Pandora's Star

  By the time the track reached the Turquino’s mouth, it was little more than a line of beaten-down boltgrass. Only the most foolhardy sheep and goats strayed into this valley.

  Yuri Conant was leading the convoy in his 4x4. It was already at a steep angle when it reached the ice-cold stream gushing out of the Turquino. Through the windscreen he could see the mountains rising imposingly above him, guarding the entrance. His vehicle was going to have trouble getting any further. The buses certainly weren’t going to get past the stream. He went over the water and braked to a halt.

  When he got out, he knew he’d never forget the sight of the convoy jostling its way up the slope. Broad sunbeams were prising their way through the battered clouds above to play over the filthy battered vehicles. Pick-ups were packed full. All the buses had their doors open to draw some air inside now the conditioners had failed; people were standing down the aisles. The sound of frightened children and injured adults arrived long before the vehicles reached him. Most prominent of all was Carys’s beautiful metallic-grey sports car, whose fat wheels had lowered themselves beneath the chassis on tele-scoping suspension struts, bounding along over the rough terrain with the ease of any 4x4.

  It drove through the stream without any difficulty and pulled up beside him. The side window came down.

  ‘Any sign of the wormhole?’ Carys asked. Barry and Sandy were squashed into the passenger seat beside her, with Panda lying along the back.

  ‘Not from here, no.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll keep going as far as I can.’

  He waved languidly as she drove off down the valley, keeping parallel to the stream. Several 4x4s followed her; then the first bus arrived and he joined in helping with the wounded.

  By the time Mark drew up at the improvised parking lot, the scene had become a replay of the bus station. A lot of people were clambering over the boltgrass slope to get into the valley, hauling kids along. Dozens more were milling round the four buses that were carrying the injured, manhandling stretchers out of the doors.

  ‘Found it,’ Carys exclaimed jubilantly from the array. ‘We’re five hundred metres in from the start of the valley. Mellanie’s here waiting, and she wasn’t kidding, I’ve never seen a wormhole this small before.’

  ‘Get them through!’ Mark blurted. He felt Liz’s hand in his, gripping tight.

  ‘Out of the car,’ Carys said. ‘Five metres. Mellanie’s saying hello. Yeah, right, hi. Okay, Barry, go on dear. That’s it. Hold my hand, Sandy. Mark, we’re safe—’

  He let out a sob. Beside him, Liz was smiling despite her moist eyes. They looked at each other for a long moment. ‘Guess we’d better go and lend a hand,’ she said.

  Simon was gathering his little band of devotees to him along the side of the gushing stream. He held up a hand as Mark, Liz, and David went past. ‘Those of us with weapons should dig in here at the valley entrance and provide some cover for our friends and families. It will be some time before everyone is through, and the aliens will probably come after us.’

  Mark gave Liz a despairing look. ‘I think he’s talking about us again,’ he said under his breath.

  ‘Yeah. Well at least we have some heavy-duty weapons, now.’ Liz held up one of the big cylinders she’d taken from the Prime.

  ‘We don’t know what they are, or how they work.’

  She gave him a wolfish grin. ‘Lucky we’ve got the best technical man in Randtown with us then, huh, baby?’

  *

  It was silent in the tactical display for several minutes after the Desperado shot back into hyperdrive and withdrew from the battle above Anshun. Wilson moved his hands across icons, pulling down sensor displays. Not that Anshun had many sensors left in working order, but the aerobots provided intermittent sweeps of space directly above the tempestuous ionosphere. Forty-eight wormholes held their position in an ephemeral necklace two thousand kilometres above the equator. As he watched, several types of Prime ships began to fly out of them, accelerating through the hellishly radioactive cloud of cosmic dust and debris that churned around the planet.

  ‘They’re still there,’ Elaine Doi said in an appalled murmur. ‘We didn’t close one of them. Not one!’

  ‘You have to get through to the generators,’ Dimitri Leopoldovich said. ‘Simply hitting them with crude energy assaults from this side is completely ineffectual, they are manifestations of ordered energy themselves.’

  ‘Thank you, Academician,’ Rafael said. ‘We just watched four of our ships die trying to defend us, so unless you have something constructive to add, shut the fuck up.’

  ‘Fifty-two alien ships either destroyed or disabled,’ Anna said. ‘Our missiles outperform theirs every time. But they do have weight of numbers. That’s their advantage every time.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ the President asked.

  Wilson was disgusted with how whiny she sounded.

  ‘Our aerobots managed to strike every landing site on Anshun while the starships were engaged above the planet,’ Rafael said. ‘We wiped out ninety per cent of them. They’ll have to start the occupation again.’

  ‘Which I have no doubt they have the resources for,’ the President said. ‘Weight of numbers, again.’

  ‘Probably, but in the meantime we can complete the evacuation.’

  ‘We now have eight extra wormholes open inside city force fields,’ Nigel Sheldon said. ‘Another three hours should see Anshun evacuated.’

  ‘And the other planets?’ Doi asked coolly. She was rallying well after the loss of the starships.

  ‘Our electronic warfare strategy is proving effective,’ the SI said. ‘It is certainly slowing down the rate of advance once the aliens reach the planetary surface. They are having to physically eliminate cybersphere nodes one at a time as they expand outward. However, the latest landings give cause for concern.’

  ‘In what way?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘We have been using stealthed sensors to scrutinize the cargo they are currently unloading on several worlds. It appears to be gateway machinery, which will allow them to anchor their wormholes on the planet surface.’

  ‘If they deliver direct to the planet, we’ll never be able to stop their incursion,’ Nigel said.

  ‘Realistically, we’re never going to anyway,’ Wilson said. ‘Not to a degree that we take them back for ourselves. Look at the state of the environment on the assaulted worlds.’

  ‘You’re writing them off?’ Doi asked.

  ‘Basically, yes,’ Wilson said.

  ‘They’ll crucify us,’ she said. ‘The Senate will fling every one of us out of office, and probably into jail.’

  Wilson’s virtual vision printed: Don’t, she’s not worth it; the text’s origin code identified Anna as the sender. ‘We didn’t know it was going to be this bad,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Yes we did,’ Dimitri said.

  Wilson turned to the translucent planet representations. The cyberspheres of each of them were illustrated by livid golden threads. There were black areas surrounding each of the Prime landing zones, a darkness that was slowly eating further and further into the gold. ‘We’ve nothing else left to hit them with,’ Wilson said. ‘All we can do is fall back and regroup.’ He took the first of a series of deep breaths; but not even the rush of oxygen could hold back the black weariness. There hadn’t been a war in human history where so much had been lost in so little time. And I’m the one in charge. Dimitri is right, we did know, we just didn’t want to admit it.

  *

  Captain Jean Douvoir heard the fans whirring efficiently behind the grilles as they sucked acrid smoke from the Desperado’s bridge. The warship had been lucky; that last directed-energy burst had almost penetrated the hull field. As it was there had been some localized breaches which had played hell with the power circuitry. The stabilizers had done their best, but not even superconductors could handle surges induced by megaton nuclear blasts. With their defences dangerously weakened, he’d slammed the Desperado into hyperspace
to escape the Prime projectiles hurtling towards them.

  ‘Merde,’ he grunted as they emerged outside the Anshun system’s cometary halo. His virtual vision showed him the ship’s electronic systems rebuilding themselves. There was very little redundancy left now. They’d never survive another sustained attack. And that’s what would happen if they went back. There was no end to the Prime ships and projectiles.

  The four communication icons to the other starships had red ‘invalid’ signs flashing over them.

  ‘What’s the status back there?’ he asked Don Lantra, who was operating the sensor suite.

  Don gave him a weary look. ‘Just lost track of the Dauntless. That’s all of them, boss.’

  Jean wanted to punch his fist into the console, a useless and difficult gesture in freefall. He knew most of the crews. Back on the High Angel they’d hung out together, one big fraternity living in each other’s lives. Now the only way he’d see them again would be after their re-life procedures. Not even that softened the blow. It would take years. Assuming the Commonwealth lasted that long.

  His virtual vision flashed up a communication icon from Admiral Kime. ‘What’s your status, Jean?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Getting things stable out here. We can take another pass at them soon.’

  ‘No. Get back to High Angel.’

  ‘We’ve still got seven missiles left.’

  ‘Jean another fifty ships have come through already. You did a superb job, you all did, but the evacuation’s almost complete.’

  ‘You’re abandoning Anshun?’

  ‘We have to. We’re evacuating all the assaulted worlds.’

  ‘No. All of them? But we have to do something. They cannot be allowed a victory. Today it is twenty-three worlds, if we let them get away with that it will be a hundred tomorrow. We have to fight back.’

  ‘We have been fighting, Jean, we’ve had our victories. You and the other starships bought Anshun valuable time. But you’re the only warship left, so fly back to base and we’ll refit you to fight another day.’

  ‘Victories? I don’t think so. Dimitri was right, we had to get through the wormholes and block them from the other side.’

  ‘You know we couldn’t do that; they’re too heavily defended. We’ll find the star they’re using as a staging post, Jean. We’ll hit them there. You’ll be commanding the whole task force.’

  ‘And how long will it take to build that many ships, Admiral?’

  ‘As long as it takes. Now head back to base.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  He ordered the plyplastic straps on his acceleration couch to ease off, and clenched his stomach muscles, forcing himself up into a sitting position. The rest of the bridge crew were all looking at him. ‘I am not prepared to accept defeat today,’ he told them. ‘My secure memory store was updated before we left High Angel, and I will join our comrades in re-life. I am flying this ship back to Anshun, where it will live up to its name. If anyone wishes to leave now, then please use the escape pods, the navy will pick you up.’

  All he saw were smiles and a few grim expressions. Nobody took up his offer to leave.

  ‘Very well, gentlemen and ladies, it has been my pleasure and honour to serve with you. God willing we will serve together again after re-life. For now, we must reprogram the hyperdrive. There are a great many safety limiters to be removed.’

  *

  The clouds were finally lifting as the day ended, allowing a rosy twilight to infiltrate the Highmarsh. From his position, hunched down behind a clump of boulders thirty metres up the side of the Turquino Valley, Mark Vernon watched the land in front of him soak up the light, acquiring a faint ginger shading. He couldn’t quite see down the Ulon Valley from here, for which he was grateful. Actually being able to see his home as they waited to leave would have been unbearable.

  ‘Not long now, baby,’ Liz said.

  He smiled over at her, amazed as always how she always knew his mood. She was taking a break, sitting with her back to the boulders, a thick fleece pulled round her shoulders against the chill air which the Dau’sings blew along the Turquino.

  ‘Guess not.’ He could see the end of the queue below him, barely a thousand people left, shuffling along the side of the little stream with its icy water. Even the wormhole was visible from this vantage point, a small dark-grey circle that was starting to be absorbed by the deep shadows that cloaked the base of the valley. The MG was parked to one side of it, the first of several vehicles that had been abandoned along the meagre track. It wasn’t far away. Time and again in his mind, Mark had gone over how long it would take him to run down the rugged slope to get there. Not that running would be much use. Everyone else had to get through first. Even now, with only able-bodied adults left, they still seemed to be taking their own sweet time. Didn’t they realize the urgency?

  ‘They’ve reached the Highmarsh,’ Mellanie said.

  Mark gave the hand-held array a vexed glance. How the hell does she know that? Then the display on the array’s screen showed him a node at the far end of the Highmarsh go off line. Oh.

  Liz picked up her oversize alien weapon and moved to crouch beside Mark. ‘Twenty minutes,’ she said, giving the line of people a quick glance. ‘That’s all. Maybe less.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He thought the queue was starting to speed up – a little. The screen on the hand-held array showed another two nodes had dropped out along the Highmarsh. There was a faint sound that could have been an explosion.

  ‘Are we all ready?’ Simon asked. He was on the opposite side of the valley to Mark, with another of the big alien weapons. It hadn’t taken Mark long to rig the triggers so they could be used by human hands. They had a strange double button arrangement, which had to be pressed in a sequence that was difficult for fingers. One of them shot explosive micro-missiles, while the remaining three were very powerful beam weapons.

  ‘Guess so,’ Mark muttered sulkily.

  Liz brought the hand-held array up to her mouth. ‘Standing by.’

  ‘Remember, as soon as you’ve fired the weapons, fall back.’

  She rolled her eyes at Mark, grinning. ‘Yeah, we’ll remember that.’

  Mark leaned forward and kissed her.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve got time,’ she said pertly.

  ‘Just in case,’ he said, almost sheepishly. ‘I want you to know in case anything happens, I do love you.’

  ‘Oh, baby.’ She kissed him. ‘When we get through that wormhole, your pants are coming straight off, mister.’

  He grinned. Another node on the Highmarsh had vanished. By his reckoning that was the one near the Marly homestead. Maybe a kilometre from the entrance to the Turquino. ‘Are we going to come back here? To live, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, baby. Simon thinks we will.’

  ‘Do you want to, if we can?’

  ‘Of course I do. I’ve had the best time of my lives here. We’re going to go on living like this.’

  A further three nodes went down.

  ‘Here they are,’ Mark grunted.

  *

  After two hours spent modifying various systems, the Desperado slipped back into hyperspace. At top speed they were two minutes away from Anshun. Jean Douvoir was totally absorbed by the hysradar display, which showed him the wormholes encircling the planet as diamond-bright specks. He picked one, and aligned the warship directly on it.

  When they were thirty seconds’ flight time away from the wormhole, he ordered the ship’s RI to formulate their break-out point. Normally, the emergence from hyperspace was safeguarded by the RI’s programming, restricting the opening’s relative velocity. If they were coming out into a planetary orbit, the opening’s trajectory would match the local escape velocity, ensuring a safe entrance to real space. With the limiters removed, Jean gave the opening a velocity of point two light speed.

  Cherenkov radiation flooded out of the fracture in space-time five hundred kilometres from the Prime wormhole. The Desperado flashed out from the ce
ntre of the violet radiance, travelling at one fifth the speed of light as it struck the force field which capped the wormhole. Detonation was instantaneous, converting a high percentage of its mass directly into energy in the form of ultra-hard radiation which punctured the force field as if it was nothing more than a bubble of brittle antique glass. The Prime wormhole was left open to the full power of the new and temporary sun that had risen above Anshun.

  *

  One of the cylindrical alien flyers shot across the end of the Turquino Valley. Mark tried to chase it with the muzzle of his weapon, but it zipped behind the steep slope on the other side before he was anywhere near. A long rumble of roiling air reverberated in from the Highmarsh.

  Two more flyers appeared, travelling a lot slower than the first. Mark managed to get one centred in his sights, and pressed the trigger. The flyer’s force field burned in hazy turquoise light, with small slivers of static snapping repeatedly into the ground. Liz fired her beam gun, intensifying the corona. Over on the other side of the valley, Simon fired the projectile weapon. A plume of blue fire squirted horizontally from the endangered force field, sending glowing fireballs dripping around the shaking craft. It banked abruptly and swept away out of the line of sight. Its partner raced away.

  ‘Move!’ Mark shouted.

  He was racing away from the boulders, crouched low, the weapon heavy in his hands. Fifty metres ahead, and slightly downslope, was another clump of boulders. With his feet thudding into the spongy boltgrass, his heart hammering, and Liz whooping manically beside him, he felt himself smile stupidly. It was almost as if he was enjoying himself.

  They were five metres from cover when a huge blast demolished the boulders they’d been using. He flung himself flat, his mood flipping instantly to naked fear. ‘Are you all right?’ he yelled as the flyer’s roaring wake shook the air.