His voice hardened. “If they do, Captain, you are ordered to trigger the ultimate destruct,” he ordered. “They are not to recover anything from the Lightning, understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Andrew said. There was nothing else to say. “When will the weapons be loaded onboard my ship?”
“Now,” Brent said. He stood up and held out a hand. “Good luck, Andrew.”
An hour later, Andrew examined the weapons pods thoughtfully, but there was no difference between the new weapons and standard warp missiles, at least on the surface. Inwardly, there were considerable differences, but he’d already issued strict orders that his crew were to refrain from examining the missiles in any way. Andrew doubted that the Killers would be interested in capturing them, but the Admiral had been right; the Community couldn’t take the risk. They had to nip in, launch the missiles and vanish again before the star and planet exploded.
He turned and walked back towards the bridge, sealing the weapons compartment begin him. The AI’s automated servitors could handle the missiles from now on, allowing him to bar all humans from the weapons bays entirely. Merely looking at the missiles had sent shivers down his spine, even though he knew that they couldn’t detonate onboard the Lightning, and he wouldn’t really be happy until he had fired them both and fled. He’d given the rest of the crew a briefing — and transferred five officers off the ship, to cut down on the number of possible casualties — but they didn’t have to worry about anything, apart from their duties. He had to worry about the risks of losing the ship.
The Admiral hadn’t provided him with much information on what the missiles did, but there was considerable hard data on supernovas, including studies of two that had detonated in the Milky Way while under Community observation. Andrew had wondered, briefly, if the supernovas had been nothing more than tests of the new weapon, but the Admiral had admitted that the weapons had never been tested before. Worse, from what the Admiral said, the Killers had taken an interest in the natural supernovas; testing the human-designed weapons would certainly have attracted their attention. It suggested a way to lure the Killers into a trap, but their sheer firepower would allow them to cut their way out of any human trap, if they recognised its existence. They might not even notice…
But no one was quite sure what would happen when the weapon was used. They didn’t know how much of the star’s mass would explode, or how far the destruction would spread, or even how badly the gas giant would be cooked. The gas giant was large enough to survive the supernova, even though it would definitely be hurt, and if the weapon deployed against the first target failed, or was intercepted, it would all be for nothing. He pushed the thoughts out of his mind as he stepped onto the bridge and took the command chair. They had no choice, but to try. Who knew? Maybe the Killers would agree to make peace, or the horse would learn to sing.
“Helm, take us out,” he ordered. “I want low power until we clear Sparta’s defence perimeter and then bring up the Anderson Drive.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman said. Lieutenant David Dunagin looked as tense as Andrew felt; he’d been one of those who’d wondered if the weapons would explode if the ship shook violently. The technical data said that they couldn’t be detonated without the proper firing sequence, but the techs had been wrong before and there was no data to help gage it for themselves. “We’re on our way.”
Andrew watched as the Lightning slipped past countless other starships, mainly small destroyers and patrol boats. There were no less than ten attack wings of destroyers at Sparta at all times — seven hundred and twenty starships — but he cherished no illusions about what would happen if the Killers came calling. The Community Defence Force could — and had — build thousands of starships every week, but unless they improved their weapons, the results would be the same. The Killers would smash the defences and then Sparta. The nerve centre of the Defence Force would be destroyed. If they knew what he was carrying…
He wasn’t blind to some of the other implications. The human race depended upon stars almost as much as the Killers, perhaps more. Destroying a star would send shivers down the spines of everyone in the Community, fearing the results if the Killers retaliated in kind. Or, perhaps, if humans and the Killers were sharing the same star system… they might fear being destroyed as collateral damage. And then there were the religious implications… Andrew had read, long ago, that humans had been terrified of nuclear bombs, pitiful as they were on an interstellar scale, and the supernova bombs were worse. No human settlement would survive a supernova. The only defence was not to be there when the weapon was used.
There’s no choice, he reminded himself. If the weapon worked, there were hundreds of other possible targets that had no human presence within a hundred light years, apart from spies and scouting parties. The Killers would have to cope with a whole new threat, somehow; perhaps they could be worn down, or convinced to seek a peace. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking. The human race still knew almost nothing of how the Killers actually thought.
“We’re past the perimeter, sir,” David said, suddenly. “The Anderson Drive is powering up and we can jump on your mark.”
Andrew tapped his chair’s console. “Engineering, report,” he ordered. “What is out current status?”
“We’re ready and hot, sir,” the Engineer said. “All systems are good to go.”
Andrew smiled. “Take us to the first waypoint,” he ordered. “Jump!”
He felt his stomach clench as the starship jumped, a seemingly-endless rushing sensation that ended when the starship fell back into normal space at the edge of the target system. The display filled up rapidly with new icons, but there were no traces of Killer starships, or other possible threats. The Observer had fought and died bare light years from their location, yet there was no sign that anything had happened in the system, ever. It was as dark and silent as the grave.
“Tactical report,” Andrew snapped. “Are we in the clear?”
“I am picking up no trace of Killer starships on long-range sensors,” Lieutenant Gary Young confirmed. “The gravimetric sensors report no large masses within engagement range.”
“Good,” Andrew said, looking ahead into the Killer star system. He hadn’t realised, until now, just how easy it was for the Killers to hide in gas giants, if they were hiding at all. They could have an entire civilisation down there below the clouds and humanity wouldn’t be able to detect them, even with the most advanced sensors they had developed. It suggested a possible cause of the first war, as well; what if some race had mined a gas giant and accidentally killed Killers in the process? Had that been what had started the war? “Helm, take us in, slowly.”
He’d considered simply popping out of Anderson Drive above the gas giant, firing off the missile and then jumping over to the star, but that would have certainly have attracted attention from the Killers. If the Lightning came in slowly, the starship would look more like a piece of space junk than anything else, even on gravimetric sensors. The Killers could see through cloaking devices — that had been established at new Singapore — but they might not recognise the Lightning if she came in on a ballistic course. They ignored pieces of space junk completely. It wasn’t as if it could threaten their magnificent starships.