Philip Palmer - Debatable Space

Then the torpedo finally lopes its way to its destination, and the remote detonator is triggered.

The torpedo is our most valuable weapon. It contains the residue of an asteroid compressed at the expenditure of vast energy to the size of a pin. And then compressed again, and again, to sub-microscopic dimensions, so that space itself is being crushed.

This is a compressed space bomb, one of Jamie’s many brilliant inventions. It is, essentially, very much like the Universe before the Big Bang, a parcel of energy and mass in a form so tiny that the mind cannot imagine such a minuscule scale. These days, we use compressed space as a form of energy storage. Jamie’s unique genius was to find a way to release the energy all in one go, without entirely devastating the Universe.

We cannot see or hear an explosion. The bomb merely pops, like an inflated crisp packet burst by a hand. And then, for a few chilling seconds, nothing happens.

Then suddenly all the ships in the sky vanish. It is that simple. We have destroyed our own ships of course; but we have also cut the heart out of the enemy fleet. Two or three million Corporation warships have, in the blink of an eye, ceased to be.

It is, of course, a dangerous and desperate strategy. Now that we have invented this weapon, we have to endure the bitter fact that the enemy will be able to copy it and use it against us. Our fabulous contribution to posterity is to find a new weapon even more appalling than the ones humankind has already created. But that’s a price we have to pay.

“Fire the asteroid,” Lena says.

Our workers have quarried out the inside of the asteroid and filled it with liquid hydrogen. Now rocket launchers at the arse end of the big rock are fired and the asteroid shoots through space. Inside it, the hydrogen is being drenched in huge amounts of energy, and the transmutation of hydrogen to helium is taking place.

Our fleet tries to tuck itself out of the way of the flying and in-the-process-of-exploding asteroid, but it is inevitably caught up in the wake. And as it travels the asteroid slowly ignites. It flares.

It becomes a sun.

The flaming sun lights up black space as its course takes it through the region where the enemy fleet used to be, towards the second line of enemy warships. They are, frankly, flabbergasted to discover that we have thrown a sun at them. And, once again, the “warriors” on Earth who control the all-powerful Doppelganger Robots show their typical inability to adapt to new circumstances. They flail and flounder and do nothing.

Then the sun hits the enemy fleet; and they are devastated. Another million ships at least are incinerated. And slowly the fires die down and we are left with the ragged remnant of the enemy fleet.

But there are still, at a guess, almost a million ships facing us. Some are badly damaged and disorientated, but we are still, after two massive strikes, outnumbered and outgunned.

The Captain gives the signal to Lena; Lena gives the signal to us.

“Charge,” she says, in cool and deadly tones.

Our fleet forms itself into an arrow formation and charges. Our own ship holds back and we watch our people accelerate into the enemy ranks. A bitter space dogfight breaks out.

Missiles and torpedoes flash and flare. Our ships break formation and start weaving and bucking. Sheer speed and brilliant piloting allow our ships to veer under and above the slow-thinking enemy battleships. A terrible carnage ensues.

Then I see on my screen Doppelganger Robots abandoning their damaged ships and taking to open space. They are wearing body armour to further protect their frames, though all of them are able to “breathe” in space vacuum so none of them need to wear actual spacesuits. They do, however, wear body rockets and carry formidable laser guns. And, with their increased manoeuvrability, they are able to dive into the very heart of our fleet.

“Okay, guys, go and get ’em,” says Lena.

Lena

It is an extraordinary event, war most bloody and barbarous. Legions clash and lasers flare and bombs shatter and hulls impact inwards and bodies are sundered and fried and internal organs are compressed and blood emerges from nostrils and space itself is shocked at the sheer atrocity of man’s atrocious cruelty to man, is that too many atrociouses? It is.

… man’s contemptible cruelty to man and yet, ah, the green-glow-incandescence of it soars my spirit with bitter-bleak-black sweetsourness and Lena, please focus, there’s a battle going on.

It’s okay, we’re in the rear flank, we’re a long way from the action. Not any more. Two Corporation battalions just appeared behind us.

Shit.

I am lost in the combat, my hands are a blur, my brain is in a million places at once. I steer the nanobots through space into Corporation ships, I send energy blasts, I steer the unexploded bombs into vital positions then explode them. I sit at my computer and I am a warrior as brave as many, but my fingers are stiffening, I fear repetitive strain of the brain will kick in…

“Keep with it Jamie,” the Captain says, in an infinitely calm and comforting authoritative growl. I fight on.

Harry

I howl with rage, like the animal I am. Our ship is out of the battle zone. I yearn to stand and fight and bite and claw my enemies. But I cannot!

Alliea

Hera and I are among the first to be propelled from the airlocks. We fly out into open space to encounter a scene of such vastness and grandeur that my heart stops. Huge spaceships are aflame, dead DRs and human beings float through space, a burning sun sears our vision as it speeds away into space – then veers, and kinks, and turns around, and comes back again for a second crack at the enemy.

As we spin swiftly around, we see vivid red and yellow flame colours smeared against the inky blackness of the stellar backdrop. Then we fly like hawks with our rocket backpacks and shoot robots out of the sky. They are fast and powerful, but their controllers have little practice at this kind of warfare. We, however, have trained every day for twenty years. Flying is for us, as natural as walking, or weeping.

My concentration is split. I have a computer readout on my visor; I hear intercom voices in my inner earpiece; I see a video screen of the battle which I can switch at will; and my heart is with Hera. I watch her tackle a dozen Doppelganger Robots, weaving in and out of them like a deadly dolphin in a shoal of shattered and bewildered sharks.

They thought they could best us in open space! In truth, their only useful weapon is superior firepower and greater resources. In every other respect, they are, indeed, shite.

“Left flank, Alliea!” Hera screams at me, and I zoom in a circle and blast the ambushing robots behind me. I complete the circle just in time to see…

… two DRs blow Hera’s head and feet off simultaneously with their laser blasts.

For a moment my heart stops.

Then I cut the robots to ribbons with my own laser and speed into the next assault.

The carnage becomes mechanical. After a while, I cannot believe I am still alive. But my rocket keeps flying me, my laser keeps shooting. DRs keep exploding. The war keeps on. The war continues. The war continues.

The war is over. I am still alive. I check my visor. I have programmed my computer to flash red every time one of my children dies in the course of the battle. I have, in all, forty-three children. Forty-two of them are adopted, twenty-one are girls.

Slowly, carefully, I count forty-three red lights on my visor. That doesn’t include Hera. So first, I mourn Hera.

For one long, agonising, heartfelt minute, a second at a time, I mourn her. And each second is a death knell.

Then when my pain is purged, I mourn each of my forty-three children. I mourn them for five seconds, each.