A Night Without Stars

  The Prime: the living embodiment of ruthless, with a single evolutionary imperative – to constantly expand. To the Prime, all other lifeforms 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. 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-to-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 got 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-metre circle of Cherenkov radiation was abruptly contaminated by serpent shadows. Then the haze cleared. The wormhole terminus was poised two thousand kilometres above the Fanrith continent, looking directly down. Laura’s exovision displays showed her 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 centimetres at worst. Looking through the opening she had an excellent view out over the landmass lying twelve hundred kilometres 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 ochre, 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 centre, please.’

  Five young officers with perfect eyesight hurried forwards. 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 tonnes. 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 round 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 wasn’t that she knew she’d end up laughing in hysterics at the monstrous futility of it.

  Squadron communication 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 travelling below orbital velocity, their size and blunt cone shape created a huge shockwave 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 fifteen miles 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 towards the invaders. Laura checked the tabletop map, seeing twelve squadrons clustering round 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 a hundred and ten kilometres 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 kilometres 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 got 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, kilometres 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 pai
n 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 towards 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 metres 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 kilometres 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 per cent 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 communication 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 kilometre from the ground, its blunt nose cone sweeping round to point directly at the scrub desert below. Its rockets continued firing, accelerating it down.

  The spaceship struck hard, detonating in a massive seething mushroom of flame and smoke. Planes that were already retreating were caught in the blast wave. She saw wings crumpling, then the mangled fuselages began their long plummet.

  The tannoys fell silent.

  ‘Intruders two, four, eight, and nine are on the ground,’ the chief air marshal said. ‘We’ve taken the rest out. Confirmed kills.’

  ‘Get the squadrons out of there,’ Laura said urgently. ‘Low and fast. If they’re in the air, they’re sitting ducks to the beam weapons.’

  ‘Surely one last assault—’

  ‘Would just be suicide. You’ll achieve nothing and lose what remaining planes we have.’

  Slvasta turned to look at the big atomic bombs on their trolleys, then back to the wormhole, which showed the edge of the desert where the invaders now sat. For kilometres in every direction the ground was smothered in flaming debris. ‘You’ll have to use the nukes.’

  ‘We can’t,’ Laura said wearily. ‘We only have three, and there are seven ships in the second invasion fleet heading for Tothland. If they fly close enough, and if I can open the terminus just right, three bombs might be able to take them all out while they’re in the air.’

  ‘But—’ He gestured at the wormhole, which was still looking down on the edge of the desert where the invaders had landed. ‘You said they would be unstoppable if they landed!’

  ‘I know.’ She took a breath and told her u-shadow to open a link. ‘I need you,’ she sent.

  ‘You have a Commonwealth force field,’ Javier said. ‘Can you eliminate them?’

  ‘I have to take out their planet,’ Laura told him, pleased at how calmly she’d spoken that preposterous statement. ‘I can’t fight four ships here as well.’

  ‘So it is down to the regiments to defend us yet again,’ Slvasta said gravely. ‘I will tell Master General Doyle to order full mobilization.’

  ‘No,’ Laura said.

  ‘But we have nothing else! Bienvenido will be destroyed. You told us these aliens are worse than even Fallers. How can we—’

  There was a commotion just outside the crypt doors. One of the Marine sentries called: ‘Halt! You are not authorized to be here. I will shoot.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Laura said. ‘Let them come in.’

  Kysandra walked into the crypt – an entrance which brought complete silence with it. Biononics, the tiny machines permeating every cell in her body, barely had anything to do with maintaining her youthful looks. She was still in her twenties, her Celtic-pale skin rich with freckles, and thick Titian hair falling halfway down her back. She wore a long brown suede skirt and a white blouse; a loose suede waistcoat with many pockets held a variety of small metal and plastic gadgets. A long black cylinder was carried on a shoulder strap – featureless, but everyone in the room knew it had to be some kind of Commonwealth weapon.

  Marek and Fergus followed her in. They were both dressed in identical grey coveralls made from some slick fabric, and they carried the same cylinder weapon as Kysandra. Even their height and build were identical, though Marek had darker skin and looked a good thirty years older than Fergus.

  Laura acknowledged the visitors with a wry grin. You had to use a full biononic field function scan to tell the men were ANAdroids, not actual people. And she’d never seen versions with morphic features quite so human; their creators had done an excellent job. But then, as they were part of Nigel’s mission, she knew no effort would’ve been spared.

  Yannrith and Andricea immediately drew their pistols and aimed them at the newcomers with a steady double-handed grip.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Laura said in her most contemptuous voice. ‘They have integral force fields, like me. You can’t shoot them.’ Which was almost true. Kysandra’s biononics did have that energy-field function, while the two ANAdroids wore force-field skeletons under their light armour suits.

  ‘What in Uracus are they doing here?’ Slvasta hissed.

  ‘I asked them to help,’ Laura said. ‘Nobody else can take out the invaders on the ground. Now, will all the morons waving medieval weapons around please put them away before you hurt yourselves?’

  Andricea flashed her a hateful glare before silently consulting Slvasta. He nodded, and the pistols were reluctantly holstered.

  ‘Good to see you again, too,’ Kysandra sneered at the prime minister. ‘Imprisoned any innocents yet today? Some kid complaining his state-issue shoes are too tight, maybe?’

  ‘Uracus take you, Faller-whore,’ Slvasta spat back.

  ‘Oh, for— Nigel was not a Faller, you bonehead cretin!’

  ‘He has given this world to them,’ Slvasta shouted, spittle flying from his lips.

  ‘Nigel freed us from the Void,’ Kysandra said coldly. ‘He sacrificed himself in that quantumbuster explosion so we would have a chance of a decent future.’

  ‘Falls have increased tenfold since the Great Transition.’


  ‘Because the Trees that survived the quantumbuster blast are no longer confined to the Forest formation they were locked into,’ Marek said calmly. ‘Now they have dispersed into a high-orbit ring, and the temporal loop is broken, so they can release their eggs with greater frequency. It was an inevitable consequence of liberation from the Void.’

  ‘Liberation! You call this being free?’

  The ANAdroid produced an expression of mild puzzlement. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I pity you.’

  ‘It could have been freedom,’ Kysandra said sweetly. ‘But then you took over from the Captain.’

  ‘I am nothing like—!’

  ‘Ha! Even your own wife saw the truth – eventually.’

  ‘You corrupted her. It was your fault.’

  ‘Enough!’ Laura said. ‘Everybody, forget your political pissing contest. This is the day we face extinction, so let’s not try to do that job for our enemies, shall we?’

  Slvasta gave Kysandra a furious glare. She matched it with the most indolent stare, taunting . . .

  ‘Kysandra, thank you for coming to help,’ Laura said. ‘Four spaceships made it past the IA-505s; numbers two, four, eight, and nine.’

  ‘The squadrons did a good job then,’ Kysandra said sympathetically.

  ‘Yes.’ Laura gestured at the wormhole. ‘Can you handle them?’

  Kysandra patted the cylinder she was carrying. ‘Count on it.’

  ‘Okay, where do you want us to put you down?’

  Marek had been studying the table map. ‘Are these landing positions accurate?’

  ‘Yes,’ the chief air marshal said.

  ‘Okay, nine and four are close together. Laura, drop me between them. I can deal with both of them.’

  ‘I’ll take number eight,’ Kysandra said.

  Fergus grinned. ‘So I guess that leaves me with number two.’

  ‘All right, stand by.’ Laura’s u-shadow sent a stream of encoded instructions to the gateway. The terminus started to shift.

  ‘Can you really do this?’