Father Sigmund spoke into the silence. “We know nothing about Killer politics, or what they have in place of a nation, but it strikes me that using a bomb designed to blow up a star is genocide,” he said. “We would be targeting any number — a vast number — of Killers and slaughtering them. I believe that such an action would be grossly immoral.”
“With all due respect, Father,” Rupert snapped, “the Killers have been committing genocide against us ever since they discovered Earth, a thousand years ago. They have committed complete genocide against hundreds of other alien races, perhaps even thousands of races we will never know existed. I hardly think that this is the time to have doubts. It’s them or us!”
“That they do it doesn’t make it right,” Father Sigmund snapped back. “We cannot slaughter billions of them in cold blood!”
“They’re slaughtering billions of us in cold blood,” Rupert replied, sharply. “Do we have a right not to be exterminated?” He bulled on before Father Sigmund could answer. “Where are the Angels of the Lord who stand between us and extermination? Where are the thundering thunderbolts of the gods who will smite those unholy killing bastards and save us from certain death? Where are the miracles that will deliver us from this tormented galaxy…?”
“I will not be mocked,” Father Sigmund thundered, angrily. “I speak for billions of people, human people, not half-metal cyborgs with delusions of grandeur or godhood!”
“Ask them what they want,” Rupert mocked. The Spacer’s eye-implant buzzed angrily. “Ask them if they want to hurt the Killers — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth — or if they want to turn the other cheek, so the Killers can slap it as well. Ask them! You are not a dictator, merely their representative.”
“I am perfectly aware of my position and my responsibilities,” Father Sigmund said, coldly. He stood up and glared at Patti, who didn’t flinch. “I cast my vote against destroying a star and with it, their planets. If my people choose to remove me for my decision, then I will accept their judgement, but it will not change my position. I will not be compliant in your crime.”
His image flickered once and vanished.
“Show off,” Rupert muttered. He cleared his throat noisily. “I cast my vote in favour of moving at once to destroy a Killer star. Anyone else?”
The vote was tallied quickly. “We have four in favour, one against and two who refused to cast a vote,” Patti said, finally. She looked over at Brent. “The Defence Force is hereby ordered to select a target and destroy it — to kill a Killer star. Meeting adjourned.”
Tabitha scowled to herself as she dropped back into her own private perceptual reality. Whoever had revealed the existence of the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator to Patti had committed high treason, yet she couldn’t think of anyone who had had a motive for doing so. They might even claim that keeping information from the President was treason itself, if it came to trial, but… it made no sense. She had discussed the possible use of the weapon with others, true, but they had decided to wait until they had a stockpile of starbombs to use. The President was pushing them to act faster than they had wanted to act… and there was no avoiding it. Legally, now the vote had been taken, it would be treason to delay.
Unless Father Sigmund manages to round up opposition, she thought, but she knew that that was unlikely. The Deists would want to hit back at the Killers themselves, as hard as possible, and it was unlikely that more than a few million would try to oppose deployment. The Father would probably lose his position over his opposition…
She shook her head and forced herself to relax. Whatever happened now — and, after seeing Earth die, she knew just how bad it could become — the die was cast. The Killers would know that they had been hurt. She just hoped that it would make them sit up and take notice of humanity. Who knew — maybe they would even talk to the human race…
And then she knew she was dreaming.
Admiral Brent Roeder snapped back into his office on Sparta, thinking cold thoughts about politicians in general and Father Sigmund in particular, although he also included the President on the list. How had she learned about the starbomb? It had been a classified secret for good reason — not least to prevent demands for premature deployment against the Killers when there wasn’t even a massive reserve of the weapons — but somehow the secret had leaked out. He considered the possible suspects, including Administrator Arun Prabhu and his staff, but dismissed them. No one had a reasonable motive for leaking the secret. It was a mystery that wouldn’t be solved easily.
“Damn it,” he muttered, and keyed his personnel console. The console wasn’t linked to Sparta’s own internal computer network and supervising AIs, let alone the MassMind and the Galactic Communications Network. It was the most secure system on the asteroid and housed his personal files, including the highly-classified simulations of what would happen when the starbomb was deployed. “Computer, show me the projections for a standard Class-I gas giant.”
The images unfolded in front of him and he scowled. The Killers used gas giants as habitats — and, now one of their starships had been studied, it was easy to detect planets that might house a Killer colony — but there were millions of possible targets. Gas giants emitted radio waves regularly and it wasn’t easy to determine if a Killer colony occupied the gas giant, or if it was merely random radiation. If they wasted weapons on uninhabited gas giants, the results would be, at best, nothing more than a waste of time. At worst, the Killers would see the threat coming and move against the human race. The only fitting targets were the systems with large structures — the strange devices they were building out of the rubble of entire planets — but they presented their own risks. What if the Killers captured an intact starbomb?
“We should have tested the weapon,” he muttered aloud, but the old argument against testing the weapons still held true. They couldn’t risk attracting the attention of the Killers until they had a proper defence in place, yet the Killers were already attacking. “Where can we attack?”
Only one target suggested itself, the only planet where they knew for sure there was a Killer colony world; CAS-3473746-6, the system that had claimed the Observer. Brent studied the records quickly and made his decision. If they were going to commit themselves to detonating a massive gas giant and a star, they might as well push it right to the limits.
“Get me Captain Ramage,” he ordered, finally. The Captain’s report from New Hope had passed across his desk days ago, reminding him that there were worse people in the universe than Father Sigmund. He just hoped that Rupert was right about the Deists wanting revenge as much as anyone else. A faction fight at the moment would be disastrous. “Tell him I have a special mission for him.”
“Yes, sir,” his aide said. “Do you want a direct communications link or do you want him to report in person?”
“In person,” Brent confirmed. He glanced down at the Defence Force update and placed the Lightning several thousand light years away. The Anderson Drive would have them at Sparta within seconds. “Inform me when the Lightning docks.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Captain Andrew Ramage reporting, sir.”
“Ah, Andrew,” Admiral Brent Roeder said. “Take a seat.”