Storming Heaven Read Free Page B

fought down a wave of pain and struggled to focus.  She couldn’t even talk and had to use her implants to transmit a command to the AI.  Report .
     
    “They have locked onto us with a gravity beam,” the AI said.  It displayed an image of the ship’s course.  They were plunging right down towards the sun.  Chiyo realised – and almost laughed aloud – that the Killers hadn’t cared who they were or why they were in their star system; they’d just decided that the scout would make additional raw materials for their project.  It was almost insulting, but quite typical of the Killers.  “Twenty-two minutes to impact.”
     
    “Transmit,” Chiyo ordered, knowing that she would be dead long before the nanites started disassembling her ship.  The gravity waves were compressing her, trying to squash her flat.  “Get the information out of here.”
     
    “Transmitting,” the AI said.  There was a pause.  “Signal sent.”
     
    The gravity field increased suddenly and Chiyo blacked out.

Chapter Two
     
    “At that point, the signal terminates,” Admiral Brent Roeder said, as the final images of the doomed scout faded and died.  “We do not know for sure what happened to Lieutenant Takahashi, but we believe that she was killed in the line of duty, along with her AI.  We do not believe that there is any point in a fast-recon mission to attempt to locate any traces of her vessel.”
     
    “You intend to abandon her?”  Father Sigmund asked, coldly.  “I believe that you could get a starship in and out of the system before the devils could respond.”
     
    “If we jumped a starship into the system, either in a warp bubble or though the Anderson Drive, we will certainly attract their attention,” Brent said, with forced calm.  “They will act at once against the starship and the crew will be lucky to escape.  The telemetry from the scout suggests, quite strongly, that the craft was broken up and used for raw materials, along with the pilot.  I will not waste additional resources attempting to rescue a dead woman.”
     
    “There’s little point in arguing,” President Patti Lydon said, as calmly as she could.  It had been a long day even before the War Council had been summoned by the Admiral.  “I believe that the Admiral still holds the confidence of his peers and they do not appear to have condemned the decision.  I assume that the Lieutenant knew the risks?”
     
    “Yes, Madam President,” Brent confirmed.  “Those of us in the Defence Force all know the risks.  We live with them every day.  We face them every time we scout out a potential Killer star system or shadow a Killer starship.  We lose hundreds of people each year to the Killers, or simple accidents in space; we all know the risks.”
     
    Patti nodded tiredly.  There were times when she wished that the Community was a more formal structure, but the truth was that humanity could not afford any such structure, not now.  The members of the War Council couldn’t share the same asteroid settlement, or even visit each other socially, merely because of the risk of a Killer attack leaving humanity leaderless.  There were thousands of asteroid settlements, billions of humans in hiding across the stars, but without the Community, any hope of united action would be gone.
     
    “And another one of God’s Children dies,” Father Sigmund intoned.  “How many more must die, Admiral?”
     
    “We have been unable to communicate with the Killers,” Brent pointed out, tightly.  His words came in sharp choppy sentences.  “We cannot offer to surrender.  They want us all dead.  We can either try to fight – or hide, hoping that we will not be discovered.  As the events last year proved, even the asteroid settlements are not safe.”
     
    “The settlers of High Singapore brought their fate on themselves,” Rupert said.  The massive Spacer’s electronic eyes seemed to flicker towards the Admiral, before turning to