The great black warship hurtled smoothly through the vast desolation of space. It accelerated at incredible, awesome speeds, but the interior belied that fact. The stabilizers built throughout the hull, and most especially around the triple engines, did their work flawlessly.
The Null Horizon was, for the better part of her body, cylindrical in form. At one end it narrowed into a cone: the ship’s bridge. At the other the cylinder widened into a triangular aft section, in which were housed the engines.
The engines themselves were wondrous things. Several rods of pure, frozen continuam immersed in plasma, bound in large cylinders of teljenn alloy generating the energy required to move the ship through the vast desolation.
In the cylindrical majority of the ship, there were sleeping quarters, eating quarters, and large supply storages that were now only somewhat more than two-thirds full. There were some cramped living spaces, and cargo holds where two small biter-class ships were suspended. There was a small armory, in the unlikely possibility that they were boarded by pirates. And then there was the ship’s own arsenal. One thousand plasma-bolt rounds. Two hundred distractors. One hundred combat drones. Seventy-five ship-breakers. And three rho bombs. The city-enders. The Null Horizon was a harbinger of ruination and death. And she approached her destination.
Captain Erik Argos sat in his commander’s chair, looking out upon the wide curved screens displaying the feed from the warship’s bow. When a captain made it to his fifth year in charge of his or her ship—if the captain did—certain privileges were granted. One of them was a chair of preference. Most captains took advantage of the option, choosing excessively comfortable, soft, vibrant things. Captain Argos did not do this. His chair was metal and jointed, with only a thin padding on the seat and back. It was an improvement in terms of mobility and safety to be sure, but those were practical improvements. His chair and bed in his own quarters were comfortable enough, but the captain was of the opinion that, while on deck, a captain should remain alert at all costs, including that of comfort.
Captain Argos was in his late thirties. His straight brown hair was prematurely tinged with gray. His chin jutted out pugnaciously. He was a little shorter than average, yet muscular. His hazel eyes were cold and always calculating. He had a short, trim beard which he kept in meticulous order. He kept his dark-gray uniform ever creaseless and his scattering of medals—in yellow, green, and red—polished to a high sheen.
Now he sat with his back straight up against the back of his chair, behind his desk’s curved row of blinking lights and displays. Only one button did not glow. It lurked in a small depression in the desk. There was a keyhole besides the button,and there was a transparent ellipsoid case of paroid over it. That was the launch button for the rho bomb tube. And its time was drawing ever nearer.
The Captain's command was at the dead center of the bridge. It was built onto the large walkway connecting the large display screens at the very front of the bridge to the two bulkhead doors leading into the greater majority of the warship. Below the walkway, in a ladder-connected pit, was the rest of the pilot crew managing their stations. Twelve good men, in three rows of four.
Captain Argos stroked his beard, watching the stars streak by on the display monitors. The mission was simple, if grim. They were to approach the Byzantos-held world of Guazar and drop one rho bomb on a city-sized shipyard that was in the process of constructing at least seven warbringers. The other two rho bombs were redundancies. After all, continuam was a finicky and troublesome substance, and the safety protocols built into devastator-bombs were extreme by any reckoning. It was not unheard of for a warship to unleash a rho bomb, only for the terrible missile to thud off of enemy shieldings and, in its failure, sizzle away to prevent capture. The alternative would have been for the warships to risk the bomb activating while still in range of its own deployer—which would have cost Apopheia more in the long run. Instead, the Empire’s warships simply carried multiple devastators.
“We’re beginning to approach Guazar now,” called out the Captain’s Second, Yurn Doyl. He was tall and bald, with a sallow face and dark eyes, perhaps five years younger than the Captain himself.
“Copy that,” growled Captain Argos. He pressed the intercom. “All hands make ready for arrival. Engines, slow to intercept speed.”
“Slowing us down, Captain,” replied Elyod Marte.
Captain Argos took his finger off of the intercom. “Second Doyl, bring up the coordinates of the factories.”
“Right away, Captain.”
He raised his voice for the benefit of the entire pilot crew. “I want this done fast! In and out before the scanners pick us up and before the defense fleets have a chance to reply, and then straight away back to Warbringer Four. Understood?”
Various noises of acknowledgment and agreement were heard.
“Good,” the Captain grunted.
“Sir!” called Doyl. “Visual contact with Guazar in twenty clicks!”
He pressed the intercom. “Twenty clicks to Guazar,” he said, and turned it off again. “Those coordinates ready?”
“Yes sir!”
“Bring them up on the main screens when we approach.”
Captain Argos tightened his grip on the handlebars built under the desk. He leaned forward, waiting for the green-brown planet to appear.
And appear it did. Soon the sphere presented itself to the transmitters on the outside of the hull, and the resulting image appeared on the main screens.
“Stay out of orbit,” the Captain warned. An unnecessary reminder, but it was protocol. “Second Doyl, bring up those coordinates now.”
“On it, sir.”
Captain Argos studied the planet. If the Byzantos Republic had installed proximity satellites, none were currently visible. If they were there, Null Horizon had state-of-the-art cloakshields. But given enough time, the ground-based observers would detect an inexplicable movement. Then the alarms would sound. They would have to be long gone by then.
Second Doyl uploaded the coordinates to the main screens. A blue circle appeared near the edge of the sphere.
“Pilots, take us there.”
He couldn’t sense it, but a few of the displays flickered and informed him that the Null Horizon was moving again.
Guazar began to grow in size on the screens, until it completely covered them. Maintaining a healthy distance from the green-brown sphere, the warship moved into position. The target was so large the transmitters could just about make it out even from this distance.
Captain Argos frowned at it. He thumbed the intercom before quickly turning it off again. “Engines, keep us steady for the moment.” He didn’t bother to wait for confirmation from Marte. “Second Doyl, get up here now.”
Yurn Doyl had noticed the issue as well. His face seemed even more sallow than normal, if that was possible. “Yes, Captain.” The taller man hastily got up from his chair, walked over to the nearest ladder, and climbed up and strode across the walkway to the Captain’s desk.
Captain Argos brought up the video on his largest display and adjusted the image as much as was possible, even though the quality of the live recording suffered as a result. “Look at those strips, Second Doyl,” he said quietly. “What do those look like to you?”
“Landing strips, Captain,” Second Doyl concurred. “Commercial ones.”
Captain Argos grunted noncommittally, looking at the image. Then he looked up. “Comms! Send a message to Warbringer Four, with the coordinates attached. Message reads: ‘Please confirm if these coordinates are uncorrupted. Wrong location suspected.’ Message ends. You got that?”
Communications Officer Fel Hir repeated the message, word for word.
“Send it.”
She sent it.
The warbringer-class ships transported warships and biter-class fighters as necessary. They had been brought to the outskirts of this system by Commander Fel Nir, of the most uncreatively designated Warbringer Four. A reply shouldn’t take long. A few minutes, perhaps.
Those few minutes passed. “Response received,” Hir announced.
“Read it.”
“Message reads: ‘You have the correct coordinates, Captain Argos. The nature of the target was hidden for security purposes.’” Her eyes widened as she read it, realizing what it meant. “Message ends.”
Security purposes, the Captain thought furiously. A likely story. This was a loyalty test, plain and simple. A handful of other captains had spoken quietly about such tests, but he had dismissed the reports as cases of miscommunication. There was no miscommunication now. Blast the Admirals, every single one of them! he thought, with a vehemence that surprised even him. The people down below meant nothing to him. Worse, they were members of the Byzantos Republic. He wondered briefly if any of the men down there were soldiers, maybe even pilots, maybe even the pilot that had shot his son down in his first firefight.
The potentialities were dismissed as quickly as they had come. The reality was there, clear, apparent, self-evident.
He looked at the rho bomb launch button, and at the city—no, the target—below.
He knew his duty.
He wanted a second opinion. Now that they were stationary, their chance of discovery was minuscule. They had time. “Comms. Send a message to Warbringer Four. Message reads: ‘Requesting target confirmation from Rear Admiral Meros.’ Message ends. Attach the coordinates.”
“Yes Captain,” Officer Hir said, with barely a tremble in her voice. She was good at her job.
Rear Admiral Meros was much further away, but she was the nearest person who outranked Commander Nir. A response would take time, a few hours. They could wait.
The bridge crew waited, silent as the grave. They had seen the tell-tale signs of civilization as well. They were a bright bunch.
Second Doyl sat on the walkway itself, his legs and feet dangling in the air, unwilling to go back to his post. A minor breach of protocol, but under these circumstances the Captain would let it slide.
They waited, watching the planet.
They waited, and one man fought with himself over the fate of a city.
Of civilians. Of innocents.
Of enemies who utterly hated the Apophiean Empire. Would any of their soldiers struggle to make the decision he was facing now, if the situation was reversed?
It was Officer Hir who broke the silence, hours later. “Response received from Rear Admiral Meros.”
“Read it,” growled Captain Argos.
“Message reads: ‘Fire when ready, Captain Argos. Admiral Meros.’”
For one slippery moment he wondered if Commander Nir could have faked the message. Then reason reasserted herself. Nir was not one to do that. She had a strange sense of honor—she would condone the deployment of a rho bomb on a civilian city in a time of relative peace, but would never consider faking a correspondence. He had not realized the sheer bizarreness of the Commander’s priorities until now. At any rate, there would be no reprieve from that angle. The choice was his.
“Captain?” asked Munitions Officer Rakhil Karn, after a terrible pause. “Do we fire?”
And finally, after an age, he spoke.
“No.”