Exodus: Machine War 1 Supernova. (11 page)

“Hangar One,”
said the voice over the com.

“Chief, this is
the Captain.  I want a shuttle prepped.  I’m going down to the planet.”

“Destination,
ma’am?  If you don’t mind me asking.”

“The alpha
excavation site.  I want to get up close and personal with one of those
constructs.”

*     *     *

Merriwether
Lewis
sat fifty-five light hours from
Big Bastard
, just outside the
hyper VI limit.  A number of recon probes were deployed further in, watching
the star, sending their telemetry at light speed to the cruiser.  They were
also in contact with the ship through grav pulse, not really transmitting all
that much information, but letting the cruiser know almost instantaneously when
there was a major change in the enormous fusion furnace that was the star.

And I still
really don’t like this
, thought Captain Walther Huang, sitting in his
bridge command chair and staring at the holo that showed the bloated blue white
body of the star, massive prominences rising and falling by the second.

The plan was for
them to jump into hyper VI as soon as the star blew and head back to the star
of Klassek, on a least time profile.  It would take less than one day to get
there, and they would send a grav pulse signal, as well as a com laser, as soon
as they translated out at the hyper I barrier.  That would give the Imperial
force almost six months warning.

And everyone
believes, based on the data, that it won’t blow or another nine and a half
months.  I should be comfortable with that estimate as well.  But it’s
different when you’re sitting next to the biggest time bomb in the Perseus Arm,
hoping that the timer is set to the correct setting.

“I almost wish
the show would start,” said Commander Stephanie Harrison, the Exec, standing by
the Captain’s chair.  She was off duty, but, like many of the other bridge
crew, she was drawn here, where the commands would be given when
Big Bastard
blew.

“I don’t think
the Admiral would like that,” said the Captain with a smile.  “And I’m damn
sure the Klassekians wouldn’t be too enthused by the idea of an earlier show
time.”

“I was doing
some research on supernovas, Captain,” said the Exec, who had advanced training
in astrophysics, just below the doctoral level.  “You know, these things
release a shitload of gravitons when they blow.”

“So.  I would
expect as much, with the damned twenty-eight solar masses of material being
blasted away from their point source out into the Universe.”

“The problem is,
sir, that it effects hyperspace as well.  We won’t be able to pick up any
transit signals through any of the dimensions.”

“I don’t think
that will be that big a problem, Exec.  There aren’t a lot of ships running
around here for us to track.”

“There’s also a
theory that we might see some other effects,” said the Exec with a frown.

“Like what?”

“Problems
entering and leaving hyper, for one.”  The Exec smiled as she watched the
expression on the Captain’s.  “Of course, this is all theoretical.  There is a
lot of disagreement about the effects on hyper, as no one has tried to enter or
leave hyper in the vicinity of a supernova before.  In fact, the last known
supernova in this arm was six hundred and thirty-two years ago, and it was over
two hundred light years from civilization.”

“Then how do we
know so much about them?” asked the Captain, a worried expression on his face.

“Long range
observation.  With grav lensing, we can see them almost like we’re there.”

“Thanks for
telling me this, Exec,” said the Captain with a grimace.  “I feel so much
better about sitting here now.”

“My pleasure,
sir,” said the other officer with a smile.  “I figure if I have to sit around
for the next nine months worrying about this, the guy who makes the decisions
should have to worry as well.”

Chapter Nine

We tend to think that we have
this space thing licked.  The truth is, we are still relative newcomers to
space, having only traversed it for less that twenty-five hundred years.  We
have evidence of species that had traveled space for a hundred thousand years,
and they too had their limitations.  I believe there are a lot more surprises
out there than we think, and we shouldn’t grow so complacent.

Industrialist Yang Chung, the
Year 754.

NOVEMBER 20
^TH
, 1000. 
D-228.

Captain Mandy
Albright had started off in the small craft pilot track before switching to the
tactical track, then the series of others that were required for command of a
starship.  She still loved the feel of a shuttle or other small craft under her
hand, though she didn’t have much chance to pilot anymore.  So she took
advantage of the opportunity to sit the pilot’s seat on this trip, relegating
Ensign Nguyen Dat to the co-chair.

She was not
surprised to discover that the young Ensign was a relative, distant, to the
Admiral.  Many families had a tradition in the Fleet.  And some had that tradition
in certain areas of the Fleet, like the Command.

“How am I doing,
Dat?” she asked the Ensign as she cut into the atmosphere on manual, the only
way a real pilot would fly the transition from vacuum to planetside.

“Fine, ma’am,”
said the youngster, who was regarded as the hottest pilot on the
Clark.
 
“You still have the touch.”

Flatterer
,
thought the Captain with a silent chuckle.  But she could feel how steady her
own hand was on the stick, as the craft shook slightly from the turbulence of
hypersonic travel.

I better slow
it down
, she thought as they penetrated into the denser atmosphere.  She
checked the scope, looking for those fighters that had been playing chicken
with so many shuttle flights.  There was nothing to be seen, and the best
stealth the aliens had stood out like a flashing strobe to Imperial sensors. 
It only took the shuttle minutes to go from orbit to atmosphere, and, with full
stealth systems engaged, the Honish had not had time to scramble their aircraft
on an intercept.

But now that
they were deep into the air, with the shuttle traveling at high Mach, they were
producing prodigious amounts of friction generated heat, making them easy to
spot.

“The site is
just beyond these mountains,” said Nguyen, pointing to the high peaks ahead. 
The valley between was a favorite route to the site, due to the beauty of the
scenery at this altitude.

Mandy checked
the sensors and saw that the altitude of the valley between the two highest
peaks was about four thousand meters, and she dropped the shuttle to
forty-three hundred and slowed to just over Mach 2.  The mountains towered
thousands of meters higher to each side, and the pass was more than wide enough
for safe flight through.  She caught sight of several lower mountains behind
the high range.

“Warning,”
called out the craft’s computer.  “We are being impacted by targeting systems.”

Nguyen looked
down at his panel.  “We’re being painted with targeting sensors.”

“Theirs?”

“No, ma’am. 
Ours.”

Albright engaged
the craft’s defensive systems, which would have defeated any targeting systems
the aliens possessed.  But their own technology was made to defeat defensive
systems like their own.  Not one hundred percent, but close enough.

“Second source
is locking on,” called out Nguyen.

“Locking
missiles on sources,” said Albright, opening the ordnance doors and reaching
for the trigger on the stick.  “You all hang on back there,” she called over
the intercom to her passengers, a pair of ratings and a Marine along for
security.

“We have….”

Nguyen never had
a chance to finish his statement that the missiles targeting them had
launched.  Those weapons left their launchers at eight thousand gravities
acceleration, streaking the eight and ten kilometers from their respective
launch sites and heading into the shuttle in less than a thousandth of a
second.

One missile, the
closest, was hit by an automatic defensive laser and broke apart.  The warhead
exploded five hundred meters from the shuttle, sending a wave of shrapnel into
the left side of the craft.  Most of it broke up on the tough armor, though
some of the larger pieces penetrated, one to pass through the armored body of
one of the ratings, pureeing her internal organs within her suit.

The second
missile streaked in, a clean miss by the defensive laser, to strike the rear of
the shuttle.  The two hundred ton equivalent antimatter warhead detonated as
the weapon penetrated through the armor and into the rear cargo compartment. 
The blast tossed the shuttle over and down, and it headed into the mountains at
Mach 3.

The autoeject
system worked perfectly, at least for those it worked for at all.  Albright had
an instant of awareness as her straps locked into place, and the armored panels
that made up her escape capsule moved so quickly into place that they seemed to
teleport.  Foam injected into the capsule, filling up the spaces between the
shell and her suit.  An instant later the capsule was ejected from the craft,
and the dazed officer realized she was going to survive.

The capsule
headed for the nearest flat area, touching down gently, the metal panels
falling away, the foam evaporating in an instant, leaving the Captain in her
seat, enclosed in her battle armor. 
My people
, was her first thought,
and she checked her HUD to ascertain their locations.  A red icon showed up
down the valley, an indication of the homing beacon of one of the spacers whose
life functions had terminated.  She turned her head and saw two more beacons
appear, Nguyen and the Marine.  She breathed a sigh of relief as she noted that
both icons were green.

Uh oh
,
she thought as she focused in on Nguyen, who was unmoving in his seat, and saw
movement down the valley, working their way to the position of the Ensign.  She
zoomed in on the people, and saw that they were dressed in very good low tech
cammo, weapons in hand.  Including what looked like a stolen particle beam
rifle.

We fell for
their trap, sending shuttle after shuttle through this same spot, just asking
for it.
  She pulled her pistol from its holster and pushed some studs on
the receiver.  The scope rose into place, while a wire stock extended from the
back.  She got into a prone position and took aim at the alien with the
particle beam.

“What do you
want me to do, ma’am,” asked the Marine, Private DeGeorgio, over the com.

“Do you see
those people heading for Nguyen?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“When I fire at
the one with the beam weapon, you take out the man to the rear, then switch to
the point.”

“Can do, ma’am.”

Albright took
aim, placing her cross hairs right on the chest of the alien with the beam
weapon.  It was a flat trajectory weapon, the protons traveling at such
velocity that there would be no drop off, no deflection due to wind.  Where the
crosshairs were set the beam would strike.

Mandy squeezed
the trigger, and the dark red beam, buzzing like a million angry bees,
connected the barrel of her pistol with the chest of the alien.

With a spurt of
red steam the torso of the alien disappeared, vaporized by the terrific heat
generated by the transfer of kinetic energy.  She moved the beam down a bit and
hit the receiver of the rifle, vaporizing plastics, melting alloys, and
basically rendering the weapon useless.

The beam from
the Marine’s rifle hit the trailing guerilla at almost the same instant, with
similar if even greater results.  Just over a second later the point man, or
the half of his mass that was left, hit the ground.

“I’m going for
Nguyen,” she told the Marine over the com.  “Cover me.”

“Maybe I should
go, ma’am.”

“You’ve got the
better weapon, so you cover,” she growled, jumping to her feet and flying down
the slope on her grabbers.

Some rounds
cracked by, one striking her helmet and bouncing away.  She wasn’t worried
about their personal weapons, not with her armor.  She was concerned about any
shoulder fired antitank weapons they might have, which could damage her suit,
and possibly penetrate.

The Marine’s
particle beam buzzed, twice.  The second time, the loud crump of an explosion
sounded, and Albright raised her eyes to see a cloud of smoke and dust where an
alien had once been.

“That last one
had one of their shoulder fired rocket launchers, ma’am.  I was thinking that
you really didn’t want to test your suit against that one.”

“Thanks,” she
told the Marine, stopping her suit and settling to the ground next to Nguyen. 
She checked the vitals of the Ensign, sighing again as his signs showed that
though he was unconscious, he was not in any danger. 
At least until those
fanatics get a hold of him and make him a hostage.  Or an example of how to
take a head off.
  She unstrapped the Ensign, ran a wire from her suit to
his, and took to the air, his suit now slaved to hers.

She landed the
both of them next to the Marine.  “Set your suit to full stealth.  I want us
well out of this area.  Have you tried to contact the ship?”

“I have, ma’am. 
But something is jamming us.”

The damned
launchers
, she thought.  They had the functionality to jam the defensive
systems of targeted craft, giving the missile a much better chance of
penetrating the defensive envelope.  But with a little tweaking, they could
also jam com.  And obviously the aliens had figured out how to tweak it. 
Probably
thanks to the damned holo manuals that were built into them.
  Each launcher
had four ready rounds in it.  They had to have used two launchers to fire at
her shuttle, based on how closely spaced the launches were. 
So, they have
six more shots, and the hope of luring more of our aircraft into range.  And
we’ve got to give them something else to think about.

“How are you at
guerilla warfare, Private DeGeorgio?”

*     *     *

“We’re picking
up radiation consistent with plutonium, Lt,” said the Corporal in charge of the
perimeter patrol.  “I think it’s coming from that vehicle parked on the
roadside.”

“Check it out,
Gallager,” ordered Lt. Dietz, the officer in charge of the excavation site
security.  “But be careful.  These people do have nuclear capabilities.”

No shit
,
thought the Corporal, who had some coursework in physics through the Command
Education Program. 
Plutonium’s not something they’re just going to find lying
around.

The van like
conveyance had a couple of aliens around it, both looking with what appeared to
be nervous expressions at the advancing Marines in their ton of armor.  A
couple of kilometers up the road was a moderate sized town of about twenty thousand,
so there was always traffic.  And people stopping to gawk at the humans.  In
fact, this vehicle, being a hundred meters outside the perimeter, would not
have attracted much attention except for the fact that it was emitting rads.

“Hey,” yelled
the Corporal over the speaker of his heavy battle armor, the translation
program translating their speech into the local lingo.  “What are you doing out
here?”

“We’re having
engine trouble,” said the smaller of the pair.  “We were just about to walk
into town and arrange for a tow.”

“We’re picking
up some strange readings from your vehicle,” said Gallager, motioning for one
of his men to keep the pair covered with his particle beam.  “I have to ask you
to open the vehicle so we can check it out.”

“What gives you
the right to stop us and search us like common criminals,” said the larger of
the aliens.

“Stand where you
are,” ordered the Corporal, pointing at the two aliens, then walking up to the
van and grabbing the door handle.  He pulled and discovered that it was locked,
then looked over at the aliens.  “Would you mind unlocking this door.”

“I refuse,” said
the smallest alien, while the larger’s nervous eyes kept moving from Marine to
Marine.

“Suit yourself,”
said Gallager, gripping the handle tightly, then ripping the door open, the
strength of his suit tearing through the metal.  The door slid open, revealing
a large cylinder sitting in the cargo compartment.  It would be the last thing
the Corporal would ever see.

The device was a
twenty megaton warhead, a city killer.  It was much larger than a comparable
Imperial weapon, if they had even used fission/fusion warheads anymore.  The
van was being monitored from afar, taking the triggering of the device out of
the hands of the beings that had driven it there.  They might not have the
nerve to push the button while they were in the blast range.  Instead, they
were spared from making that decision when the triggering signal was sent from
scores of kilometers away.

The fireball
reached out to over four kilometers in each direction, encompassing the
excavation site and the ancient arch, as well as the nearby town.  The blast
radius, over six kilometers, exerted pressures of up to eighteen thousand
kilograms per square meter, destroying steel reinforced concrete buildings as
if they were made of cardboard.  Out to thirteen kilometers that blast wave was
strong enough to destroy anything made of wood or plastic.  The heat was fierce
out to forty kilometers, and any life forms within that range suffered third
degree burns.

Heavy combat
suits were tough, and even a nuclear blast with a zero point less than a meter
away was not enough to destroy the Marines’ armor.  Even the radiation, enough
to kill any life form instantly, could only push through a dose that would
prove fatal in a short time, but no more.  The suits were lifted into the air
by the blast effect, and the concussive effect of the explosion killed the
Marines within their armor before they knew what was happening.