A Night Without Stars (3 page)

It was a mere six months ago when she'd gotten the wormhole functioning again. After the utterly hellish time she'd endured since arriving on Bienvenido—desperately upgrading its primitive military technology to cope with the Fallers, struggling against a paranoid Slvasta's authoritarian regime—she had finally found the time to repair it. Her hope was that, by exploring the other planets that shared this terrible exile with them, she might find an ally against the Fallers. And for those brief months it looked as if the dream had come true.

She'd opened the wormhole five hundred kilometers above Aqueous—the most promising-looking of the nine other planets in orbit around this lonely sun. A beautiful oceanic world of deep turquoise scuffed by long white clouds, and possessing a standard oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. If it weren't for the complete absence of any landmass, it could have been another Earth. It was only when the wormhole opened just above the atmosphere that they saw the green and pink dots of tiny coral islands, not one of which was more than a hundred meters in diameter.

They'd made contact with the Vatni, who lived on and around the islands—a semi-aquatic species who, for all their willingness to be allies, didn't have any technological ability. However, thanks to the finite number of islands, they did have a considerable population pressure problem, which gave Slvasta's diplomatic team an easy time during negotiations. It was agreed that Vatni families could come and live on Lamaran's coastline in exchange for dealing with any marine threat posed by the Fallers in a way humans never could.

After a month during which thousands of eager Vatni came across to Bienvenido, Laura had switched the wormhole terminus to the second most viable planet: Ursell. The Vatni had told her that a thousand years earlier they'd seen spaceships flying from Ursell to explore every planet. After that, Ursell had undergone some kind of war, which had lasted for years. The flashes of explosions on the surface had been visible across interplanetary space.

Standing in this very crypt she and the observation team looked down on a planet swathed in a thick layer of dingy gray clouds. It wasn't really H-congruent anymore, though it must have been centuries ago. Through the occasional gaps in the swaddling vapor they'd glimpsed a desolate landscape of brown semi-desert littered with wrecked towns. Background radiation was high—the inevitable result of nuclear weapons being detonated all over the planet. And the radio picked up a constant high-frequency
click click click
signal amid the heavy static. Something was still alive down there. They'd transmitted a message toward the source—a standard welcome sequence, devised by ancient Commonwealth alien contact specialists, and stored deep in her lacuna. And they got an answer back—a linguistic code also stored in her lacuna. A lot of red symbols had erupted across her exovision that day, for it was a species the Commonwealth knew well.

The Prime: the living embodiment of ruthlessness, with a single evolutionary imperative—to constantly expand. To the Prime, all other life-forms were a threat to be exterminated.

Just as they were about to be exterminated now, if Laura's desperate plan failed.

“Ah, bollocks,” Laura muttered under her breath. “Here we go.” She went to stand alone in front of the wormhole. Her u-shadow sent a code to the ancient machine's smartcore and schematics opened across her exovision, giving her a status review of the wormhole's systems. It was entirely self-contained, powered by a direct mass energy converter. There had been plenty of component decay in the three thousand years it had lain here undisturbed, but by cannibalizing the other four BC5800d2s she'd gotten this one operational again—even if it was a bit quirky.

She ran through the exovision displays, checking there weren't too many amber warnings. Satisfied, she loaded in coordinates.

“Stand by,” she told everyone.

The four-meter circle of Cherenkov radiation was abruptly contaminated by serpent shadows. Then the haze cleared. The wormhole terminus was poised two thousand kilometers above the Fanrith continent, looking directly down. Laura's exovision displays showed her that the terminus was juddering, which always happened to an open-ended wormhole; it needed to be anchored to be completely stable. But the movement was minimal, a few centimeters at worst. Looking through the opening she had an excellent view out over the landmass lying twelve hundred kilometers west of Lamaran, Bienvenido's major continent. Roughly oblong in shape, it straddled the equator, with a desert dominating a third of the interior. Dawn had reached its eastern coastline, shading the ground a pale ocher, fringed in the dark green of native vegetation. Thin clouds scudded slowly across it.

Laura was very aware of the awed silence behind her. “Observers,” she called. “Front and center, please.”

Five young officers with perfect eyesight hurried forward. The vista was slightly fuzzed by the wormhole's integral force field holding back the vacuum, but despite that, nine points of light were visible, descending slowly into the atmosphere. The exhaust was a high-temperature hydrocarbon that was extremely radioactive. Laura thought it might be some kind of nuclear gas core rocket.

They'd tracked the Prime spaceships for six weeks, ever since they launched from Ursell. The ships massed about two thousand tons. Not huge then, but big enough to carry a significant threat. The Ursell Primes' technology certainly wasn't up to Commonwealth levels, and they didn't have force fields—which meant Bienvenido's more primitive forces stood a chance against them. A small one.

“They're well below orbital velocity now,” she said, checking the vector reading from the terminus. “The descent trajectory is effectively vertical. Mark them.”

The observers started talking to the operators gathered around the big strategic map that took up two of the trestle tables. Wooden spaceships—simple cones—were pushed across the big map of Fanrith by long poles. The Air Force squadrons were already there, marked by model planes. She would have wept in frustration if it weren't that she knew she'd end up laughing in hysterics at the monstrous futility of it.

Squadron communications officers talked urgently into their telephones. Poles began prodding the model planes as the IA-505s started to change course to intercept the descending spaceships.

“Let's hear it,” she said.

Tannoy speakers came alive, filling the crypt with distorted voices and a lot of static as the radio links played. Squadron leaders relayed instructions, receiving tight confirmations from the aircrews.

“I see them” was repeated several times, jubilant cries riding the static. More voices crashed out of the tannoys, a confusing medley of navigation vectors and course-correction commands.

Laura turned back to the gateway. The spaceships were entering the atmosphere, their rocket plumes shrinking away. Even though they were traveling below orbital velocity, their size and blunt cone shapes created a huge shock wave in the tenuous ionosphere, sending out annular waves of glowing atoms, as if phantom flowers were blooming high above Fanrith. The nine ships were holding a loose circular formation, no more than twenty-five kilometers across.

Typically unimaginative,
Laura thought.
No clever tactics. Just get down, establish a planetary beachhead, and start attacking.

The ships reached the chemosphere, and the flares of superheated atmosphere began to elongate as they grew brighter. Chatter from the pilots grew louder and jumbled as they flew toward the invaders. Laura checked the tabletop map, seeing twelve squadrons clustering around the ships. They were coming down on the northern edge of Fanrith's central desert, just south of the equator.

“They need to get underneath,” Laura told the chief air marshal.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Right underneath. That's their sensor blind spot.”

“They know that.” The chief air marshal's voice was level. “Your briefings were very clear.”

Slvasta stepped up beside Laura. “Let the aircrews do their job,” he said quietly.

Laura nodded, rubbing a hand across her forehead. She was worried now—worried for the planes and their crews, worried the invasion would succeed, worried she was making mistakes she was so tired.

“Something—” a tannoy spat out.

“Marco, Mar— Oh, Uracus, they just disintegrated! There's nothing left!”

“Evelina. Evelina's gone!”

“Explosions, they're just exploding!”

“Three down.”

“Command, we're taking some kind of hit!”

“What are they using? Wha—”

“Nothing! There's nothing.”

Laura stared at the nine long glowing contrails that were streaking down through the stratosphere. “Beam weapons,” she said. Then louder, trying to keep the anguish from her voice, “They're hitting you with beam weapons. X-rays, or masers. Get underneath them!”

One of the officers at the end of the trestle tables was chalking numbers on a board. The tally of planes lost. When he put up twenty-seven, Laura looked away. The IA-505s weren't even in Gatling gun range of the invaders yet.

“Portlynn and Siegen squadrons circling under intruder seven,” their liaison said.

The tannoys were broadcasting a barrage of screams. Orders were garbled shouts. Static grew louder.

On the table, the models of Gretz and Wurzen squadrons reached intruder three.

Laura's u-shadow ordered the wormhole terminus to descend. The panoramic view blurred as it lost altitude
fast.
Then the image steadied as it came to rest 110 kilometers above Fanrith, allowing them to look directly down on the fringe of the desert. There were no clouds. The only blemishes were the diminishing glimmers of distorted air ripped apart by the spaceships.

“Nineteen kilometers altitude,” Laura announced. “Watch out for the rocket exhaust. It's as bad as any weapon.”

As she spoke, she saw the white spears of radioactive plasma emerging. More confusion and shouting erupted from the tannoys.

“Thirty-two confirmed lost,” a communications officer declared. No one in the crypt spoke.

“Stand by missiles,” Laura said, knowing it was all so wretchedly futile. They weren't guided missiles; she hadn't gotten Bienvenido's electronics up to that level yet. These were unguided, developed to be fired in clusters from pods under the wings at a Faller egg in mid-descent. Thirty IA-505s had been hurriedly modified to shoot them vertically. Laura didn't have any illusion that they'd hit the spaceships, but they would act as chaff, and hopefully divert some of the beam weapon fire.

“Begin missile barrage,” the chief air marshal ordered. The spaceship exhausts were now incandescent streaks, kilometers long. Coming down fast. Her u-shadow activated retinal filters, allowing her to see the tiny sparks of the cluster rockets swarming up at seven of the nine invaders. She wasn't sure, but she thought the cries of fury and pain surging out of the tannoys might have decreased slightly.

“Invaders two, three, and eight coming down to your altitude, and slowing,” Laura said. “Four and six reaching attack altitude.”

“Converge,” the chief air marshal ordered.

“Giu bless you all,” Slvasta said in a strong clear voice. “Go get them!”

“One and seven,” Laura said. Then: “Five and nine. That's all of them.” There was nothing left now but to pray.

The tannoys were a continual blast of shouted warnings and curses mixed with the high-pitched whine of the pneumatically driven rotary barrels. She closed her eyes, seeing the flimsy propeller-driven planes banking, turning toward the monster invaders and diving in, their Gatling guns firing furiously. They were good, those Gatling guns she'd designed for them, slinging five and a half thousand rounds a minute, hundred-gram projectiles with a muzzle velocity close to nine hundred meters a second.

Individually, a strike by one round would be nothing to spaceships this size, but the IA-505s were slamming out a wall of metal, chewing up the hull and outer systems. There would be damage, and the invaders were still in the air with three kilometers to go. If anything harmed their rockets…

A massive cheer burst across the crypt as intruder seven's rockets failed. The spaceship began its long tumble to the unyielding desert below.

“Seventy-three percent casualties on seven's attackers,” their liaison announced.

“Oh, bollocks,” Laura groaned in anguish. She refused to glance at the tally board. It wouldn't be accurate anyway; they were losing planes so fast nobody could keep count. But she could see them through the terminus, small balls of flame flickering and dying in the hot air far above the desert.

On the map table, a pole ceremoniously knocked over the wooden rocket that represented intruder seven.

Intruder three's rocket exhaust dimmed and vanished. Intruder five began to wobble, scything its plasma around in long curves.

“We're killing them,” Slvasta said in satisfaction.

“Not enough,” Laura snapped back.
You don't understand. If just one of these bastards lands…

“Attack on intruder two is over,” the communications officer announced.

“Over?” Javier asked. “What do you mean over? It's still flying. Send the planes back.”

“We can't,” the officer told him bleakly.

“Why not?”

“They're all gone. Wiped out.”

“Crudding Uracus!”

Laura tried to block it all out of her mind, the suffering and deaths. Suspend emotion, everything that made her human, and concentrate on the facts. Intruder three was plummeting now, spinning wildly as its erratic rockets sliced their lethal exhaust across the sky. Intruder one was abruptly knocked sideways as something exploded, sending out clouds of flame. Then it began to tilt, less than a kilometer from the ground, its blunt cone-nose sweeping around to point directly at the scrub desert below. Its rockets continued firing, accelerating it down.