Authors: Christopher Nuttall
“I’m picking up massive gravity waves,” David reported, as the Killer starships turned slowly to continue the pursuit. They hadn’t realised that the star was about to explode. “I think she’s about to blow!”
“Get us out of here,” Andrew snapped. There was no more time to waste. “Now!”
***
Although Andrew and his crew were unaware of it, the second supernova bomb was actually based on early warp drive technology, which compressed space to allow FTL travel. Wrapped inside a warp bubble that provided protection against the heat and fury of the outraged star, the missile sank ever deeper into the photosphere, sucking in and compressing material as it fell. Instead of causing a rapid fission reaction, the missile was compressing more and more mass into the warp bubble, disrupting the star’s fusion reaction. The reaction rapidly destabilised and raced out of control. The missile eventually lost power and vaporised in the heat of the star, but it was too late. The supernova reaction was underway.
The first massive eruption occurred just minutes after the missile entered the star, but it was only the beginning. The star’s collapse was already well beyond salvation, or any form of cure. The rushing tide of matter, pulled down by the growing gravity well at the heart of the star, only fuelled the reaction. The explosion was only a matter of time. Seven minutes after the missile had struck home, the star exploded, pouring a wave of destructive energy out into the system.
Nothing near the star stood a chance. The two closest Killer starships were vaporised instantly, despite their hull protection. The third was lucky; caught by the blast, it was tossed across the system instead of being vaporised. The damage was more than enough to destroy the starship’s integrity. The planets near the star were roasted by the expanding blast wave, which vaporised asteroids, comets and any other space debris in the system. The gas giants were literally blown away. The Killer settlements inside the remaining gas giants were smashed beyond repair. The entire star system had been devastated.
***
Lightning
shuddered as it came out of the jump and stabilised, ten light years away from the supernova.
“Report,” Andrew ordered, grimly. Red icons were flashing all over the ship status board, but as they watched, one by one the icons faded away as the ship’s AI directed repairs. “What happened?”
“The star is definitely gone,” Gary reported. He worked his console for a long moment. “The gravity shockwaves are already spilling out over hundreds of light years. Anyone with a gravimetric sensor will know that the star exploded, although they may not know the cause…”
“They will, sir,” David put in. “The star wasn't of a type to go supernova. It would probably have collapsed into a white dwarf or expanded into a red giant, not a supernova. I suspect that the secret is very definitely out, sir.”
“I’ll mention it to the Admiral,” Andrew said, dryly. “And the Killers?”
“If they came after us, they lost us,” Gary said. Andrew smiled tiredly at the confidence in his voice. “There are no Killer starships within the limits of detectable space.”
“Transmit an update to the Admiral,” Andrew said, thinking hard. If the system had been washed by a supernova, there might be all kinds of damaged Killer technology they could salvage, given time. The cities inside the gas giants were probably beyond recovery, but the starships might have been damaged, yet still mostly intact. “And then…take us back into the system.”
“Aye, sir,” David said. The noise of the drive rapidly reached a crescendo. “Jumping now.”
The system looked very different from before the supernova had detonated. Andrew realised. There was a massive expanding cloud of gas racing out of the system and smaller concentrations racing away from the gas giants. The worlds, including one that might have been Earth-like with some modifications, were charred rubble. The asteroid belts and most of the moons were completely gone. The star itself looked as if it was dying, although most of the debris would probably eventually recombine into something. The blast hadn’t been powerful enough to completely destroy the star. The chunks of stellar matter might even be usable. The gas giant that had received the first device was a blackened ruin. It was unlikely that there was anything for the humans to salvage there.
“Contact,” Gary snapped, suddenly. Andrew felt himself jerking upright as the display rapidly updated. Nothing – nothing – mortal could have survived a supernova. Had the Killers somehow ridden the tidal waves and survived? “I have…one Killer starship, heading…sir, I think it’s drifting.”
“A trap,” David said, nervously. He’d been pushed to the limit. They all had. “They knew we’d return and waited for us.”
“Show me,” Andrew ordered. The image appeared in front of him. The Killer starship wasn't waiting for them, or even repairing itself; it was tumbling helplessly through space, turning end over end constantly. He checked its course and realised that it was drifting towards interstellar space, unless it intersected one of the gas giants first. There were no power readings at all. Even the starship they’d captured had had low-level power readings, but whatever powered the stricken starship was completely lost. “Contact the Admiral and tell him that we have a damaged starship here for recovery and an entire star system to study.”
He chuckled, suddenly, as they raced towards the derelict. “Whatever else happens,” he said, “the Killers will never forget this day.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“My God,” Paula Handley breathed. “Just…look at it.”
The tiny transport had been gliding towards the ruined Killer starship for over an hour, yet she already felt overwhelmed by its immensity. It was the same, on the surface, as the starship she had helped capture, but it was clearly wounded and beyond repair. Great rents and gashes tore at the hull, leaving it exposed to the coldness of space. The eerie nebula-like glow of the murdered star cast strange shimmers of light over the black hull, half-convincing her that it was still alive. The advancing robotic probes, controlled directly by Technicals from a very safe distance, had already vanished against the hull. She only knew they were there from her HUD.
“Never mind that,” Captain Chris Kelsey said, through their private communications channel. He hadn’t been too pleased at having been drawn away from Star’s End and sent to the dead star system, but Paula suspected that he found the sight inspiring. It was proof that humans could kill entire Killer starships, even if the collateral damage was a little high. “What the hell did they do to the star?”
Paula shrugged. Unlike the Footsoldiers, she had a good background in stellar manipulation – at least in theory, since proper experiments were banned – and she had a fairly good idea how the supernova bombs had worked. It was something she had been warned, in no uncertain terms, never to discuss, although she was fairly sure that the information wouldn’t remain a secret forever. The more…isolated Community asteroids had their own scientists and access to humanity’s vast database of scientific knowledge. It wouldn’t take them long to deduce the operating principles of the supernova bomb and, if they accomplished that, they would be halfway to building their own. The hell of it was that Paula suspected that that wouldn’t be a bad idea. If every human settlement started building more supernova bombs, they’d be able to wipe out most of the known Killer star systems before they learned how to counter the tactic, or decided to complete humanity’s destruction.
But the politicians and the Defence Force commanders evidently didn’t agree with her. Her combat suit reported the presence of two full attack wings of Defence Force destroyers – a hundred and forty-four starships – as well as hundreds of survey probes and support ships. Only a handful of actual researchers, including herself, would be going into the Killer starship, but thousands more would be watching through the communications network. They’d soon start trying to issue orders to the people on the scene, as if they were nothing more than automated robots, but until then, Paula would be happy. It was all there for her to examine and learn how it worked.
She glanced down at the diagram from Star’s End, pasted over the view through her suit’s visor. The researchers were slowly unlocking the secrets behind Killer science, although there was still a long way to go, but they had mapped out most of the nooks and crannies in the captured starship. Assuming that the Killers had created all of their starships according to the same plans, they would be able to find their way around fairly easily, perhaps even find damaged components that the researchers would want to dismantle. The captured starship was unique – in theory, it was still in working order, if anyone could figure out the flight controls – but the broken starship could be taken apart at leisure. Paula couldn’t wait to get her hands dirty.
“Hey,” one of the Footsoldiers said. “Are you sure that this thing is dead?”
“As sure as we can be,” Chris said, flatly. They’d discussed it at some length before they’d slipped out into interplanetary space and ghosted towards the damaged starship. A human ship that had taken such damage would very definitely be dead – the crew would have uploaded themselves to the MassMind or died on the ship – but no one knew how resilient the internal structure of the starship would be. The Killers might already be using their nanotech to rebuild the ship, or another starship might arrive at any moment to recover the broken ship. “Take nothing for granted and watch your backs.”
Paula smiled, inwardly, as they began the long fall towards the Killer starship’s hull. There were researchers, even now, screaming their outrage that the first team onboard the captured starship included Footsoldiers, rather than additional researchers or their support staff. A year ago, Paula might have agreed, but after nearly being killed on the other starship, she was glad to have the Footsoldiers along. If the starship was just
nearly
dead, as opposed to actually being deceased, the Footsoldiers would be able to complete the job of killing it. Researchers or scientists would probably be killed by the same automatons that had threatened her life, two weeks ago. They certainly wouldn’t learn anything from the experience.
“Contact in ten seconds,” Chris said. “Nine…eight…”
Paula felt her suit jerk slightly as they touched down on the hull and broke through it. The hull shattered like ice, sending the team crashing through into the internal levels, filling the channels with random chatter as the shocked humans responded to the new threat. Everyone
knew
that Killer hull material was effectively impregnable; nothing short of a supernova would damage or destroy it. The fifteen men and women of the first exploration team had crashed through it as if it were made of fake glass. Shreds of former hull material crashed down around them.
“Keep it calm,” Chris snapped, sharply. “Paula; environmental statistics?”
Paula blinked, but complied, realising that it would help keep the team calm. “Only a tiny gravity field and a complete vacuum,” she reported. The mists they’d seen on the captured vessel had probably been blown into space or ignited by the fury of the supernova. It wouldn’t have mattered in any case. The mists were hardly a breathable atmosphere. “No local power signatures, but considerable amounts of hard radiation. Check your suits.”
She followed her own advice and checked the suit’s status. The Armoured Combat Suits could tolerate considerable degrees of radiation, and their internal nanites could heal any minor damage, but a long stay wasn't recommended. The suit’s internal systems decided that three hours would be fairly safe, although they did warn that further exposure could prove deadly. Humans were engineered to be resistant to radiation, unless they were baseline humans from a religious sect that disapproved of such engineering, but there were limits. At some point, even the most perfect human form began to break down.
“All right,” Chris said. “We have two hours on this hulk. Deploy probes.”
Paula touched a control in her suit and launched a spread of tiny probes, which raced deeper into the ship, allowing them to chart out its interior. The damaged starship was awash in considerably more hard radiation deeper within the hull – it dawned on her, suddenly, that some of the radiation must have been funnelled into the heart of the starship by the armour – but the probes could go where no human could follow. There were also bursts of odd emissions further into the starship, although none of them seemed to be as…focused as any on the captured ship. The starship might be dead, she decided finally, but it was still bleeding out.
“Probes deployed, sir,” the Sergeant said, finally. “It doesn’t match.”
“No,” Paula agreed. It had only taken a minute to confirm that the interior of this ship was very different to the interior of the captured ship. Paula wasn't entirely surprised. The Killers could manipulate matter and energy on levels humans could only dream of and it would have been simple to redesign the entire starship on a whim. There were humans who lost themselves within AI worlds, but the Killers were almost god-like; they didn’t need dreams to give them delusions of grandeur. They had enough power to dismantle half the galaxy.
“Just great,” Chris said. “Very well; team one, with me. Team two; follow Gavin.”
“Yes, sir,” Gavin said. “You lot; follow me.”
Paula found herself at the back as the Footsoldiers advanced carefully into the interior of the starship. Part of her wanted to be at the front, seeing everything as it just appeared, but the rest of her mind decided that the rear was probably safer, even though she was confident that the starship was dead. The captured ship still gave her the creeps – she was convinced that it was watching her and the remaining humans on some level – but this one was as dead as Earth itself. The interior was dark, lit only by flares of light as power cells discharged or glowed with radiation, giving it an almost spooky air. She was just relieved that there were no mists. That would have been almost intolerable.
“The gravity field comes directly from the mass of the starship,” she said, aloud. It was somehow easier to vocalise her thoughts. “It’s not caused by the starship’s power source.”
“Ah, the power source,” Chris said coldly. “Are you and your fellow researchers going to let us in on the big secret?”
“It’s not my decision,” Paula admitted. The research team had cracked that particular secret, only to find themselves confronting a thousand more questions. They knew what the Killers did, but how? “We do need to get down towards the rear of the starship, sir; we have to know if the power source is still there…ah, still online.”
Chris said nothing, but she knew he’d caught her slip. The Footsoldiers were far from stupid; they probably guessed the truth. It had been evident to her ever since their first encounter with the captured Killer starship, but humans being humans, the other researchers hadn’t wanted to believe her. It spoke volumes about just how advanced the Killers actually were, or how likely it was that they could track their lost starship to Star’s End.
“I found a column, sir,” one of the Footsoldiers said. “It looks to be dead.”
Paula stepped over to the column and scanned it. The amount of radiation inside the column shocked her and she stepped back automatically. Suit or no suit, if she stepped inside, she’d be dead within seconds. It was weird. The transparent unit had held part of the Killer controlling the starship, yet it hadn’t provided any protection against the deluge of radiation that had struck and disabled the starship. It made no particular sense to her, but at least it confirmed that the Killer was well and truly dead. The researchers suspected that the Killers would be far more tolerant of radiation than modified humans, but even their cells would be killed by such a flux. She almost felt sorry for the creature. It had died alone, far from home, after watching the planets it was supposed to be protecting torn apart by human technology.
And then she remembered how many humans had died at Killer hands and shook her head. The Killer had deserved to die, hadn’t it? Whatever had caused their insane crusade against all other races, there was no doubt that they had vaporised thousands starships and slaughtered hundreds of entire worlds. If humanity was the only race to survive their attentions, it spoke volumes about just how effective their campaign had been. How many races had been destroyed by the Killers? Did even they know how many they had killed?
“Leave it,” Chris said, shortly. “We have to get down to the power source.”
Paula dismissed the HUD display of the captured Killer starship as she moved further down towards the heart of the disabled ship. It was only confusing her mind and she couldn’t take many more deviations from the other ship. Instead, she watched as the radiation levels kept rising and falling, studying the burned-out components and corridors they were passing through, shaking her head in awe. The Killer starship should have been vaporised. Instead, it had barely survived – no, she corrected herself; it was still dead. It was not beyond salvage, perhaps, but it was definitely dead. If it had survived the supernova…
She remembered the images the
Lightning
had recorded, the massive Killer cities floating up, trying to reach clear space before their planet exploded below them. The Killers had an awesomely effective launch system, or so Captain Ramage had believed, but Paula suspected now that she knew how it worked. The weird radiation emissions from the dead planet confirmed it, even though the supernova wavefront had blown much of the burning gas into space. The Killers didn’t use drive fields. The Killers used…
The thought vanished from her mind as they stepped through the control centre of the ship. It was the first compartment of the new ship that was identical to the old and she felt a flash of
Déjà vu
, remembering how she’d killed the Killer and saved the entire team from being wiped out by the Killer automatons. The radiation detectors sounded the warning before they stepped into the compartment; there was enough radiation irradiating the interior to kill them all within minutes. Chris led them away from the compartment, slowly finding a new way around the radiation and down deeper into the starship, leaving Paula to muse on what had killed the alien. It was almost as if the Killer had tried to suck
in
the radiation and had overdone it…or had it meant to commit suicide? There was no way to know.