Multiverse War 06 The Spacers by Chris Nuttall

Author:Chris Nuttall [Nuttall, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-07-17T09:02:12+00:00

Chapter Twenty: Enough Is Enough (Unless It’s Not Enough)

Planetary Defence Centre

American State, Earth

In some ways, Bernard Charles Andrew Harry Donkeybollocks Windsor wasn’t happy at their current location; the massive planetary defence centre built deep under the mountains. An asteroid could have hit the planet and not bothered the centre, he knew, but it…didn’t have quite the impact of using the old governing centres as meeting points. He’d chosen them for all manner of reasons, including the need to showcase that they were the new governors of Earth, but…they suited their role in ways that the ultra-modern defence centre could not.

General Lee had wanted to hold the meeting on one of the massive orbiting stations, but the others had refused; they wanted to remain on the ground. They were old, almost all of them were old enough to remember the time before spaceplanes and orbital towers; few of them would willingly have risked their lives. There were times when Windsor wondered if the only real difference between his people and the Belters was that the Belters lived with almost constant danger; a single leak in the life support systems could doom them as surely as anything else.

His people, by contrast, could look forward to over a hundred years of life, most of them spent at the prime of life, thanks to the anti-aging drugs. Was it any wonder, then, that they were reluctant to risk their lives? Only the young – and perhaps foolish – signed up for space activities; fortunately, there was never any shortage of them. It was the skilled people, the people with the intelligence and the determination to succeed, that he needed…and he had a suspicion that the Age of Unrest had bred most of them out of Earth’s population.

The recording on the delay was running at many times normal speed; it showed what had taken hours to record in minutes. Impossibly fast spacecraft leapt at the target, Base Theta, and attacked, their missiles seeming to rocket towards their targets; all the while countering the attacks from Base Theta. One exploded, then two…and then Base Theta was destroyed as the missiles struck home.

“The enemy craft began a long breaking manoeuvre once they were outside engagement range,” General Lee said finally. There was a grim atmosphere of hate in the room; Windsor found it depressing. They’d known that the Belters would have done something to strike back after Mahan; it seemed that they’d concentrated on destroying a single base. “By the time we could attempt to capture them, or destroy them, they’ll be back at Ceres.”

Windsor nodded before anyone else could speak. “Quite impressive,” he said. “How did our people perform?”

“Very well,” General Lee said. “I must say, Mr Windsor, that…”

“Very well?” Marie interrupted them. “There are thousands of credits invested there – or there were; they’ve been destroyed. How can you say that your people reacted well?”

Windsor winced at the bluntness. Marie had had a large interest in the base right from the start – her companies and facilities had been heavily involved in setting it up – but there was no need to be crude.

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