War of Alien Aggression 5 Cozen's War (15 page)

The eighty-seven gravity bombs detonated in series. While the artificial gravity pulse from the
first
bomb still echoed in the homeworld moon, the
next
bomb detonated, precisely timed to build upon the gravity field distortion generated by the first device and produce a synergistic effect. The third detonation built further on this combined wave pulse as did the fourth detonation and so on and so on, making the series of well-timed gravity pulses exponentially more powerful than a simultaneous detonation.

The entire firing sequence of all eighty-two devices lasted less than ten seconds. At the very height of the effect, the weaponized artificial gravity pulled matter towards it with the power a miniature black hole, exerting an attraction equal to what would have been produced by a dwarf star briefly hovering only five-thousand meters over the homeworld moon.

The gravity tore at the surface below it, lifting it, reducing the weight of the crust and its ability to keep the moon's tidally heated insides contained. Although the force of the effect decreased by the square of the distance, the effect of the weapon extended
through
the molten mantle and into the burning core. At the very same time the mass of the crust on
one
side of the aliens' homeworld moon was lifted, the weapon actually increased the upwards pressure from below.

After the flashes in the atmo, in the seconds immediately after all devices had detonated, hairline cracks appeared over the face of the entire moon. The jagged eggshell canals multiplied and branched like jagged rivers as they widened. Gasses vented and jetted from the fissures just before the eruptions began.

Pulverizing quakes blurred the distended, bulging surface in the pregnant moment before the insides of the homeworld moon burst out through the shattered crust in an explosion so large and so violent that much of the debris was propelled beyond escape velocity and hurled down towards the bloody gas giant.

Dust and sulfur clouds and steam cloaked the surface, but in infrared, it was easy to see the heat from the magma. The mega-volcano that erupted under the detonations stretched across nearly 20% of the moon's face. Its magma blew into the skies and spread across the surface, rolling over the landscape like a tidal wave while the fracturing and the quakes continued everywhere. The fissures multiplied across both sides of the broken moon, and magma flowed up and out of every one. Molten rock covered the surface, and where the flooding edges of the lava fields met they left no doubt the seventy-billion Squidies living in their nests underground were gone...dead and gone, burned and buried forever.

*****

The alien dreadnought steamed so close that Dana could see the human skull painted on its side using only her naked eyes. So many warheads detonated over that hulking ship that it burned red as it came steaming through the last of the Privateers, cutting up one ship after the next.

Once it broke
Pont Neuf
’s back and severed her spine, it came for
Hardway
.

"
Ms. Sellis, bring us around to face it," Cozen said. He thumbed comms to the only remaining railgun battery. Across the valley of zero-gee flames between the midships battery and the command tower, the gun crew waited on his word. They only had one more salvo to fire...the one before impact.
 

Dana Sellis knew what Harry Cozen would ask for next. The NAV script was already loaded for a collision course at maximum acceleration.

Araby
and fired on the alien dreadnought’s flanks with impotent fury as it bore down on
Hardway
. The biggest of the alien battleship's guns stabbed from its towers and cut through the bowplate and burning forward batteries like it was splitting a sausage. Superheated plasma shot out holes in the hull as far back as the secondary bays, and molten gore sprayed out into space with it.

"
It’s going to split us down the spine!" Dana mashed at the blurring console in front of her and tried to throw the ship out of its line, but none of the maneuvering thrusters would respond.
 

"
Lt. Commander Sellis," Cozen had to shout over the sound of the vibrations coming up through their feet and shaking them inside their suits. "Prepare to ram the enemy on my comman-" His voice went silent as suddenly the enemy guns. The shaking stopped. The rivers of hyper-accelerated nuclei streaming from the dreadnought had dried up. They all went dark in an instant and ceased to fire.
 

The few remaining ships of the Squidy fleet all ceased fire without explanation.

The alien battleship came to a stop less than a thousand meters off
Hardway’s
ruined bow and hung over them like a mountain suspended on a thread.
Araby
and two other ships continued to fire salvos for a few seconds, but then, their guns went quiet, too.
 

"Mr. Cozen?" Ghostly lines still glowed across Dana’s vision where the weapons fire had seared her retinas. Comms was full of confusion then. She heard them saying ‘homeworld moon’ in the background only here and there at first, but in seconds, the aliens' moon was the subject of every transmission.

Far off, against the bloody gas giant, the homeworld moon glowed blazing hot on infrared. The moldy pea had burst its molten insides out. The magma now erupted from a volcano so large that the wound in the crust itself was over 500-kilometers-wide. What spilled out couldn't be contained, and molten rock spread like a tidal wave. It shot out of fractures all over that little moon and flowed across its surface, burning away the blue-green lowlands and acid yellow hills alike. It showed no signs of stopping.

Seventy billion Squidies were burning on the aliens' homeworld moon.
 

"Thank you, Mr. Devlin," Cozen said. "Better late than never."
 

Only a handful of those cheering over the comms channels knew of the
Boomslang’s
mission and exactly how the destruction of the enemy's home had been accomplished, but they knew 70 billion Squidies were dead or dying. They could see that much. The cheering continued, even with the aliens' dreadnought still looming over them.
 

"Why isn't it firing at us? Why isn't it finishing us off and taking vengeance?"

Cozen said, "It's under orders not to, Ms. Sellis. Back us off from it slowly, if you please."

"I don't understand," Biko said as he peered at the alien battleship out the hole in the front of the bridge. It held its fire when it could easily finish them off.
"We just killed 95% of their population and made their homeworld moon uninhabitable. Why the hell would they
spare
us?"
 

"As I said, they're under orders."

She said, "Orders from whom?"

Harry Cozen clapped his hands together silently in the vacuum and rubbed his palms together. "I'm glad to hear you're interested, Ms. Sellis because with any luck, in very short order, we'll get to meet them."

*****

Ram was glad the homeworld moon no longer filled the cockpit canopy and he no longer had to look at what they’d done. "Keep the hull energized. Keep us stealthed. Make for
Hardway
."
 

"Got it," Medoc was all smiles. As far as he was concerned, this was how it was supposed to go. Mission accomplished. The war was as good as over. The Squidies of the homeworld moon were burning away in lava floods and the remains of the alien fleet appeared to be surrendering or at least holding their fire.
 

"I’m sorry, Mr. Devlin." It was Tig Meester, the cherry.
 

Ram turned to look at him in the hatchway. The redsuit’s eyes looked like he’d been punched in each of them. They glanced down to the x-ray laser still in Ram’s hand, and he holstered his sidearm. "Parker," Tig said. "She helped me isolate a single bomb from the main firing circuit, but…but then, she hit the
other
circuit and dropped
all
the bombs.… All but one. I couldn’t stop her, Mr. Devlin. She... she didn't say why. She just did it."
 

"
Where
is
Parker?"
 

The cherry just shook his head. "She jumped, Mr. Devlin. She jumped out of the bay. Over the target."

 Ram nodded at Tig like he understood even if he didn't.
"
The Chief?"
 

"
The Chief’s body is secure."
 

"
What about my crew?" Medoc said.
 

"
They’re busted up some. Fractures. They’ll live. But they're tranq'd. I can't revive them."
 

Ram said, "You use the darts?" The cherry nodded. "
The crewmen will come round in about twelve hours. Sit down. Over there." He pointed Tig to a seat behind the copilot. He didn’t know what else to tell him.
 

"
Is it over?" the cherry asked. "Is it all over?"
 

"
Hell, yeah, it’s over!" Medoc said. "We won! They’re dead!"
 

"
We won!" Max shouted it, but the cherry didn’t even smile. He just got up and turned to go. "I’m riding with the Chief," he said.
 

"
Tig, stay here."
 

"
What the?" Medoc’s surprise almost made his voice crack. "New contact?!"
 

"
Dead ahead, range 10,000 Ks!"
 

"
Right in our path? What did it just manifest itself out of nowhere? Where did it come from?"
 

"
I don’t know. That was empty space a second ago. It just appeared! I’m trying to turn!"
 

The NAV comp threw a projection of it up between the pilots. It was impossibly broad, at least 100 kilometers in diameter and dark-hulled. The surface looked more like a smooth asteroid or a rounded, pygmy moon than any space-going vessel Ram had ever imagined.

"
Break to starboard, fifteen degrees," Medoc said. For the briefest moment, it seemed to be in two places at once...where it had been and a new position smack dab in front of them. Then, there was only one object in one place, but it filled the canopy.
"
It cut us off. It can see through our stealth..."
 

Ram said, "
Dead stop. We’re not going around this thing."
 

"119 kilometers in diameter," the pilot read from his console. "More or less spherical. Irregular surface. Can't read the temperature. It's like it fluctuates too wildly."

"
What the hell kind of ship
is
that?"
 

"I don’t see any engines or any bays," Ram said. "No gun ports." The surface seemed free of anything but a layer of what appeared to be accreted dust and small rocks that had glomed onto it.

It turned blue for a fraction of a second and once again appeared to be in two places at once. One location was some 10,000Ks out, where it had been and the other was barely 10Ks off the bow of the ship.

Before Medoc finished the first syllable of, "It’s coming right at us!" the ship was upon them and parked at dead stop so close that Ram’s knot puckered looking at the spot where they would have impacted just a ten-thousandth of a second later had it kept coming.

"It crossed over ten-thousand kilometers
in .02 seconds," Max said. "That’s faster than light, in case anyone is wondering."
 

"
Power down the hull," Ram said. "We're not getting away."
 

Line of sight between
Hardway
and
Boomslang
had been interrupted by the moon-sized craft in front of them. The signal carrying Harry Cozen’s voice had to pass through comms relays and came to Ram's helmet pockmarked with static. "
Hardway
to
Boomslang
,"

"
Mr. Cozen…"
 

"
Well done, Mr. Devlin. Pass my congratulations to the
Boomslang’s
crew and hold your position. Don’t even twitch, Mr. Devlin. Hold your position in front of the object and do nothing. Do you understand me? Do nothing at all until I arrive."
 

More than victory even, there was excitement in Harry Cozen's voice, like this suddenly manifested ship was somehow the spoils of this war. There was an aggressiveness in his voice as well, one that said Cozen didn’t want Ram or anyone else looting these spoils before him.

Ram peered out the canopy at the moon-sized vessel. Whatever that is, Ram thought,
this
is what Cozen’s been working for all along.