effort focused on this is like no other endeavour in our history. Every university, every company and military laboratory, every febrile mind in eight hundred inhabited star systems has been working on it. The best anybody has come up with is the possibility of a doomsday anti-memory for the souls in the beyond. One can hardly consider such mass slaughter as a valid answer, even if it can be made to work. We have to start looking at this from a different angle altogether. In order to do that, we must have stability and a reasonable degree of prosperity as an umbrella to work under. Society will have to change in many ways; most of which will be profoundly unsettling. One doesn’t even know if it will ultimately reinforce or obliterate our faith in God.”
“I can see the logic in what you’re saying,” Korzhenev said. “But what about the Assembly and the Confederation Navy itself? They exist to protect all planets equally.”
“Bottom line,” Lady Phillipa said, “is that he who pays the piper . . . and those of us in this room do pay a considerable amount. We’re not abandoning anybody, we’re restructuring policy to a more realistic response towards this crisis. If it could be solved quickly, then all we’d need is the quarantine and a few interdiction flights. As that quite obviously hasn’t happened, we are going to have to take the tough decision and settle in for the long haul. This is the only way we can offer those already possessed with any prospect of regaining their own identities one day.”
“How many other star systems do you envisage joining this core-Confederation?” Prince Tokama asked.
“We believe ninety-three systems have the kind of fully developed technoindustrial infrastructure to qualify for admission. We don’t envisage this as being a small elite. Our fiscal analysis shows that many stars would be able to sustain a modest but steady economic growth pattern between themselves.”
“Do you envisage asking the Edenists to join?” Ku Rongi asked.
“Of course,” the King replied. “In fact we took inspiration from them. After Pernik they have demonstrated an admirable resolution in safeguarding their habitats from infiltration. That’s precisely the kind of determination we wish to institute among ourselves. If the stage two planets and developing asteroids had done the same right from the start, we wouldn’t even be in this appalling position.”
Jim Sanderson looked round the three other guests, then turned back to the King. “Okay, I’ll brief the President and tell him it gets my vote. It ain’t what I wanted, but at least it’s something practical.”
“My honourable father will be informed,” Prince Tokama said. “He will need to bring your proposal to the attention of the Imperial Court, but I can see no problem if enough planets can be convinced.”
Korzhenev and Ku Rongi gave their assent, promising to take the proposal to their governments. The King shook hands and had a few personal words of thanks with each as they were ushered out. He didn’t hurry them, but time was important; the next four senior representatives were due in an hour. Five Eighty-five Squadron had a busy three days scheduled.
A hundred and eighty-seven wormhole termini opened with impressive synchronization a quarter of a million kilometres away from Arnstat, directly between the planet and its sun. Voidhawks emerged from the gaps and immediately established a defence sphere formation five thousand kilometres in diameter, scanning space with their distortion fields and electronic sensors for any sign of nearby technological activity. They detected the planet’s SD platforms, of course; a much-depleted network in the aftermath of the Organization’s successful invasion. Nonetheless, local sensor satellites had already discovered them, and the remaining high-orbit platforms were locking on. The SD network was reinforced by Organization fleet warships, of which there were a hundred and eighteen currently in orbit, along with twenty-three hellhawks and a token half-dozen new low-orbit platforms ferried in from New California which were principally used to enforce Organization rule on the ground. Their presence, especially in conjunction with the antimatter combat wasps which some of them carried, had effectively upgraded the planetary defence shield to the same level as it had been with a full SD network.
Capone and Emmet Mordden were satisfied the Organization could defeat any task force of warships the Confederation sent in an attempt to reclaim space above the Arnstat. In any case, it was only the Organization’s dominance of that space which prevented the planet from being taken out of the universe by the possessed on the surface, effectively stymieing the First Admiral.
True, there had been an considerable increase in lightning raids recently: voidhawks swallowing in to shoot off combat wasps and stealth munitions. But few of the missiles had ever hit a target; interception rate was over ninety-five per cent. The state of constant alert had given the crews operating the sensor satellites a high proficiency rating. Complemented by the hellhawks’ distortion fields, they were confident nothing could get close enough to the orbiting asteroid settlements or industrial stations to inflict any kind of serious damage.
Nothing happened for the first two minutes after the voidhawks emerged. Both sides were searching for clues to see what the other was going to do. The Organization chief didn’t know what to make of it. A voidhawk force in this formation was normally a securement operation, enabling a larger fleet of Adamist warships to jump in with impunity. But a hundred and eighty-seven was a colossal number for a beachhead detachment, more likely to be the task force in its entirety. The distance was also puzzling: at the moment they were outside effective combat wasp engagement range. But antimatter combat wasps would give the Organization an advantage, allowing them to engage the attackers first as they flew in towards the planet.
The voidhawks confirmed the Organization was unable to reach them—unless the hellhawks chose to swallow up for a confrontation. None of them did. More wormhole termini started to open. Then the first Adamist ship emerged in the middle of the defence sphere formation.
Admiral Kolhammer was using the battleship
Emphasising the monumental strength they represented, it took the task force over thirty-five minutes to complete their emergence manoeuvre. To the officers and crew of the Organization fleet it seemed as though the torrent of ships would never end.
Kolhammer’s staff began datavising ships with new vectors as soon as they established contact. Fusion drives blinked on, powering the task force into a giant disk formation. So many plasma exhausts concentrated in one place produced a blazing purple-white haze brighter than the sun. People on the surface of the planet could see the attackers as a coin-sized patch flowering open against the centre of the dazzling photosphere, an unnerving portent of what was to come.
Eight hundred Adamist warships formed the nucleus of the new attack formation, while five hundred voidhawks flocked around their periphery. Once their relative positions were locked, the main drives burst into life, accelerating the ships in towards the planet at eight gees. Voidhawks expanded their distortion fields and matched the acceleration of their technological comrades.
The gigantic neuroiconic display wheeled slowly inside Motela Kolhammer’s mind, each ship a pinprick of golden light trailing a purple vector tag in a headlong rush to the solid bulk of the planet ahead, represented by a blank, ebony sphere. The strength of the planetary defence layers were illustrated by translucent coloured shells wrapped around the blackness. The ships still had some way to go before the outermost, yellow shell. And still neither side had fired a shot.
The simulation put him in mind of a hammer descending on an egg, rendered with impossibly delicate artistry for what it actually portrayed. Even he was dismayed at the level of violence to be unleashed when those two forces collided in the physical world. Something he never expected. But the tradition of the Confederation Navy was to prevent exactly this kind of monstrosity from happening, not to instigate it. He couldn’t help the guilt which came from knowing this was happening because politicians considered the Navy had failed in their principal duty.
Stranger than that, the knowledge and its burden was bearable because of those politicians. The very people who had declared the attack had made it possible to do so with minimal casualties—on the Navy’s side. By insisting on total success, the Polity Council had given Kolhammer the one thing all military commanders crave before battle is joined: overwhelming firepower.
Kolhammer’s task force accelerated towards Arnstat at a constant eight gees for thirty minutes. When he gave the order for the starships to switch off their drives, they were still 110,000 kilometres out, just on the fringes
