And, still more extraordinary, Jupiter itself was visibly wounded, immense storms like blackened funnels digging deep into its surface.
It was an extraordinary sight, Flood conceded. ‘Spectacle and history, all mixed up.’
‘Yes, Father,’ said Beya. ‘As for Jupiter, you know I’ve been reading up on Solar System history . . .’
He didn’t entirely approve of this; it struck him as a guilty reflex.
‘You say this is all because of human action?’
‘That’s the story,’ he said. ‘Though my grasp of ancient earthworm history is shaky.’
A thousand years before, Jupiter had been damaged by the actions of the Friends of Wigner, refugees from the future. The Friends had had in mind some grand, impossible scheme to alter history. Their plan had involved firing asteroid-mass black holes into Jupiter.
‘Whatever these “Friends” intended, it didn’t work,’ Flood said. ‘All they succeeded in doing was wrecking Jupiter.’ He shook his head. ‘The greatest mass in the Solar System after the sun itself, a vast resource for the future – ruined in a single action. How typical of earthworm arrogance!’
Light sparked in the complex sky. Flood saw it reflected in his daughter’s face. He turned.
One of the Alpha ships, the Destiny of Humankind, had exploded. The delicate spine was broken, the detached GUTdrive flaring pointlessly, and the fragile lifedome shattered, spilling particles of pink and green into space.
Alarms howled. Virtual control desks appeared before Beya and Flood, crammed with data. The crew, sleepy, shocked, scrambled to get to their positions.
And then another ship detonated. The Future Hope, a ship five hundred years old, gone in a second. This time Flood glimpsed the missile that took it out. But there was no time to reflect.
‘Incoming,’ Beya called. ‘Incoming!’
Flood worked at his desk with brisk sweeps of his fingers. ‘All right. We’re evading.’ The lifedome shuddered as the GUTdrive flared, shoving the Freestar sideways.
A missile streaked past the lifedome, close enough to see with the naked eye, glowing white-hot.
‘Shit,’ Beya said. ‘How are they doing this? The scans showed the volume around us was clear.’
‘Jupiter,’ Flood said, reading his displays rapidly. ‘The missiles are coming out of Jupiter. But the velocities are so high – I don’t understand.’
‘The black holes,’ Beya said. ‘Maybe that’s it. They’re slingshotting their missiles off the central black holes. You can pick up a hell of a lot of kinetic energy from an ergosphere.’
‘Yes. And then they punch out of the carcass of the planet, right at us. Incredible.’
Another ship flared and died, a flower of light, pointlessly beautiful.
‘The Dream of Beta,’ Flood read. ‘That’s three of us gone in a few seconds. They’re picking us off. Three of us left, against a dozen Navy cruisers. We’ll have to withdraw. Regroup if we can—’
‘No.’ Beya was working hard at her desk. ‘Dad, there’s no time for that. Tell the survivors to make for the Poole hub.’
‘Why? The wormhole links are severed; we can’t get away from there.’
‘It will give us a bit of cover. And I’ve an idea,’ she said, distant, working.
Flood frowned. He didn’t enjoy it when this determined side of his daughter showed itself; it made her seem too strong, too independent – he couldn’t protect her any more. But she had called the black-hole missile manoeuvre correctly. He saw no better option than to accept her recommendation.
He snapped out the orders. The Freestar’s GUTdrive kicked in. The acceleration mounted quickly, to two, three, four gravities. Flood felt it in his bones, but he stood his ground, determined. Above his head, Jupiter slid with ponderous slowness across his field of view. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Come on . . .’
Aboard the bridge of the Imperial Navy ship Facula there was much cheering at the rapid downing of half the rebel fleet – premature cheering, as far as Stillich was concerned.
‘Status,’ he yelled at Pella, above the noise.
‘Three down, three to go.’
‘But the three survivors aren’t running.’
‘Not from Jovian space, no sir. They seem to be making for the Poole hub.’
‘Why there?’
Pella tapped a desk. ‘The war-game AIs have no idea. If they need cover they could run to one of the moons . . .’ She grinned. ‘Sir, who cares? We have twelve ships against three. Even with one to one losses we can shoot them out of the sky.’
Stillich felt deeply uneasy, but he couldn’t argue with that analysis. ‘All right. Call the fleet; set up an attacking perimeter.’
‘Sir.’
The GUTdrive surged smoothly.
Twelve ships against three. The decision to withdraw the Sol fleet to Jupiter had been a good one, Stillich thought. The hinterland of the giant planet was a dangerous, complex place, laced with strong gravitational fields, intense radiation and hazards like the Io flux tube. It was a battleground much more familiar to the defending Imperial Navy than to the attackers – there were no Jovian worlds in Alpha System – and he had been impressed by the innovative thinking at a Navy college on Earth that had come up with the notion of using the black hole slingshot to pick off the rebels before the ships had even engaged. But once he had accepted the stratagem, Stillich had argued for withdrawing all of Earth’s fleet to Jupiter or its environs, not to leave half of it mounting a futile picket fence against the incoming wave of relativistic missiles.
Still – twelve against three. It was more reassuring than twelve against six had been, but Stillich was in no mood for anything less than a complete victory, an annihilation. The security of the System demanded it, and the more overwhelming the odds the better.
On the Freestar, the Poole hub was already approaching, a cluster of Interface portals hurtling over the horizon towards the surviving rebel ships, a tangle of electric blue.
‘Lethe,’ Beya breathed. ‘I didn’t know how beautiful it was.’
Flood said softly, ‘The wormholes are gateways to other times, other places. They should be beautiful, like all great engineering.’
Alarms chimed once more.
Beya studied her data desk. ‘They’re closing in, Father, a dozen Navy cruisers.’
‘Then this is it.’
She kissed him on the cheek, a lingering gesture that still felt too brief. ‘Cover me.’
‘What?’
She turned and ran, faster than he could hope to catch her. ‘I told you. I have an idea.’ And she ducked out of sight, through a hatch to the ship’s spine.
A missile soared past the lifedome, and the crew ducked, involuntarily. Then there was a speckle of laser light, and the dome blister blacked itself out. Grey Morus, Flood’s second in command, yelled across, ‘They’ve got our range, Flood. We’re shooting back but—’
Flood’s data desk chimed. The AIs had quickly come up with a defensive configuration for the ships, lifedomes together, tails out, backed up against the Poole hub, using their combined superhot GUTdrive exhaust for defence. Flood punched his data desk. ‘Copy this and implement,’ he snapped at Grey. ‘Beya! Where are you? Beya!’