The Stars Came Back (71 page)

Helton: Oh, shit.

FADE TO BLACK

Collision

FADE IN

EXT - DAWN - Battlefield next to
Tajemnica’s
ramp

The rising sun is low in the sky, casting long shadows towards the mob, fuzzy from the thick atmosphere and hazy clouds. Uniformly well-armored men are streaming down the ramp and joining the expanding line of troops, new troops flowing to the starboard side and extending the line, while the line expands and shuffles slowly leftward.
A platoon coming down the ramp splits off from the line heading for the shield wall and joins another in a small reserve detachment inside the ring of soldiers. All the soldiers carry spears. Some are long two-handed pikes, carried by soldiers with smaller shields slung on their backs, so they can stand three or four ranks back and still reach beyond the shield wall. All have swords, though not all are exactly the same, and they all have fanny packs with a couple of metal water flasks, energy bars, and first-aid kits. Every square inch is armored with plates or fine chain mail. They are trotting, almost gliding in their ranks, getting into position quickly and without orders being shouted. They obviously know how this maneuver is supposed to happen.

The camera view slowly rises and pans across the men in the shield wall from above.
The air is filled with a swarm of small hover drones with cameras watching the action unfold. Beyond the shield wall flows a sea of humanity, with low hills a few kilometers in the distance behind them. The scar left by
Tajemnica’s
crash landing stretches away into the distance, and people are starting to walk out onto it, seeing the many crushed bodies smeared into the dirt by her “landing.” Some nearby people look at the disciplined and well-equipped army assembling before their eyes and start to run away, but others, further away and without such a good view, push toward
Tajemnica
, her angular bulk easily visible on the plain. The masses fleeing start to collide with those charging, creating a crush that slowly resolves, by sheer weight of numbers, into a swarming attack against the shield wall, now nearly fully formed, pushed out a fair ways from
Tajemnica’s
side. Without warning there is a brilliant flash high overhead. All the hover drones seize up and drop to the ground like so many mechanical raindrops. Everyone glances skyward, then returns to the mortal danger close at hand.

CUT TO

INT - DAY - News media ship video-feed room

A large room filled with screens, a dozen people watching at least four screens each. On the displays are a multitude of views of the battlefield action far below. Some people look like they are about to get sick, others have gleeful expressions.

Reporter1: (
Excited) I can hardly
wait
! This is going to be
so
epic
!

Reporter2: (
Revolted) You are a
sick
man. Positively
mental
.

Reporter1: This video will make our careers! How can you
not
like it?

Suddenly all the
images of war freeze on the screen, then go blank with “No Feed” errors. A collective gasp/groan/expostulation rises, and expressions turn to wide-eyed panic.

Reporter3: T
he
HELL
?!

Reporter4: TECHNICAL! GET IT BACK
NOW
!

CUT TO

INT - DAY - Fleet Carrier bridge

A large and crowded room, also containing many screens, with the Admiral and Chief Compliance Monitor in the center. They watch the action far below, both on video feeds from the low-flying hover-cams and from many space-borne telescopes based in the fleet.

Admiral: Who fired it?

Sensor tech1: Narrowed it to one of five ships. Four of ‘em were exchanging a few rounds in some local pissing match they brought along. Almost all the visible surveillance assets were aimed down, and jamming still has most other frequencies useless.

Admiral: Then get a bunch of Mark One eyeballs in suits outside or at windows with binoculars, and track all the cruisers the old fashioned way.
Now! I want constant observation on EVERYTHING!

Sensor Tech2: Found
one
decent read. Doesn’t match any conventional missile signatures.

The
Admiral and the CCM glance at each other.

A
ll the low-level camera feeds go blank, and the orbital view screens display a large flash, then continue as before. The CCM inhales sharply.

Sensor Tech2: EMP, not a nuke!

Admiral: (Intensely) Find out who launched it, and if you can only narrow it down to one of two, shoot them both. That was the
last
thing this clusterfuck needs.

CUT TO

INT - DAY -
Tajemnica
Bridge

The partially
armored woman avatar appears onscreen.

Ship AI: Si
lly little EM pulse like that can’t hurt
me
a bit. Knocked out all other local electronics, though. Only eyes on the ground now are ours.

Helton: Allonia, show the CM topside
for a visual check.

CM:
What
? You want me to go OUTSIDE?

Helton: Up on top. They can’t get you there. Just to get a quick lay of the land, see if things look like they are suddenly going nonlinear in a violation sort of way, and we need to break o
ut the canister rounds-

CM:
(Aghast) You have anti-personnel weapons aboard!?

Helton: Damn right. Got every kind of weapon you can imagine, and then some. But if they are not in violation, we don’t shoot. Not really part of the fight. They might h
ave planned this. Until we know-

Bipasha: I think some of the ships up above are shooting at each other.
Quite a commotion all of a sudden. Jamming is a lot more aggressive, too.

Ship AI: Includes lasers blinding optics, I think.

CM: Why me? WHY?

Allonia: (
Glaring) What are
you
whining about?
You
don’t have family out there. Or do you only care about your own skin?

The CM looks down embarrassed, then stands up and walks out. Allonia walks after him.

Bipasha: Now what?

Helton: Clean the ship, get ready for pickup and lift. Then, wait. Keep an eye on things, Quiri. Let us know if something weirder than usual comes up.

CUT TO

EXT - DAWN - Looking across the plain between the two armies

The fanatic horde, some with weapons, many with little more than a knife or homemade spear, form a ragged line on the left, the front of the line being shoved forward by those behind. On the right, the metal wall of shields and armor, with ranks of spear
s aimed up like a field of deadly grass, stands solid in nearly perfect formation, now fully away from
Tajemnica’s
side, gleaming in the dawn light. The uneven army of the left surges forward in fits and bursts, closing the distance between them. There is a sharp bugle call and the shield wall surges forward at a trot, spears dropping into position ahead of the slightly overlapping shields with a crash. The lines collide and the rabble is overrun, crushed, gleaming spear-points flickering out and back, dropping scores in seconds. Many of the leading unarmored people try to flee, and run into the surging mob pushing toward the unbelievers. The Plataean army plows slowly forward, leaving a layer of bodies behind them. It seems to march implacably, unstoppable, but the mass of humanity it faces is vast. A sharp bugle call, and the line falls back in good order. Another bugle call, and they turn and run to the rear. The herd takes a moment to realize what’s happening, then they surge forward over the heaps of bodies left behind by the Plataean army. They are just starting to thin out and run when the shield wall stops, and all the soldiers turn in place and reverse direction, charging, spears leveled, right back toward the oncoming swarm. The thinned out leading edge of the mob, standing amid the gore and bodies of the first contact, freaks out, and gets run over, adding another layer to the carpet of bodies as the real army grinds forward.

CUT TO

INT - DAY -
Tajemnica
cargo deck

The ramp
rises, closes up. Helton, Bipasha, Kwon, Sar, and the kids look about the now deserted deck. It’s littered with hundreds of plastic bottles, now urine filled, and a lot of other small last second detritus the departing army dropped as it marched off. None look happy, Bipasha looks particularly worried.

Helton: Now, the hard part.

Bipasha: I wish we could do more for them.

Sar: We’ve done our part, dear
; we got them here in the best possible shape. Now they do theirs. And we make sure it’s a welcome sight they come back to for the return trip. And they
will
be coming back.

CUT TO

EXT - DAWN - Battlefield, amid the mob

A huge crowd of fanatics, like Mad Max with better clothes. Amid the shouting and noise comes a fast-approaching rhythmic jingling, the clattering
thump
of armored men marching. The crowd parts and a wide column of soldiers march by. They have serviceable greaves, tassets, vambraces, shields, body armor, helms, and proper weapons, and clearly they have training and discipline. They shove the mob aside with their shields if it doesn’t move out of the way on its own. Under fancy crests their open-faced helms show well-fed faces, many different colors and ethnicities, all with goatee and mustache. The elite of the self-styled Mahdi’s army.

CUT TO

EXT - DAWN -
Tajemnica
topside

Allonia and the CM stand atop one of the grav tank turrets looking out over the unfolding battle. The dead are already in the thousands,
but only a single Plataean shield can be seen on the ground. The army is now moving away from the ship, headed counterclockwise around the mob, having a devastating effect on them, leaving piles of bodies heaped in their wake as they slowly rotate along the edge of the masses, surging in, then falling back, pulsing like a single living organism that kills everything it touches. In the middle of it, there are a few hundred men in reserve. Several organized formations of soldiers can be seen amid the masses heading for the Plataean army, running over some of their own fanatical fellows in their urgency to reach the unbelievers. The difference in numbers makes it look like a giant armored amoeba fighting mightily against the endless waves of an ocean. Allonia stares in horror.

Allonia:
Oh my god. How can they…

CM: I don’t know. I didn’t know. I’m… I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.

High overhead, the hazy sky is becoming increasingly cloudy.

Chaos

CUT TO

EXT - DAWN - Battlefield, between the reserves and the main
formation of the shield wall

The line moves on, the multitude of spears flickering death in the early light. As the army moves forward many bodies litter the ground behind them. As the line passes, a corpse is pushed aside, and a
boy springs to his feet with a knife in his hand, and leaps to stab a shield-wall soldier in the back. Two of the reserve soldiers from the middle leap forward, spears lowering to impale him just as he stabs a Plataean. The ragamuffin collapses, dead or dying fast. The soldier steps out of the line, flexing, determining damage, and goes back to the reserves, while one of the reserve soldiers steps up to take his position.

CUT TO

INT - DAY -
Geminorum Fleet Carrier bridge

S
pacious and busy. Everyone is now wearing light space suits, helmets on, visors up, a consequence of having the conflict grow into a real shooting war. Admiral Flicker is talking to the very angry captain of the
Hussein
on one screen and a couple of other captains on other screens.

Captain of the
Hussein
: I
demand
that you destroy the ship that attacked me and killed my pilots! If you don’t, I’ll order Darius to fire on it where it sits!

Captain B: (on another screen) You’ll do no such thing, you inbred lunatic! YOU fired on them FIRST
! If you take another shot at anything but yourself, I’ll nuke your sorry ass personally!

Flicker: GENTLEMEN! Please! They are not going
anywhere until we sort this out, so-

CUT TO

EXT - DAWN - Battlefield, just behind the shield-wall line