Destroy The Planet Read online

  “Then show me, damn it.”

  Dix called down for them to switch the feed to the Hubble V feed, and Mayne watched as the main screen view changed to an image of the titanic ship, black against the black of space. It was hard to gauge relative motion but Mayne couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  “Fine.” What exactly did they need him down here for, anyway? “I suppose I should report to the Governing Council about what’s going on. How long before it reaches Earth atmosphere?”

  “Our best estimates put it at sixteen hours,” Dix told him. “By then we’ll be able to—”

  The main screen flared as a bright red light seared across the image at an angle. It lanced through the Huxley, and in the next instant the greatest invention of mankind was a shattered mess of broken pieces scattering off at all angles.

  The room quieted momentarily, the many scientists and military officials frozen in place with their eyes affixed to the screens. In the next moment, bodies were running everywhere, checking the computers, testing the communication systems, and trying to make sense of what just happened.

  “What the hell was that?” Mayne shouted, when he finally got his wits back.

  Dix was blinking rapidly at the screen, maybe trying to get rid of the same afterimages that were burned into Mayne’s eyes. He stood still in front of the large screen before him, calm amidst the surrounding storm. “I don’t know,” he said. “Something…something just cut through the ship…some sort of laser…”

  “I can see that! Where did it come from?”

  Dix raised a hand to point at the screen. “From that.”

  Mayne followed Dix’s gaze back to the main viewscreen. There, on the display, several orange orbs went shooting by. It was too fast for Mayne to count them all but it looked like dozens. Maybe hundreds.

  “Slow the image down,” Mayne called down to the people at the stations below. “Did you hear me? Replay it and slow it down!”

  The image reversed itself, and then centered and froze on one of the orbs. It was a terrible sight. Bristling with sharp projections, the skin seemed to almost undulate like living flesh. When the image moved again it was overlaid with numbers and words that gave details about the things. Each one was identical. Half a mile long. Unknown composite alloy. Mayne stopped reading after that.

  “They’re headed toward Earth,” Dix pointed out. “They’re coming right for us.”

  “Broadcast a message,” Mayne ordered. “All frequencies. You tell these bastards that they just destroyed an Earth vessel and we will not hesitate to strike them down if they come within a thousand miles of our planet!”

  Dix burst out laughing, startling Mayne. “You’re joking, General. You must be joking! What do we have that could possibly stop these things? We’re a planet at peace, remember?”

  Mayne’s stomach turned over on itself. There was nothing here to stop those things. The satellite lasers, certainly, but they weren’t enough to stop a fleet of ships that vast. There were still a few of the old fusion missiles left in storage at various sites around the world but no one even knew how many of those would still ignite, let alone launch.

  The human race had left behind its uncivilized, aggressive tendencies and in the process it had left itself vulnerable to attack from a hostile species that was attacking them for no reason.

  The irony nearly brought Mayne to his knees.

  “Did you send the message?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “Yes,” one of the techs below him said. “We sent it. Receiving a response now.”

  “Well? What does it say?”

  “Receiving,” the tech repeated. “Translating. It’s not in any language that we’re familiar with. Alien, or human. Wait. We’re getting it now.”

  “Put it up on the screen,” Dix said.

  The main viewscreen went black, and then words scrolled across it from left to right.

  We are the Krii Zalite. Prepare yourselves. Your planet is ours.

  “That’s all there is,” the tech pointed out. “There’s no more to it.”

  Silence fell over the room. The world was under attack, and there was nothing they could do about it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The President was not happy, and Mayne could care less.

  “Sir, you don’t understand,” he said, for the third time. “These Krii Zalite are coming. We can’t do anything to stop them.”

  The President leaned back in his padded chair, behind his polished mahogany desk. “Then what exactly do you expect us to do, General?”

  He spread his hands, his very dark skin catching the light through his floor to ceiling windows. His eyes were dark brown and intelligent, and that intelligence was something Mayne had always admired about the man. Not his expensive suits or the way he cut his hair in the new style, taller on one side and nearly at his scalp on the other. Whenever the world had needed an answer to a hard question, President Harlon Jessmer had always been able to figure out the solution.

  Now there was no solution, but President Jessmer was still trying to find the answer.

  “I’ve seen their firepower,” Mayne said. “It cut through the Huxley like the thing was made out of toilet paper. We can’t stand against that kind of weaponry.”

  President Jessmer threw up his hands. “So I ask you again. What do we do?”

  Mayne paused a long moment, then barely managed a word. “Surrender.”

  The word was ashes in his mouth, but there it was. When faced with attack by overwhelming odds, the smartest move was often to give up and wait to fight another day. “When the alien force gets here, we have to be ready to give them whatever they want.”

  “Are you insane, General?” The President clasped his hands together and shook his head. “There’s no way I will authorize that.”

  “Sir, they’re going to take it anyway. We can either give it to them and survive, or we can try to keep it for ourselves and die.”

  The President tapped a finger on his desk. Then he stood up and went to the window, looking out on the manicured grass of the Presidential Palace’s front lawn. “There may be another way.”

  “Mister President, if you can think of something I’m more than willing to listen.”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “I’m a General in the service of the United Countries of Earth.” Mayne crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t have to like what you tell me to do. I just have to do it.”

  Jessmer nodded. “Well said. So. Here’s what I propose.”

  * * *

  Mayne’s hovercar zipped across the streets of Capital City. There was a part of the old section that he himself had never visited before. Everyone knew it was there, but no one went unless they had a very good reason.

  Today, Mayne had a very good reason.

  Three more hours before the Krii Zalite arrived and killed everyone on the planet. He had exactly that long to get the President’s plan into motion.

  Thimley was driving him, and for a mealy-mouthed little bootlicker the kid could drive. They made it there in record time.

  When they arrived, Mayne got out of the car and then gave Thimley his orders. Go back to his family. Stay with his family, and enjoy whatever time they had left together. Thimley gave him a weak salute, and then drove away just as fast as he could.

  The streets here were broken concrete littered with the refuse of generations. There was no reason to maintain a part of the city that no one lived in. Resources could be allocated to other places that needed it more. The building where he’d stopped was a highrise structure of gleaming metal and glass. The entry doors were gone, removed years ago for some unknown purpose. The real security was inside.

  Standing in the empty doorway, Ravnak nodded and waved.

  “What the hell?” Mayne walked up the wide concrete steps at the front and went right up to the Professor. “How did you know I was going to be here?”

  “Where else would you go?” Ravnak shrugged. “This wa
s going to be your destination as soon as you saw what we were up against. All I had to do was wait.”

  “And how did you know what we were going to be up against?” Mayne demanded. “We only just found out a few hours ago!”

  He pushed passed the Professor on his way into the building and then turned right down a hallway. He had the floor plan of the place memorized. What he wanted to do was go down. The elevators should be just ahead.

  Ravnak followed, matching his stride step for step. “Fifteen years ago I intercepted several transmissions that I didn’t understand. It took me some time but I finally translated them. When I did, I knew I couldn’t share what I had learned with anyone. It would start a panic. Or I would be arrested as a traitor. Or worse, I would be discredited and all of my life’s work would go to waste.”

  “Professor, I’m on a very tight time schedule here. If you’ve got a point to make could you please make it?”

  “Sure thing.” Ravnak took hold of Mayne’s arm and turned him around, facing down his glare. “The messages all spoke of death. They were aimed at other worlds, just passing by ours, but close enough that my equipment could pick them up. They came from a race calling themselves the Krii Zalite. Does that sound familiar?”

  He had Mayne’s attention now. “Yes. Yes it does. So what did these messages say, Professor?”

  “They said they would bring death to everyone who stood in their way. They would rape and plunder whatever they wanted from their target worlds, and then destroy anyone who stood against them.” He swallowed, remembering the ferocity of the words. “I knew then that it was only a matter of time before these Zalite turned their attention to Earth.”

  “Well, Professor, turns out you were right. About everything. They did attack the Huxley. Destroyed it, in fact. They are coming here to Earth to destroy us.”

  Ravnak nodded. “Yes. You took that information to the President?”

  “I did.”

  “And what did he say we should do?”

  Mayne swallowed. “I told him we should surrender. I have never, in all my career, surrendered to anyone, but I think we need to surrender to these aliens or we’re all going to die.”

  “Sound council. Although, one of the transmissions I translated was for a planet that had offered to surrender. The Zalite let them live. As slaves.”

  Mayne’s heart went cold. He doubted that being the slaves of a race of aliens that would just as soon kill you as look at you was going to be a very pleasant fate. “Well. Then maybe the President’s solution is the way to go after all.”

  Ravnak didn’t bother asking what the President’s better, final solution might be. He already knew. That’s how he knew that Mayne would be coming here. “After I translated those messages,” he said, “I started a little side project of my own. I need your help with it now.”

  “What?” Mayne was furious that this man would bring him this problem now. As if he didn’t have enough of his own problems to deal with. “You listen to me, Professor. Whatever you’ve been cooking up for the past fifteen years isn’t going to matter in another two and a half hours. I have a job to do. Let me get to it.”

  On his way here, Mayne had called Ming Hua and said a very brief, very poignant goodbye. He wasn’t coming back from this. That didn’t matter, though. He had a job to do and Ravnak was keeping him from doing it.

  “I’ll let you go in a moment General,” the Professor said. “Right now I need your help.”

  “With what, damnit?”

  “For fifteen years I’ve been building ships. Well, not me you understand. I’ve contracted with various companies who build various bits of the ships and then I paid other companies to put them together. No one group or person has any idea what the ships are for.” He paused for a breath, and to collect his thoughts.

  Mayne checked the chrono piece on his wrist. Time was running down. He still didn’t know if the equipment on the lower levels was still in working order. “So what did you build these ships for, Professor?”

  “For leaving Earth.”

  For a moment, Mayne was speechless. “You built…escape ships? Ships to leave the Earth in case the Krii Zalite army ever found Earth?”

  “Yes. I did. You asked me where my personal fortune went? Well, that’s where it went. To building those ships. They are capable of extended flight and they have cryogenic chambers in place to put the passengers into suspended animation for up to three hundred years. They will get to our friends. One of the two alien races who came to us before. It will be enough to give us a start.”

  “Well, well, well.” Mayne leaned his back against the wall to regard Ravnak. “I’m impressed. That might be just exactly what we need. How many ships?”

  “Fifty.”

  Mayne’s hopes dropped. “That’s all? How many people do these ships hold apiece?”

  This answer came a little slower. “Four hundred.”

  Now his hopes shriveled and died. “You have got to be joking me! All this work and all you can save are twenty thousand people? You bastard! Why even bother?”

  “Because,” Ravnak said slowly and calmly. “Saving some of us is better than saving none of us. You know as well as I do, General. Whether we use your plan or the President’s, it doesn’t matter. The human race is done for if we don’t act. Let me save all we can.”

  “Whatever.” Mayne threw his hand up in the air and let it drop again. “Do whatever you want to. You don’t need me.”

  “Actually yes, I do.”

  Pushing away from the wall angrily, Mayne started storming down the hallway again. The elevators were right up there. “What could you possibly need me for?”

  “I need someone with your influence and authority.” They stopped at the elevator doors, and Ravnak started gesturing with his hands, desperate for Mayne to understand him now. “I may be respected, but you have the ability to order men that I do not. I need you to tell the members of the Governing Council to start an evacuation. It doesn’t matter who gets to the ships. I will not decide who lives and dies. I will not save the elite or the powerful at the expense of the weak and poor.”

  Mayne searched Ravnak’s eyes. He’d never respected the man before. Not like this. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Make the call,” the Professor said to him. “I can only take twenty thousand souls. There isn’t much time, and if we don’t start now it won’t even be that much.”

  Mayne couldn’t say no to that. If this plan of the President’s was going to be worth doing at all, then they needed to have some hope of survival for their race. “Professor Ravnak, you may just be a genius.”

  The Professor waved the comment away. “I don’t have to be smart to want my people to live.”

  “Your people?” Mayne repeated. “You won’t be on the ships?”

  “No. It wouldn’t be right. I can’t take that one spot that could be given to someone else.” He took a breath. “I’ve done my part. Now it is time for other people to do theirs.”

  “I feel the same way,” the General admitted. Taking out his Link, he made contact with one person, and then the next, and then another. The chain of command was started. The plan was in action.

  “Thank you,” Ravnak said, honestly relieved that it had worked. “I guess now…all I can do is wait.”

  “You could come with me,” Mayne told him, pushing the button next to the elevator to go down. “Honestly, Professor, I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get down there. I may need someone with your scientific knowhow to make this work.”

  Ravnak pursed his lips, and then shrugged. “My schedule just freed up. Why not?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The basement level of the building was locked off with a code that only someone of General Mayne’s clearance knew. The number pad was old and stiff, but he got it to work the second time and then the elevator doors were opening and they were in.

  Gleaming metal walls and a tiled floor were overly bright under the fluorescent light
s. It was a small room, and one wall was taken up with a desk and computers and half a dozen large viewscreens. Everything they needed.

  “So,” Ravnak said, “this is where the magic happens.”

  Mayne smirked at that. Nothing was overly funny today. At the same time, everything was.

  He went to the computer stations and started them up. In a few seconds the screens lit up and prompted him for his passcodes. There were three separate ones, and he entered them all in without fail. “Here we go.”

  The computer displayed the map of the Earth, with several red dots at different locations over land masses. Two of them were within a half a mile of where he sat.

  Ravnak looked over the map with him. “That’s all of them.”

  “Yup,” Mayne said. “Every single Fusion missile still in existence. Enough destructive power to burn the Earth a dozen times over.”

  “And yet, still not enough to stop the Krii Zalite.”

  “I’m afraid you were right about that,” Mayne said, sweat beginning to roll down his face. “There’s nothing we have that can stop them. For all I know, there’s no force in the universe that could do that.”

  He punched in a few more commands. Everything was working smoothly. The display from the computer shifted up to the viewscreens. Every red dot on the Earth slowly connected themselves with black lines.

  “So far, so good.”

  “Depends,” Ravnak said, “on your definition of good.”

  Mayne checked his chrono piece again. One hour before the Krii Zalite arrived. “Well. We’ve got time,” he said. “Maybe we should play some cards?”

  “What’s that?” Ravnak asked him. “There, on the map.”

  Squinting, Mayne brought up a section of the map in the lower southern hemisphere. It was the longest connection between red dots that there was. The black line stretched between them…and then it broke somewhere near the midpoint.

  “That,” Mayne told him, “is trouble.”

  * * *