Plague Wars 06: Comes the Destroyer (49 page)

He aimed himself slightly to one side of the enemy and waited for what must come. His fusion drives burned as hot as he could run them, though that lit him up like a beacon in the night of space. The Destroyer could not possibly miss seeing him already coming on so fast and accelerating furiously.

Now came the critical question.

He hoped he had the correct answer.

It pinged against his nose, his hull, a bioradio inquiry from the Destroyer, coded on current Meme bands and using unbreakable encryption. Simply put:
who are you?

They could undoubtedly see that the
Denham
was a Meme Survey craft, a friendly ship, but acting oddly. Standard protocol would be to query the equivalent of an IFF, an Identify-Friend-or-Foe transponder. Without the correct encryption and codes, the Destroyer would know something was wrong, and might even fire on Skull before he got close enough. He could not afford to run head-on into a flight of hypers right now, not at this velocity.

Skull waited as long as he thought he could. Every second’s delay allowed him to close with his hated enemy, but eventually he had to transmit the response, red-shifted in spectrum as far as he could bend it so that at this excessive closing velocity it would be understandable.

So off it went, encrypted with keys and coded with numbers so obligingly provided by the tame Sentry that Zeke had captured. His son had thought he had brought home a puppy, but perhaps he had obtained the key to Earth’s salvation.

I am so proud of him
.

For a moment, just a brief second, his resolve faltered as he thought of his firstborn and how he would never see him again, but Skull could find no other way. No other way to be certain, that was.

I’m still a sniper. One shot, one kill
.

One agonizing minute later the answer came, bathing him in relief:
Accepted
. Undoubtedly some kind of orders, some instructions for the Meme “ally” would be forthcoming, but if Skull had his way, they would arrive far too late.

Closer now, closer, just a minute more, half a light minute’s distance, ten million miles and counting down fast. Skull could see with perfect clarity as every remaining weapon on every EarthFleet orbital fortress fired at the Destroyer, throwing shot, missiles and beams into the ship’s path.

Had the Meme ship come head on, this barrage might have achieved its end, might have finally destroyed EarthFleet’s nemesis.

Unfortunately, the great vessel had aimed itself at least a hundred thousand kilometers to one side of the planet, and so most of that barrage – nearly all of it – would miss. It was simply not within the capabilities of human technology to hit something so far away, going so fast, at such an angle of deflection, as if a mass of ancient archers had tried to bring down a jet plane flying across their field of fire.

Far behind it Skull could see the mass of Aardvarks vainly trying to catch up, even firing their masers from impossible distances. The surviving cruisers added their fire as well, but the Destroyer was going faster than their railgun bullets, and there weren’t enough lasers to kill it.

Skull flew past Earth and slowed his own time sense by a factor of a hundred. Even in ultra-slow motion, he flashed by the tiny blue marble so fast it seemed just a streak. He took one last look at the planet of his birth before focusing on the task before him.

At the last moment possible he turned from the path that would shoot past the Destroyer and set himself one that would intersect it. Even this slight alteration necessitated a full burn of his main engines, his whole body rotating briefly sideways.

Now the few seconds remaining stretched out to minutes in his sped-up mind, allowing him to examine the situation carefully, like a sniper watching his target. Right now his projected path led straight through the center of the Destroyer, but he began to refine his point of aim, looking for the right spot. Though all his calculations said it would not matter where he struck, he wanted no chance, no possibility that somehow the Meme ship would survive the bullet that was Skull Denham.

He picked out a spot on its nose, a deep crater where some lucky missile or brave kamikaze had gouged out a chunk of armor in an instant of sun-like heat.

That would be his bull’s-eye.

That would be his homecoming.

That would be his sweet oblivion.

In the last instants the crew of the Destroyer must have finally recognized the danger, despite his friendly codes, for Skull saw the ship’s fusors, which doubled as attitude jets, suddenly explode into life, attempting to twist the ship out of the way even as they blasted directly at him. A slight twitch of his own thrusters ensured that no such maneuver could possibly succeed, and the kiss of Meme plasma flame could not stop him.

Within his cockpit, Skull downloaded his engram, his mind, into his avatar one final time. He ripped his feet lose from the floor to sever himself from the
Denham,
suddenly reducing his perceptions and his world to only that body. In this last moment he wanted to be a mere man.

Where another might have roared or yelled or screamed, he just let out his breath to stillness, like the sniper he was, and then he smiled.

Finally, he saw only through the eyes of a man.

Finally, he felt fully human once more.

Finally he, the bullet, went home.

“It’s gone,” he said wonderingly into the confused hubbub of the operations center.

It was all Absen could do to remain in his chair, and for the first time since he had sat in his stateroom aboard the
Tucson
staring into the muzzle of a loaded .45, he felt absolutely spent, crushed, wrung out. A small child could have knocked him over with a stuffed toy. Trying to lift one hand seemed an impossible task.

Is this what victory feels like?

Nothing
except a
battle
lost can be half so
melancholy as a battle
won, Wellington had said. Absen had never understood what that meant until now, as he stared upward at the screen at the spreading cloud and few remaining pieces of the Destroyer tumbling in toward the sun. They wouldn’t fall into the star, not at their current speed, but no one would be catching them either.

“What in hell was that thing?” Absen managed to ask, dragging himself forward in his chair to rest his hands on the console in front of him. His vision seemed tunneled, and his breathing came at great effort. Raising his voice, he rasped, “What in the Sam Hill just happened?”

As usual Lieutenant Commander Johnstone answered first, one jump ahead of anyone else. “The video shows some kind of enormous missile striking the Destroyer at almost half the speed of light. I can’t even get a good image capture – it’s just a streak that I have to process to infer its characteristics. Whatever it was, sir, it was big enough to kill it in one blow. At least, after it had been battered so badly.”

“It wasn’t ours.” Absen almost made it a question, because he was almost certain of the answer.

“Not that I know of, sir.” Johnstone looked around as if to solicit input from others. No one said anything. Then he held up a hand to his ear, an unconscious gesture having nothing actually to do with the chips in his head. “I have an anomalous transmission.”

How Johnstone could pick out one “anomalous transmission” from the thousands that must be streaking around the solar system, Absen had no idea, but the man had a positively spooky talent for his CyberComm duties, so the Admiral nodded encouragement.

“The net picked it up just before the thing hit the Destroyer. A voice transmission in the clear.” Johnstone played it.

This message is for all the people of Earth, Warrant Officer Alan C. Denham, USMC speaking. I didn’t die in the battle ten years ago, but I bet I have now. I piloted the captured Meme ship that must have just slammed into the Destroyer. I hope it’s dead, or if it’s not, I hope you can now finish it off. I wish all of humanity well, and reserve my hatred for our real enemies. I ask that you do the same, and remember that it’s not biology that decides if we are human. It’s the choices we make.

“
Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” Zeke Johnstone used to quote that at me, and then, when the chips were down, he put his money where his mouth was, dying to protect his family. If I can do the same, I think I’ll finally be happy. Maybe in a minute or two I’ll be seeing him on the other side, if there is such a thing.

This is Skull, captain of the
Alan Denham
, signing off.

Absen licked dry lips. “Replay that on all channels. Everyone should know.” Under his breath he said, “Because we need heroes like that.”

Rick Johnstone finished his shift mechanically, his brain well trained by the chips in his head. They did all the work while his mind took a dazed vacation. He passed messages and patched parties through his board like an old-fashioned telephone operator. With the damage to many bases and the Van Allen belts of Earth filled with ionizing radiation, comms had gone to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

Moving
Orion
toward a lunar orbit helped, and once more the old warship-turned-station proved its worth as the nerve center of EarthFleet. Rick was thankful for the busyness, for it kept him from thinking of Grissom Base on Callisto, and the bomb that had wiped out the surface facilities and the invading force with it. With still no idea who had done that, and no word from those in the bunkers, all he could do was work and wait.

Wait to see if Jill still lived.

With the Destroyer gone, the guidance packages on the rocks seemed to lose their ability to adjust. Once Rick thought about that, it made sense. The barely intelligent engines could not easily see around their own asteroids, could not look to the front to figure out what to do. Fully fifty percent soon developed projected tracks that would miss the planet. Those could be ignored.

The rest, the remaining forces took care of and, though they were ready to do it, the captain and crew of
Orion
did not have to throw themselves in front of a flying mountain after all. Rick felt very glad of that, and also glad to finally end his shift as his relief showed.

Clumping along in his vacuum suit toward his quarters he had to dodge the revelry that spilled into all the main corridors. Stateroom doors stood open and everyone seemed to have a drink in his or her hand. Fumes from dope or hash drifted through the ventilation system, and no one seemed to care, least of all him. Music…

Let them party
, he thought.
They earned it. All I want to do is get this damned suit off, shower and sleep, and maybe when I wake up, there will be a message from Jill. At least for us there’s a chance. For others, their hopes have already been dashed.

He pushed through knots of people, hands slapping him on the back in greeting. A bleary blonde tried to lay a kiss on him but he pushed her gently away with a smile. From one darkened cabin he heard the unmistakable sounds of coupling, and he reached over to shut the door.

It’s like those films of VE day or something, with people dancing in the streets and kissing strangers. They think it’s all over, and for now, it is, but I’m married to a Marine and, no matter what my inclinations, I’m a Navy man.

For us…will it ever be over?

Somewhere, deep down inside the half-alien goddess she’d become lurked a scared young lieutenant, still impressed by a formidable senior officer. Sometimes she wondered if someone older wouldn’t have been a better choice for blending.

Buck up, Rae. You’re not Sylvia Ilona anymore. You’re the same person that told the Pharaohs how to build the pyramids, and you’re the same person that ended up, maybe more by luck than anything, saving Skull so he could in turn save Earth.

That made her feel a little better. Not much, but a little.

When Steward Tobias ushered her into Absen’s spartan quarters, he stood up from behind his desk but did not extend his hand, and waved her to a seat well out of arm’s reach. Then he sat down, and so did she.

“I see from our relative positions that this visit is not to be cordial,” she said as her butt hit the cushion.

“That’s because it’s personal, not professional,” he replied with a sour expression. “Professionally I am jumping for joy that your husband sacrificed himself and your ship to save all of humanity. How else could I react? As far as I am concerned, he deserves every posthumous decoration, every possible paean of praise that humanity can bestow. But you…” Absen pointed an accusing finger.

“What did I do that was so terrible?” she asked, knowing full well the answer but not willing to concede without a fight. “I told you we all have our secrets.”

“Secrets I can accept.” Absen stood and turned to pace, but did not leave the area behind his large desk, keeping it as a barrier between them. “You led me on. You flirted with me. That was…slimy.”

“Slimy?”

“I couldn’t think of a better word.”

“I’m sorry, Henrich –”

“Don’t you dare call me that!”

“All right, Admiral. I apologize. I’m not perfect. I wanted to maintain a good working relationship with you, so I tried to thread the needle. Obviously I missed. Oh, well.” Rae threw up her hands and then stood up. “If that’s all you wanted, I’ll be going now.”