He put the report down — ignoring the faint shivers running through the deck as the weapons pods were replaced — and called up the live feed from the Cinder. No one knew who had first coined the term, but at least the star wasn’t hiding behind a CAS number any longer, just in time to die. The former gas giant was still wracked with strange energies, as if a witch’s brew was being formed from the devastation, and the Defence Force had ordered the researchers to remain well away from the planet, just in case. Andrew couldn’t fault the decision; the Technical Faction’s researchers, in his experience, tended to try to get just a little closer to anything interesting, which sometimes meant that they were too close. The Faction had lost hundreds of starships to situations that any competent Captain would have avoided. The Defence Force couldn’t afford that luxury.
The scientists studying the dying planet were perplexed. It simply wasn’t behaving as the simulations insisted it should have behaved. It should have either blown up completely and created a new asteroid field, or collapsed down into a tiny fraction of its former self. It had done neither. The lead scientist had speculated that there was still a reaction burning away down inside the Cinder, but he hadn’t been able to suggest just what had happened, or why. The gas giant’s core was as unreachable as ever.
At least we understand the remains of the supernova, he thought, as he flickered over to the next section. The supernova had burned itself out, leaving only a tiny echo of its former self… and a devastated system. Human explorers were crawling all over it now, trying to learn as much as possible before the Killers returned to reclaim their system, even if they died in the process. They had already located several other pieces of Killer technology, although nothing as large and prominent as the massive Killer starship, and had high hopes of discovering more. They even wanted to explore down inside the remains of the gas giant, although Andrew was convinced that that was dangerous — and futile. Nothing could have survived the holocaust he’d unleashed on the Killer settlement within the mists.
The starship shivered again, reminding him of the Community’s reaction to the supernova bomb. There had been an unholy delight at the news, at how the Killers had finally been hurt as badly as they’d hurt humanity, but there had also been fear, fear of what could happen if the supernova bomb was used again. Humanity’s settlements were vulnerable to expanding blast waves, perhaps far more vulnerable than the Killer settlements were, and there was no reason why the Killers themselves couldn’t destroy whole stars. It seemed to have slipped their attention that the Killers didn’t need to destroy whole stars. If a fleet of Killer starships arrived in a human system, it would tear through the defences and shatter the human settlement. They didn’t need to resort to blowing up entire stars.
But some of the other responses were even worse. There were groups — and a growing body of public opinion — that called for the deployment of additional bombs, hitting every known Killer star. They wouldn’t care if they had to dismantle the entire galaxy to wipe out the Killers...and Andrew was ashamed to admit that he would have once agreed. Before he’d seen the Cinder System devastated and the Killers slaughtered, it would have been easy to demand their extermination, but now… he remembered watching the Killer cities fighting for life and shivered. They, like humanity, had been at the mercy of the storm. It made them almost human. He almost felt sorry for them.
He shook his head, angrily dismissing the thought. The Killers had slaughtered billions of humans and exterminated countless alien races. They didn’t talk to the victims, nor did they have a cause; they just came, saw and exterminated. They showed no mercy to their targets; why, then, should humanity show mercy to them? They hadn’t had any cause to go to war with Earth, or the countless other worlds they’d devastated; until recently, humanity hadn’t even been able to hurt them. He hoped, savagely, that they were reeling in pain, stunned at the blows they’d taken. It was nothing more than the down payment of what humanity owed them. The Community might have its political factions, it might scrabble over each and every thing humans could scrabble over, but they all shared one single belief. The Killers had to be stopped, whatever it took.
Yet stopping them might mean nothing less than destroying half the galaxy to save the rest. Andrew had looked it up. On average, almost every major star system possessed at least one gas giant, although there were notable exceptions. Were they all Killer settlements? If the human race had spent the last thousand years settling planets rather than asteroids, they would have expanded over the entire galaxy; had the Killers settled every gas giant? He had a vision of two very different races co-existing without even being aware of each other; there was little for humans and Killers to fight over, really. They didn’t even compete for the same words. Could they — should they — destroy the galaxy in order to save it?
“Captain,” Gary said, breaking into his thoughts. “We have a confirmed link to the weapons pod. Implosion bolts and particle cannons are online and ready to engage targets.”
Andrew nodded. “Excellent,” he said. The Defence Force had amassed no less than ten attack wings of destroyers, armed with the new weapons, to face the Killers. They all had to pass through the shipyards as quickly as possible before they moved to the new system, the system that humanity was about to kill. “Helm, take us to a holding position and keep us there.”
“Aye, sir,” David said. Lightning thrummed slightly as he brought up the drive field. It was easy to believe that the starship was a living entity, eager to be out in space again; indeed, with the AI distributed throughout the ship, it effectively was a living entity. Andrew suddenly had an impression of how the Killer starships had to operate, with the Killer bound so closely to his ship that they were one, and suppressed a sudden burst of envy. The Killers might be able to handle being bonded to a starship, but the humans who had tried had gone mad. “We’re under way.”
“Once we get there,” Andrew added, “bring up the tactical simulations. We need to practice using the new weapons in combat.”
He pulled up the data on the Shiva System — as some wag had dubbed it — and examined it quickly. Shiva was far from any known human settlements, although the possibility of a completely hidden colony could not be discounted, and even if the Killers did track them down, they shouldn’t be able to find or destroy anything else. He doubted that that was a real concern. The Killers had shown no difficulty in tracking down humanity’s settlements when they wanted to find them. No one even knew how they did it, unless their sensors were far superior to humanity’s…
“We’re in position, sir,” David said.
“Bring up the simulation,” Andrew ordered. He pushed his thoughts away for later consideration. “Use a standard simulation first, and then we’ll get tricky.”
“To slay another star,” a voice said, behind her. “It almost seems beyond comprehension.”
President Patti Lydon turned, but she already knew who was behind her, who had materialised in her personal chambers without passing through the elaborate security precautions intended to preserve the life of the President of the Community. The MassMind representative looked as strange as ever and she looked away, unwilling to stare into the strange face. It just kept reminding her that there were billions of humans in the MassMind, looking back at her. Her own parents occupied their worlds deep inside the system. It would have been easy to talk to them, to hear their advice, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t something the President could allow herself.