On the other hand, he had all four quarters of its responsibility.

  Eight beam cruisers, stubby pyramids covered with raised armor patterns protecting their projectors, now turned over to point broad bases forward and light off engines, gently drawing away and to the sides. They took positions around Conquest in a ring twenty kilometers across and spreading.

  Lastly, the four battleships rolled their wedges to point their drives forward. These took stations in front of a point offset from their mutual center. Slowly and in coordination Okuda increased the whole fleet’s thrust.

  As the engine forces rose, gravplates placed strategically throughout all the ships ensured that their crews and more delicate machinery were not smashed flat, with their compensating pull. Antigravity was a myth, but gravplates in the ceiling, walls and floors could exert pull opposite to the maneuvering forces, with sophisticated computer control.

  Eventually the fleet decelerated at extremes that would have crushed them if not for the gravplates. The crew in their bio-gel conformal couches never felt more than a fraction due to the countering artificial gravity. The Eden Plague virus, the nanites in their bloodstreams, and their cybernetic augmentation took care of the rest.

  Even so, the next four days were miserable. The fleet decelerated hard for seven hours at a stretch, then reduced burn for an hour to do maintenance and provide relief, and then did it again and again until their velocity had been reduced to less than a tenth of c. By this time the squadron spread out and slowed intermittently, randomly and violently, to throw off any long-range Meme weapons launched against them.

  The whole affair, despite all planning and preparation, cost several dozen lives. A few gravplates failed under the tremendous strain, turning human bodies and structures into smears on the armored deck plates. One frigate’s missile box ripped loose and cartwheeled down the length of the ship, taking two more cubes with it. External fittings on all ships failed randomly under the heavy strain – communications dishes, sensors, optics, antennas – and tore loose, to add to the cloud of debris, stripped ions and fusion byproducts that preceded the fleet.

  Despite these minor losses, the force held together and retained its combat effectiveness. Just as it reached its final cruising speed, it crossed the edge of the system to begin the invasion as planned.

  Chapter 6

  For all of the Meme commander’s preparations he could not account for one simple but unknown fact: though the enemy ships were decelerating so as not to flash uselessly through the system, over one billion railgun balls were not.

  In fact, the steel streams, now varying widely with inevitable spread, entered the system only seconds after the light of the fleet’s fusion deceleration itself, having been fired before the EarthFleet ships began their burns. Seeing the evidence that the enemy would not arrive for days, he ordered his forces to continue their gestation and preparation.

  Hardly had his assessment gone out when SystemLord began to receive evidence of his mistake.

  Ten million clusters of one hundred steel spheres each swept through the system like scourges of a god, and only the vastness of space and the preliminary maneuvers of Meme targets allowed anything at all to survive.

  Everything that was not already maneuvering died.

  First to be struck were hundreds of Sentry posts affixed to asteroids. With no engines of any kind, these eyes and ears of the Meme star system simply vaporized as their rocks were pulverized in seconds. One moment the nearest of them transmitted their updates; the next, they had been rendered unto plasma and dust. Shattering explosions marched across the solar system over the next several hours as every one of the outposts was wiped out.

  SystemLord and Monitor only realized what was happening when those Sentry posts beyond his position began to disappear; everything was being destroyed nearly at light speed, and not even organic radio could give sufficient warning to take action. The blasts of railgun shot were the flyswatters, and Meme installations the flies.

  Clusters also targeted every other asteroid of significant size, over three hundred thousand of them. Those few containing Meme installations that had performed preventive maneuvers stayed safe. Those that did not, disappeared in the same destructive sweep. Millions of clusters of near-light-speed grapeshot rolled across the system and obliterated everything that stood in their way.

  Along with this ongoing disaster, SystemLord ingested further information on the fusion flares inbound from decelerating enemy war-craft. Wave-shift analysis showed an initial speed of almost nine-tenths light, and the great organic computational brains of Monitor told a troubling tale: depending on how much velocity the enemy was willing to retain, they could enter the system in a very short time indeed.

  SystemLord jolted Monitor to full wakefulness, heedless of the risk. At such a high state of readiness it became a bit high-strung, like a male animal eager for a fight over females. He also issued orders to its spaceborne progeny, who were in similar excited states, slowed only by their full guts that were gestating more weaponry.

  SystemLord also alerted the Underlings, on and around the inhabited planet. He ordered them to increase the maneuver of their orbital bases in expectation of imminent attack, and then turned his attention back to his reports.

  Though the steel storm shattered the system’s immobile pieces, when it reached the Underling planet’s orbit it was only minimally successful. Most of the artificial satellites had been moved to different paths days ago, and had continued to vary their positions at random intervals for just such an attack. Thus over ninety-eight percent of orbital installations and satellites survived the railgun blast.

  The target planet’s single moon was more fortunate; the Human attack struck its tidally locked outer side. They probably believed that military and observer installations would face away from the planet. It was an impressive display, each steel sphere striking with the power of a small nuclear weapon, throwing dust upward for kilometers before it fell to the surface. However, except for a few telescopes and communication repeaters, all of the vital facilities survived on its inside face, turned perpetually toward the world below.

  Unbeknownst to the Humans, SystemLord thought with some small satisfaction, the moon structures were not crewed by normal Underlings but by Purelings, cloned native bodies whose blank brains easily accepted the loyal Meme mitoses cleaved from the pure race. Such programmed warriors would fight and die with perfect obedience, ensuring the superficially similar Underlings on the planet could never upset the natural order of things.

  Then the commander wondered to himself what those surviving moon installations would defend, as it observed with cold rage a ferrous sleet of over one million spheres impacting the atmosphere of the planet itself.

  Such small objects underwent fusion and vaporized immediately in the upper atmosphere, creating spectacular and dangerous megaton yields of heat and shock, but not true devastation to the billions of Underlings and savages below. Had the individual shot massed even ten kilos each, they would have denuded half the planet of higher life.

  But this group of shots had apparently been optimized to spare the population. The shockwaves of a million high-altitude detonations knocked Underling aircraft out of the sky, blew down radar dishes and towers, and shattered every window on half the planet, but caused surprisingly few casualties, except at certain military sites.

  At those places, SystemLord’s reports said larger ferrocrystal spheres survived entry to deliver megatons of energy, vaporizing three spaceports, nine vital weapons-manufacturing complexes, and nineteen naval and aerospace-force bases. In an instant, half the planet’s military economy was erased.

  A little while later a call came. “SystemLord,” Communicator announced from its holding tank, “I have a transmission from the senior counter-rebellion agent on the Underling’s planet.”

  “Display.” SystemLord stuck an enormous eyeball into a hemispherical screen and a pseudopod into a translator. “I am here.”

  The agent stood at attention in front of the video pickup on the planet. As a Pureling – a cloned planetary native, blended with a Meme at birth – he appeared no different from the other Underlings, and so was able to remain hidden in the indigenous population. “SystemLord,” he began, “the suddenness and precision of the strikes has shocked and unnerved the Underling population. They feel completely helpless to defend themselves. Some clamor for Empire protection; some agitate to rebel.”

  SystemLord’s initial reaction was one of outrage: the Underlings, while not pure Meme, were nevertheless citizens of the Empire and owed their lives and loyalty to it. Still, a little calculated mercy was wise. “I will record a placating announcement, and you and your agents will spread information that this alien attack was their maximum effort, and they need have little further fear of more. Encourage them to practice their sheltering drills diligently and have courage; the Empire will defeat the enemy and soon all will be as before.”

  “I hear and obey.” The display winked off.

  After some thought, SystemLord recognized the Humans’ strategy, and he grudgingly accorded them credit for cunning. The attack was obviously designed to shock and unnerve the Underlings on the world below, but do minimum damage. The invaders obviously believed they could later seize the planet and make slaves of the terrified billions of natives, as well as their factories and wealth. All of those were valuable resources that the Humans would exploit ruthlessly, of course.

  A clever ploy indeed, but one that would fail.

  Despite his losses, SystemLord believed he still had sufficient resources for victory. His mobile Sentry network remained intact. The score of cruisers and two score of frigates he had ordered gestated would be his pseudopods of destruction. Those ships and Monitor itself had escaped all damage from the attack, so SystemLord still possessed over ninety percent of his maneuverable firepower.

  However, most easy consumables had been demolished; if the battle lasted too long, his ships might run out of ready food and water, or spend undue amounts of time chasing crumbs of matter. He began to ponder a strategy to mitigate this problem.

  * * *

  Probe R-05 observed the results of the EarthFleet’s railgun salvo with a computer’s dispassion. It gathered its data and stored it, waiting to fulfill its purpose. As the enormous number of missed projectiles exited the system on the opposite side, this condition tripped a protocol. That subroutine ordered it to power up all of its capacitors, to direct its powerful laser communicator to the decelerating Conquest, and then to commit radio suicide.

  Self-murder by Meme was an appropriate description, for within one minute a roving Sentry detected its broadcast. While its complete load of data flashed by laser toward the approaching Earth task force, the robot drone broadcast an abbreviated version in all directions via radio, and it was this that the living defender of the system homed on.

  The probe emitted for almost three minutes before an organic projectile smashed it to fragments; plenty of time for thousands of incoming EarthFleet missiles to receive vital situation updates before carrying out their kamikaze missions.

  * * *

  “Sir, I have an initial INTSUM coming through.” The Intel bridge officer on duty brought the short, rough intelligence summary up on the main display. She was alone at the Intel board this watch, as most of her function was merely to relay information from the analysis teams in Conquest’s belly. “The header says it’s synthesized from the R-05 update we received thirty-five minutes ago. Analysis says they will have most of the detail in the 0600,” referring to the first briefing of the day. “Orange icons are new hostiles, sir.”

  Pictures blossomed in the holotank, with hundreds of colored markers and icons showing positions of friendlies, enemies, and natural bodies in the Gliese 370 system. Absen remarked, “So it looks like, what, two dozen cruisers and thirty-some frigates. Tough, but with those numbers, we win.”

  He did not have to manufacture confidence: he was telling the flat truth. If the enemy ships were similar to the classes encountered in the Sol system, his thirty-seven ships, with their hundreds of fighters, thousands of drones and missiles, and eight Marine battalions, were more than a match for their foes – not even counting the dreadnought Conquest herself.

  “Looks like they are completely disorganized,” he mused. “Anyone know why?”

  Silence reigned until the Intel watch officer hesitantly spoke up. “Sir…they might be feeding.”

  “Of course,” Absen agreed, “Good catch. We’re days out, so they are stocking up on raw materials and gestating weapons. They must be chasing down the remnants of the asteroids and comets our railgun strike broke up. Nice to see those had some effect.” He pointed at a flashing icon lurking behind the scattered enemy, back near the orange dwarf star itself. “What’s that?”

  “It’s tagged as an unknown ship type, sir. It’s too close to the star to get much detail but…great…these…” She rattled to a halt, a dazed expression on her face.

  “What is it, Ensign?” Absen snapped.

  Scoggins from Sensors started to move toward the Intel console, but Ford at Weapons beat her to it, to look over the ensign’s shoulder. “It’s a ship all right, a hulking big one, Skipper. The readout says over two hundred billion tons.”

  Absen stood up to stare at the holotank, as if by doing so he could wrest forth its secrets. “That’s heavier than this whole task force. More than ten times the mass of a Destroyer. How big is it?”

  “Ah…” Ford punched an icon, then another. The ensign’s fingers danced over the touchscreen and brought up the details, turning to look up at the commander, who read it. “It varies its configuration, but as a rough sphere, about six kilometers across.”

  Absen grunted. “That dwarfs us like a watermelon against an apple. Damn. One of the reasons we chose this system was because we’d detected traces that its garrison of Destroyers had left. What the hell is this thing, then?”

  “Some kind of system guardian I bet, sir,” answered Ford, turning his habitually scowling face toward the Admiral. “A mobile fortress.”

  “Then why isn’t it near the planet?” Absen asked. “Why isn’t it hiding? That would be a nasty thing to have lurk behind its moon and jump out at us.”

  “Perhaps it is gathering energy from the star,” Okuda’s bass voice interjected. “And if I were a Meme, that’s where I would put my admiral. Just like we do, the biggest, most survivable ship will hold the brains.”

  “No doubt. And he’s giving us a choice – come after him, or come after the planet.”

  Absen continued, lecturing his bridge crew as if in a class, to help organize his own thoughts. He held up one finger. “One: standard space control doctrine would suggest we take him out before we give up our velocity, but if we do that, we’ll lose ships, maybe the very ships we will need in the assault on the planet, and we’ll have to spend a long time turning back around.”

  He held up a second finger. “Two: if we go for the planet we let him choose the time and manner to fight.”

  A third finger went up. “Three: if we split our forces we risk defeat in detail, especially if he surprises us with something. Three possibilities.” Absen stroked his chin. “Ensign, inform Intel I want them to tease out everything they can on this Guardian. That’s what we’ll call it.”

  Chapter 7

  While not so vast a swarm as the billion railgun spheres, twenty thousand enemy fusion drives still struck fear into SystemLord’s complex molecules. Academically he knew this missile wave might be no more dangerous than the unexpected kinetic attack, but now he began to wonder just what else the Humans had prepared, and it worried him deep in his life code.

  Even so, he was thankful that he had an accurate count of their incoming weapons and a rough prediction of their targets. Crossing the system boundary at less than one third of light speed and slowing, the missiles would take only hours to reach vital installations. The Meme commander transmitted instructions to his flotilla to gestate countermeasures specific to this type of attack: myriads of simple interceptor midges.

  These tiny seekers were given just enough brain to sense, close with and attack the enemy weapons. They could be sown in their paths and be activated at the right time, like mines. Frigates and cruisers began to spew forth these countermeasures like fish laying eggs. Soon, hundreds of thousands of midges took their places, blind sacrificial defenders of the Empire.

  This strategy met with moderate success; more than ninety percent of the Human weapons were destroyed as they approached but that still left over a thousand missiles to home in on targets of opportunity.

  Many of these were killed by fusor beams, SystemLord’s ships’ close-range weapons. Nevertheless, seven newly born cruisers and thirteen frigates perished in nuclear fire, a number that would barely be replaced by the time the enemy ships arrived. SystemLord shed futile molecular curses that Monitor absorbed, exciting the great ship further. He sent the beast chasing after additional ice and ore. I need more ships, the Meme commander raged, and no easy food remains.

  SystemLord observed as the remainder of the enemy missiles homed in on the Underlings’ orbital and planetary defense installations, obliterating all but three. Through his mobile Sentry network he watched as the hybrids desperately defended themselves, destroying many incoming weapons, but they simply were not equipped to handle hundreds of attackers at high speeds. Physics could not be overcome by the technologies available, and thus the planet he was supposed to protect was stripped almost bare of defenses.

  Only the great Weapon on the inner face of the Underling planet’s moon remained untouched, even undiscovered, for its Meme controllers’ orders had not included firing on missiles that targeted others. Thus they had stood silent as the fortresses orbiting the planet below died to the enemy missiles.