The aftermath wasn’t an apocalyptic world with mutants running amok. But the scientific policies, the industrial strength of each of the nations, particularly China and others in Asia, were smashed. Were they smashed irrecoverably? No. But there were each thrown back decades.

  At the same time, unknown to scientists and astronomers on Earth, the Akkad continued to decelerate. Mankind, who might have shrugged off whatever the aliens could throw at it, especially if they used the planet’s combined industrial might, were like Persia and Byzantium of old. They were badly weakened just before the onslaught of zealous Islam.

  Did that mean humanity was doomed? That was to be writ in the future, and is the subject of this space history. What it meant was that humanity was at a severe disadvantage at one of the worst possible moments in its history.

  Still, mankind had ten years to repair the nuclear damage. That included a 28-year-old soldier named Mike Steele. He’d fought in some of the previous wars, and he’d learned his trade well. He also learned a love for old-style American values as taught by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and the older values of his forefathers, who believed in individualism and courage.

  The terrible story of the two forces hurtling toward each other, one upon a planet, one upon a grand interstellar ship, is the basis for this volume on space war. They were nearing the engagement that had started 246 years ago from 2050 A.D. It had started with a Vim Nova Ship as it launched three gigantic Annihilator missiles. Two of those missiles neared the Akkad, even as the Akkad braked in order to enter the Solar System. The collision of two alien races was nearing the point of sudden impact.

  -38-

  IN THE OUTER OORT CLOUD

  2 MONTHS AGO

  Ningal struggled to keep her eyes open, fighting exhaustion, as she participated in the strategy session alongside Chief Marshal Assur and his circle of strategists. Ningal’s chest had begun to ache with a deep, unyielding pain recently, mirroring the dramatic drop in her food intake. She’d lost weight and felt her bones press up against her as her flesh seemed to have shriveled. She wasn’t old and wrinkled; well, she was old, but the wrinkles hadn’t returned. Unfortunately, her strength and zest for life seemed to have lowered since they launched the Gilgamesh against the incoming Vim missiles.

  The time was fast approaching when Dreadnought Gilgamesh and its crew would face the two missiles.

  The Akkad was two months from reaching its strategic point behind the ringed planet, whose vast mass offered a natural barrier against the missile. The generational vessel had already entered what the humans called the Oort cloud.

  Over the last decade, as the Akkad decelerated, Ningal’s astute son had amassed a wealth of knowledge about humanity, their cultures, and technologies. They would need to use maximum thrust at the very end in order to position themselves behind the ringed planet.

  Could the Akkad withstand the two Vim missiles?

  Dreadnought Gilgamesh was near the interception point. The bridge officers on the Akkad monitored all the scopes, as tension rose dramatically for everyone. Would the People survive the twin terrors of two Annihilator missiles launched 256 years ago? The amazing technology of the Vims in the missiles had followed them across the void, across nearly fifty light years. The hated Vims had destroyed the old star system. Did that mean the hated Vims had slain the Peoples’ gods of the old star system?

  Ningal shook her head even as Chief Marshal Assur droned on to the strategists, giving them his grand and lengthy pep talk. Ningal shifted uneasily on her cushioned chair and rubbed the spot between her breasts. She felt so weak these days, and found it difficult to focus.

  People constantly summoned her to pray and bless them, and to settle disputes. More and more, Assur had cast her as the Judge of Disputes. At times, giving those judgments weighed heavily on her. Maybe that was sapping her vitality and finally wringing out her desire to live.

  After so long and so many husbands—

  Ningal smiled wanly. What did husbands matter these days? That was for the young.

  It even seemed that Assur was losing interest in women. His old wife had passed away, and he dallied with this beauty or that beauty, but he didn’t commit and take one as his own. Assur had sons and daughters. One was aboard the Gilgamesh.

  Ningal squeezed her eyelids tight and then opened them. I must focus and listen to what Assur is telling the strategists. As she did, it shocked and surprised her to realize these weren’t only strategists.

  The chamber was crammed with technologists as well. Ningal perceived this was not the grand speech about the coming battle. No. This was the planning for what happened if they survived the battle.

  The strategists and technologists had learned about the Earthlings’ nuclear war. Imagine the stupidity of fighting against each other like that.

  Ningal cocked her head. Hadn’t Rim-Sin annihilated an entire people so another race of the People could emerge? Maybe the humans weren’t the only stupid ones.

  In any case, Assur was speaking about the need to build manufacturing centers on the moons of the largest gas giant. The moons possessed the elements the People needed to construct weapons, munitions, and spaceships to battle the Earthlings. The Earthlings hadn’t lost their entire industrial base in the nuclear exchange, but much of it.

  The Akkad carried a historical high of 170,000 inhabitants. Most would leave the interstellar starship and go to the gas giant’s moons.

  After they arrived, and if they survived the missiles…

  Ningal yawned. She understood this talk now. The People would have to out-produce the humans on Earth if they were to defeat them. Perhaps that meant maneuvering asteroids into Earth orbit and dropping them on concentrations to obliterate heavy industrial sectors.

  The humans had technology, although not as potent as aboard the Akkad.

  The sensor operators continued to gain intelligence about life on Earth through radio and TV messages. Now that the Akkad was in the solar system, as the humans called it, they knew so much more about the aliens.

  Ningal sighed.

  A month from now, they’d know if the starship had to face two Vim missiles or one. Even one might prove too much. If two, the AI systems aboard the Vim missiles would come up with a plan of certain annihilation. It was conceivable the People could trick one missile through the cunning of Assur—

  And my prayers, Ningal told herself.

  The old gods—

  Ningal felt her heart quicken as she sat up and had an epiphany. The old gods were aboard the Akkad. The gods had boarded with the People. The gods had left the shattered star system and boarded the Akkad to be with the People. The old gods were intertwined with the life of the People.

  And I’m the conduit for the gods, Ningal realized. My position—a second epiphany struck. She was more important than Assur. She was the life of the Akkad, the spirit because the old gods spoke through her. That was why through her loins she’d given the ship and the old gods Assur.

  These were marvelous insights.

  Ningal frowned a moment.

  Why did these insights came to her when she was exhausted, when her mind seemed so empty? Am I being hysterical?

  A moment of contemplation brought her swift comfort. She’d received this revelation because she’d come to the end of herself.

  Oh, old gods of our home, she prayed silently, grant me strength and insight so I may guide Assur and do whatever is needed to save our People so we will survive in the end.

  Ningal’s mouth opened in shock. Her stomach began to growl for the first time in months as her appetite kicked into gear. Ningal sat straighter even as her stomach growled and rumbled.

  Instead of listening to Chief Marshal Assur instruct the technicians and strategists about how they would set up the moon bases, how they would kick-start industrial production and strip the Akkad of the needed tools… Assur also spoke about cracking the sealed stores. That would nearly empty the Akkad. Afterward, as a safety precaution, a tiny crew would reposition the Akkad in the Oort cloud. The generational vessel would be the People’s final refuge if everything turned against them.

  Ningal’s eyes gleamed with renewed vitality as she envisioned the array of foods she would soon savor, a pleasure long forgotten. Interestingly, the pain between her breasts vanished. She also noticed one of the older, stronger strategists. The man glanced at her.

  Ningal smiled at him. As she did, there was an old and ancient longing for intimacy with a man.

  Had the old gods given her this? Or was this renewed hope? Or the immortality serum that Rim-Sin had long ago invented? Perhaps it was a combination of all these things.

  Ningal reveled in the hunger she hadn’t felt for a long time. Then she concentrated on what Assur told the others. That was in case he told them something false and she ended up needing to correct him.

  Ningal realized that although the Chief Marshal ran the ship, she was the spirit of the Akkad.

  If I survive, our People can survive. If I fail, our People will fail. I am the most important living component of the ship.

  With the revelation, a gleam of determined madness, born from her epiphanies and the weight of her responsibility, filled Ningal’s eyes. The fanatical gleam said Ningal wouldn’t easily release her grip of life. She had reached the end of herself, but these epiphanies and revelations buoyed her up with a new sense of determination.

  -39-

  IN THE KUIPER BELT

  1 MONTH AGO

  The Akkad was one month from reaching its location behind the ringed planet. The bridge crew now knew its Earth name, Saturn. What was more, they’d decided to use the Earth names for things. That had been Ningal’s idea.

  She said, “The old gods have decreed we adopt Earthling terms, for their deities wield power in this realm. We shall tread lightly on their divine territories, reserving our judgment on humanity’s fate until it becomes clear what we must do.”

  Ningal had spoken thus during a strategy session.

  Assur had perked up. “Annihilate the humans?”

  “Yes,” Ningal said. “I feel it may come to that, as that is what the old gods are telling me.”

  Assur’s eyebrow arched in curiosity, words teetering on the brink of his lips, but his attention diverted to a strategist, leaving his thought unspoken. Did Assur note, as Ningal did, how each of them watched her closely, giving attention to her words. That might mean the strategists absorbed her thoughts.

  Assur glanced at Ningal.

  She smiled graciously and inclined her head. In her heart, Ningal was saying with the smile, I am the power of the ship, even though you don’t know it yet.

  Did Assur recognize the silent exchange? Ningal didn’t think so, because she saw the craftiness in his glance.

  Until this moment, Ningal had never seen how Assur was driven to excess by his need for control. Instead of allowing the old gods to use him as a conduit, Assur believed he used the old gods to mold the People to his ideas. Assur had the gall to think he ran things and not the old gods.

  Ningal also recognized his bloodthirstiness. He’s a monster in his lust for command. He has commanded for so long that he refuses to let anything stand between him and power.

  Ningal looked away lest Assur read too much in her. She realized that while the old gods supplied her with strength, Assur had the cunning and ruthlessness of the weak. He must have learned that because he was physically weaker than the Valiants. It wasn’t the same for her. She was a woman, naturally weaker than the men. But the Valiants were supreme soldiers. Assur was weaker than they were, yet he wanted to be them. Since he could not be them, he’d developed his mind. Through cunning, he’d become and remained the Chief Marshal all these long years.

  Ningal decided that she would wait, even though she touched a beamer pistol hidden in her consecrated purse.

  Soon enough, Assur adjourned the meeting.

  Several days later, Ningal found herself sitting in a throne-like chair a little behind the Chief Marshal’s command chair.

  Meanwhile, all the bridge officers concentrated on the big screen image of Dreadnought Gilgamesh. The warship was days away in terms of light-speed communication. The terrible Vim missiles were almost in range of the dreadnought. Soon, the battle between them would commence.

  Much rested upon the encounter.

  Ningal stood, lifting her arms as she implored aloud, “O old gods of our former star system: please grant those of the Gilgamesh valor and battle cunning. We plead with you: let the soldiers deal with the hated enemy, the Vims, and their dreadful missiles. I ask you for this favor most humbly, old gods of home.”

  Finished, Ningal sat with a thump. She was exhausted. In her exhaustion, a state of peace filled her. The prayer had reached the old gods. They had heard her because she’d prayed so fervently and with such intent.

  From the command chair, Assur cleared his throat. A moment later, he began to issue orders to the teleoptic officers and sensor directors.

  Everyone waited, their eyes glued to the big screen or to the monitors at their stations.

  A collective gasp filled the room as the missiles appeared on one edge of the large screen, with the Dreadnought Gilgamesh poised on the opposite edge. The hated Vim missiles fired beams of bitter wattage. The missiles also launched shrapnel bombs and electronic warfare devices to block or fool anything the Gilgamesh could send.

  The size of the missile became more apparent. The Vim missiles dwarfed the Akkad, perhaps two times as big as the generational vessel.

  Dreadnought Gilgamesh was a flea compared to the giant missiles. Nevertheless, the warship fired particle beams and railguns, and it launched shrapnel bombs and rockets. Afterward, the Gilgamesh sprayed a vast aerosol cloud before it. That was to absorb the missiles’ beams.

  Those beams flickered from the warhead cones. The Vim beams ate into the aerosol mass protecting the Gilgamesh. Far too soon, the beams breached the aerosol cloud and began to chew into the dreadnought’s extra hull plating.

  “No,” Assur said.

  Seconds later, the Chief Marshal stood.

  All the officers followed his example and stood as well.

  From her throne, Ningal cried out in a loud voice, begging the old gods for aid.

  Vim shrapnel bombs cut down the tiny rockets launched from the dreadnought. Electronic warfare pods caused others to fly the wrong way. Worse, the Gilgamesh’s particle beams had negligible effect upon the missiles’ hulls.

  At that moment, fortune or the old gods intervened and allowed a different dreadnought bomb to reach near a Vim warhead. The bomb exploded with a powerful thermonuclear blast. The bomb hadn’t reached the warhead, but some of the blast did. Was that enough to do any damage to the possibly already damaged warhead? The Vim missiles had taken damage from the two nebulas they’d passed through many decades ago.

  Everyone on the bridge waited. The images on the big screen and monitors told of events that had already occurred several days ago. The battle had already been won or lost. But no one on the Akkad yet knew the outcome.

  “Please, please, old gods,” Ningal said. Her clenched fists were pressed against her lap. Tears dripped from her eyes.

  Suddenly, a massive antimatter explosion took place. In the blink of an eye, the missile was gone.

  As the antimatter blast reached the flea of a dreadnought, all those who had trained, all those who had flown to face the Vim missiles vanished and were dead.

  Silence enveloped the bridge as every officer retook their seats, their gazes locked on the screens. Success—the crew of Gilgamesh had achieved the unimaginable, triggering the detonation of a dreaded, Type Four Annihilator missile.

  Would that destroy in a chain reaction the last missile? No. It was several days behind, as it had originally launched later than its sister-missile.

  Now, however, only one missile of the Vims chased the Akkad. The People had sacrificed their greatest warship, a dreadnought, and all those on it, to achieve this immortal victory.

  “We will remember them forever,” Ningal said into the silence. “The old gods have granted us this victory. The old gods be praised.”

  Several bridge officers nodded solemnly. Others looked to Assur.

  The Chief Marshal stood. “Mother,” he said.

  Ningal looked at him in anticipation. Had her words angered Assur? Couldn’t he see that the old gods had been generous with him?

  “What do you wish to say, Chief Marshal?” Ningal said.

  They locked gazes.

  Did she see fear in his eyes, or was that a gleam of cunning?

  Assur cleared his throat and turned to the officers. “Let us sing a solemn paean of praise. A terrible Annihilator missile is no more. We have achieved a great victory today just as those of the Akkad did in the past. We are victorious. This is wonderful.”

  “It happened because of the old gods,” Ningal chirped.

  Assur stared at her. He did not directly contradict her. Instead, he said, “The victory is also due to the valor and technological prowess of the People. Now, let us begin singing.”

  The officers on the bridge burst out with a song of triumph. There was just one more missile left. Soon, they would know if the Akkad would survive it.

  -40-

  SATURN

  2060 A.D.

  The majestic Akkad, a great generational vessel of the People, came to a halt behind the gas giant Saturn. The giant cylinder continued to rotate along its length, creating pseudo-gravity for the crew and passengers. But the ship itself no longer moved. For 286 years, it had traveled from the old star system, pursued by Vim missiles for 256 of those years. Now, at last, for the moment at least, the mighty, generational vessel ceased going anywhere.

  The Akkad had reached a new star system in the area of its major planets, all orbiting the star known to the system aliens as the Sun.

  Thus far, Earth’s inhabitants seemed unaware of their star system’s invasion. That was according to the radio and TV transmissions from there. These days, the eavesdroppers aboard the Akkad could listen to the Earth shows and programs easily. It had been many years already since the language techs had cracked the English tongue.