“Sir?” Meyers had turned towards him. “Tactical sweep shows us clear. Shall I go to ground-sensing?”
“Wait until we know there’s some ground to sense. Deacon, don’t make me come over there…”
“It’s fine, Colonel,” Deacon shoved his glasses back so hard the frame squeaked. “We’re right on the money. Just a fractional rotational anomaly, that’s all. I’m correcting that now.”
“Are we in orbit around M19-371?”
“Should be coming into view now, sir.”
Sure enough, the starfield outside the viewport was turning. Apollo had come out of hyperspace in the right place, but tilted about twenty degrees off the ecliptic with a sizable yaw. To get the ship back on course Deacon was swinging the ship to starboard and executing a long-axis roll at the same time — the visual effect, with no sense of movement to back it up, was mildly disorientating. “Meyers, factor the rotation in and begin ground-scanning.”
“I just have…” She sounded hesitant, which wasn’t like Meyers at all. Ellis saw her lean towards Deacon. “Kyle, are you sure we’re in the right place?”
“Sure, why?”
She shook her head. “This can’t be right. Colonel, didn’t Atlantis say this world was inhabited?”
“They said it was where Angelus came from.”
“It can’t be,” she breathed. “It can’t be.”
Ellis opened his mouth to ask her what she was babbling about, but then the planet rolled into view, and he forgot what he was going to say. The strength he took from steel faded, lost in the sight.
He stood up. “My God,” he whispered. “It’s on fire.”
There might have been a time when the planet could have supported life. According to the readouts on Meyers’ tactical display its gravity was near Earth normal, its rotational period at roughly thirty hours, its orbit in the sweet spot between the boiling and freezing points of liquid water. There could have been life on M19-371, once. It might have been a garden world, a paradise.
There was no way to tell. The planet was a charred ball, blackened and blasted, cracked through with threads of livid red. There were no land-masses he could see, no polar caps, no green, no blue. Just black and gray and the flickering, liquid orange of distant magma.
“No breathable atmosphere,” Meyers said dully. “Traces of oxygen in the upper layers, but not much. Nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, some exotics. Mostly particulate carbon.”
“Radiation?”
“Off the scale.”
“Analyze it.” Ellis stared down at the planet, watching black clouds the size of continents roil sluggishly beneath him. Where the clouds were parted he saw spots of dull light, overlapping rings, hundreds of them. Craters, no longer burning but glowing hot, vomiting up more smoke into the dead, poisoned air.
“Sir?” That was Meyers again. “I’ve got the radiation signature.”
“Spit it out.”
She took a deep breath. “Asuran weapons fire, Colonel. It was the Replicators.”
“Tell me one thing, Colonel Carter,” Ellis asked a short time later. “Were you expecting that?”
He heard her sigh. “No. Angelus told us the planet had been attacked, everyone killed, but that level of destruction is just…” She trailed off.
“What would make them do that?”
“Hit it so hard? My guess is they discovered most of the cities were underground, hidden from the Wraith, and just pulverized the crust to make sure they got everybody.”
Ellis leaned back in the command throne, covering his eyes with his hands for a moment before wiping them down his face. He felt tired, exhausted, his eyeballs gritty and his neck muscles shiveringly tense. The warmth of his hands over his eyes for a moment helped a little, but that wasn’t the only reason they had found their way there. There was a part of him that wanted to shut out the image of that burning world, even though it was long gone from the viewport. He could still see the clouds, the craters, the glowing fracture lines. It was all there, behind his eyes.
He’d even authorized use of subspace comms in order to make this particular report. He needed to speak of this quickly, as if doing so would somehow lessen its horror. The sooner it was gone from him, the better.
“No, I meant why did they hit it at all?”
“Oh, I see…” Carter paused, as if gathering her thoughts. “That’s the part we needed confirmation on.”
“But it was to get Angelus.”
“Partly. From what he told us, he’d realized that the Wraith couldn’t be fooled by the Eraavi much longer, so he decided to give his children a fighting chance. He started designing a weapon; we don’t know quite what, something extremely powerful. Not nuclear weapons, something far worse than that. The way he was talking — before he clammed up again — he didn’t seem to think that hive ships would have been a real threat any more.”
The military side of Abe Ellis perked up at that. “Really? Are you sure he didn’t say anything else?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Thing is, he never got to finish it. The Asurans must have picked up some kind of energy signature from his tests and realized what he was doing. Maybe they got so freaked out by it that they decided to burn the entire planet and everyone on it.”
“And our boy Angelus just made it out, huh?” Ellis folded his arms. “All on his own.”
“The Eraavi weren’t spacefarers. That kind of research must have been forbidden — it would have attracted the Wraith faster than anything.”
“Makes sense.” As much as anything did any more, Ellis thought glumly. “Okay, there’s nothing more we can do here. If there’s no objection, I’ll take Apollo on to the next drop point.”
“No objection at all, Colonel. The sooner those sensors are online the safer I’ll feel.”
Ellis cut the connection from his end. He’d given up on feeling safe. “Deacon?”
“Course is queued up and ready, sir.”
“That’s good to hear. Okay, get us back in the pipe. And then stand down — you’ve been on for two consecutive watches already. That means you too, Meyers.”
“Yes sir, if you insist. Hyperdrive is ready on your command.”
Ellis nodded. “Do it.”
In front of the viewscreen, a spot of silver-blue light appeared, raced towards the ship and spread open like a maw to engulf it. Ellis caught a glimpse of the stars at the edges of the hyperspace vortex streak into comet-tails of light as the ship accelerated out of the normal universe, but they were gone in an instant. Within a few seconds, Apollo was diving down the endless blue tunnel once more.
“All systems optimal,” Deacon reported. “Estimated time to the next drop point is five hours seventeen.”
Ellis stood up and stretched. His first instinct was to tell Deacon not to rush, to throttle the hyperdrive back a few degrees and let the crew have a little downtime, but he suppressed that urge as soon as he felt it. Atlantis needed those sensors, and fast. Besides, Meyers and Deacon were not the only bridge crew he had. They had stayed on watch of their own accord, and he had let them out of a desire for continuity on the mission, but they would need to be relieved soon anyway. Their replacements could handle the next watch or two.
“I’ll be in my quarters,” he muttered. “Any change in status, you know the drill.”
“Colonel?”
“Deacon, I told you. Get some rest.”
“Sir, I would. But —”
“What?” Ellis turned towards him. “But what?”
Deacon swallowed, staring at his board. “There’s been a change in status.”
Ellis was at his side in two strides. “Show me.”
“Here.” The helmsman pointed at a set of figures on his board, then used the keyboard to bring up a second set. As soon as the new digits appeared, Ellis could see they were deviating. “We’re off-course?”