of the planet.

“Transmissions from HS
Niki Weimart
, HS
Terrapin
, HS
Cornet
, and HS
Andrew Paul
have ceased,” reported Singh.

Barbre Dan-Gyddis raised a hand. “What about the other four ships, Admiral?”

“Only the four mentioned had FTL-comm capability. The pickets confirm that radio, maser, and wideband commlinks from the other four torchships also have ceased. The visual data …” Singh stopped and gestured toward the image relayed from the automatic picket ship: eight expanding and fading circles of light, a starfield crawling with fusion tails and new lights. Suddenly even that image went blank.

“All orbital sensors and fatline relays terminated,” said General Morpurgo. He gestured, and the blackness was replaced with images of the streets of Heaven’s Gate with the inevitable low-lying clouds. Aircraft added shots above the clouds—a sky gone crazy with moving stars.

“All reports confirm total destruction of the singularity sphere,” said Singh. “Advance units of the Swarm now entering high orbit around Heaven’s Gate.”

“How many people are left there?” asked Gladstone. She was leaning forward, her elbows on the table, her hands folded very tightly.

“Eighty-six thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine,” said Defense Minister Imoto.

“That doesn’t count the twelve thousand Marines who were farcast in during the past two hours,” added General Van Zeidt.

Imoto nodded toward the General.

Gladstone thanked them and returned her attention to the holos. The data columns floating above and their extracts on the faxpads, comlogs, and table panels held the pertinent data—numbers of Swarm craft now in-system, number and types of ships in orbit, projected
braking orbits and time curves, energy analyses and comm-band intercepts—but Gladstone and the others were watching the relatively uninformative and unchanging fatlined images from the aircraft and surface cameras: stars, cloud tops, streets, the view from Atmospheric Generating Station Heights out over the Mudflat Promenade where Gladstone herself had stood less than twelve hours earlier. It was night there. Giant horsetail ferns moved to silent breezes blowing in from the bay.

“I think they’ll negotiate,” Senator Richeau was saying. “First they’ll present us with this
fait accompli
, nine worlds overrun, then they’ll negotiate and negotiate hard for a new balance of power. I mean, even if both of their invasion waves succeeded, that would be twenty-five worlds out of almost two hundred in the Web and Protectorate.”

“Yes,” said Head of Diplomacy Persov, “but don’t forget, Senator, that these include some of our most strategically important worlds … 
this
one, for example. TC
²
is only two hundred and thirty-five hours behind Heaven’s Gate on the Ouster timetable.”

Senator Richeau stared Persov down. “I’m well aware of that,” she said coldly. “I’m merely saying that the Ousters cannot have true conquest on their minds. That would be pure folly on their part. Nor will FORCE allow the second wave to penetrate so deeply. Certainly this so-called invasion is a prelude to negotiation.”

“Perhaps,” said Nordholm’s Senator Roanquist, “but such negotiations would necessarily depend upon—”

“Wait,” said Gladstone.

The data columns now showed more than a hundred Ouster warcraft in orbit around Heaven’s Gate. Ground forces there had been instructed not to fire unless fired upon, and no activity was visible in the thirty-some views being fatlined to the War Room. Suddenly, however, the cloud cover above Mudflat City glowed as if giant searchlights had been turned on. A dozen broad beams of coherent light stabbed down into the bay and the city, continuing the searchlight illusion, appearing to Gladstone as if giant white columns had been erected between the ground and the ceiling of clouds.

That illusion ended abruptly as a whirlwind of flame and destruction erupted at the base of each of these hundred-meter-wide columns of light. The water of the bay boiled until huge geysers of steam occluded the nearer cameras. The view from the heights showed century-old stone buildings in the town erupting into flame, imploding as if a tornado were moving amongst them. The Web-famous gardens and
commons of the Promenade erupted in flame, exploded in dirt and flying debris as if an invisible plow were moving across them. Horsetail ferns two centuries old bent as if before a hurricane wind, burst into flame, and were gone.

“Lances from a
Bowers
-class torchship,” Admiral Singh said into the silence. “Or its Ouster equivalent.”

The city was burning, exploding, being plowed into rubble by the light columns and then being torn asunder again. There were no audio channels on these fatlined images, but Gladstone imagined that she could hear screams.

One by one, the ground cameras went black. The view from the Atmospheric Generating Station Heights disappeared in a white flash. Airborne cameras were already gone. The twenty or so other ground-based images began winking out, one in a terrible burst of crimson that left everyone in the room rubbing their eyes,

“Plasma explosion,” said Van Zeidt. “Low megaton range.” The view had been of a FORCE: Marine air defense complex north of the Intercity Canal.

Suddenly all images ceased. Dataflow ended. The room lights began to come up to compensate for a darkness so sudden that it took everyone’s breath away.

“The primary fatline transmitter’s gone,” said General Morpurgo. “It was at the main FORCE base near High Gate. Buried under our strongest containment field, fifty meters of rock, and ten meters of whiskered stalloy.”

“Shaped nuclear charges?” asked Barbre Dan-Gyddis.

“At least,” said Morpurgo.

Senator Kolchev rose, his Lusian bulk emanating an almost ursine sense of strength. “All right. This isn’t some goddamned negotiating ploy. The Ousters have just reduced a Web world to ashes. This is all-out, give-no-mercy warfare. The survival of civilization is at stake. What do we do now?”

All eyes turned toward Meina Gladstone.

The Consul dragged a semiconscious Theo Lane from the wreckage of the skimmer and staggered fifty meters with the younger man’s arm over his shoulder before collapsing on a stretch of grass beneath trees along the bank of the Hoolie River. The skimmer was not on fire, but it lay crumpled against the collapsed stone wall where it had finally
skidded to a halt. Bits of metal and ceramic polymers lay strewn along the riverbank and abandoned avenue.

The city was burning. Smoke obscured the view across the river, and this part of Jacktown, the Old Section, looked as if several pyres had been lighted where thick columns of black smoke rose toward the low cloud ceiling. Combat lasers and missile trails continued to streak through the haze, sometimes exploding against the assault dropships, parafoils, and suspension-field bubbles which continued to drop through the clouds like chaff blown from a recently harvested field.

“Theo, are you all right?”

The Governor-General nodded and moved to push his glasses higher on his nose … stopping in confusion as he realized that his glasses were gone. Blood streaked Theo’s forehead and arms. “Hit my head,” he said groggily.

“We need to use your comlog,” said the Consul. “Get someone here to pick us up.”

Theo nodded, lifted his arm, and frowned at his wrist. “Gone,” he said. “Comlog’s gone. Gotta look in the skimmer.” He tried to get to his feet.

The Consul pulled him back down. They were in the shelter of a few ornamental trees here, but the skimmer was exposed, and their landing had been no secret. The Consul had glimpsed several armored troops moving down an adjacent street as the skimmer pancaked in for its crash landing. They might be SDF or Ousters or even Hegemony Marines, but the Consul imagined that they would be trigger-happy whatever their loyalties.

“Never mind that,” he said. “We’ll get to a phone. Call the consulate.” He looked around, identified the section of warehouses and stone buildings where they had crashed. Upriver a few hundred meters, an old cathedral stood abandoned, its chapter house crumbling and overhanging the riverbank

“I know where we are,” said the Consul. “It’s just a block or two to Cicero’s. Come on.” He lifted Theo’s arm over his head and onto his shoulders, pulling the injured man to his feet.

“Cicero’s, good,” muttered Theo. “Could use a drink.”

The rattle of fléchette fire and an answering sizzle of energy weapons came from the street to their south. The Consul took as much of Theo’s weight as he could and half-walked, half-staggered along the narrow lane beside the river.

·   ·   ·

“Oh damn,” the Consul whispered.

Cicero’s was burning. The old bar and inn—as old as Jacktown and much older than most of the capital—had lost three of its four sagging riverfront buildings to the flames, and only a determined bucket brigade of patrons was saving the last section.

“I see Stan,” said the Consul, pointing to the huge figure of Stan Leweski standing near the head of the bucket brigade line. “Here.” The Consul helped Theo to a sitting position under an elm tree along the walkway. “How’s your head?”

“Hurts.”

“I’ll be right back with help,” said the Consul and moved as quickly as he could down the narrow lane toward the men.