Stealing Light

‘Not possible,’ the Piri Reis replied. ‘Further course alterations would use up too much fuel and we would rapidly lose orbit. Alternative courses of action are required.’

‘I can’t think of any!’ Corso yelled, literally tearing at his hair. ‘For God’s sake, isn’t there something we can do? If one of those hits us, there won’t be anything left to hit the ground!’

There was an agonizing pause, for four or five seconds. ‘All possible courses of action result in fatalities. I recommend we maintain our current position. The missiles may not have enough fuel to strike us. Also, we represent only a small target.’

‘Can’t you scramble their brains?’ Corso yelled again. ‘They’re just missiles, for God’s sake! Tell them to hit something else!’

Another agonizing pause.

‘Attempting,’ Piri replied.

The first missile missed the Piri Reis by just fifteen metres. The onboard systems showed its path, spiralling down towards the surface of Ikaria. The second, arriving a minute or so later, was entirely on target, however. Corso watched numbly as it drew closer and closer, accelerating towards him. The blip wavered slightly while the Piri attempted to subvert the device’s internal instructions remotely.

Corso realized it was too little too late. He remembered how he’d quickly gone over the Piri’s systems in order to understand how the ship functioned, and had found there were manual systems just aft.

A few seconds of scrabbling located them.

He found what he needed. The only option for survival was performing a manual fuel dump. It was tantamount to suicide, but there weren’t any other options.

He tapped at a manual interface with shaking fingers, more than a little aware just how quickly the seconds were ticking by. A few moments later the Piri Reis shuddered as half its remaining fuel was jettisoned into space, causing it to veer slightly in its orbit.

He listened to the sound of his own frenzied gasps as he waited to be blown to smithereens.

And waited.

I can’t still be alive.

He crawled back through to the command module and laid shaking hands on the back of an acceleration couch, before peering up at a display.

A blip was closing fast on the Piri Reis. Corso didn’t even have time to open his mouth to scream.

A thousand hammers slammed into the hull.

Dakota looked up at a tiny flash of light far above.

Oh please no, she thought. Piri›.

‹I am here, Dakota.›

Dakota had never felt more relieved. Where’s Lucas?

‹I am not sure. We were fired upon by the Agartha and subsequently hit by a missile. I have lost contact with the cargo area, and analysis of footage recorded at the moment of impact suggests it may have either been damaged beyond repair or entirely sheared off. There has been loss of pressure from some internal spaces, and internal communications are currently offline. It may take fifteen minutes at current estimates to re-establish contact with the command module and ascertain if he is still alive.›

Dakota felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Find out now, Piri.

‹Until contact with the command module is reestablished, I ca

I get the idea, she replied, cutting the co

Light filled the chasm.

The edges of the valley were thrown into stark relief. Her eye filters dimmed to their very darkest, but even at that setting she was blinded. Every surface, every grain of rock and sand was brilliantly lit up.

At the very edge of the horizon, she thought she saw the edge of a mountain melt.

The third missile’s guidance systems were sent into confusion by the sudden, overwhelming increase in albedo from the direction of Nova Arctis. The missile strayed towards the edge of the cone of shadow cast by Ikaria, and was turned to a puff of superheated gas in a fraction of a second. This was carried outwards by the advancing storm of energy expanding in a shell around the neutron core where a star had been.

The expanding wave front of plasma rushed on towards the Agartha.

Kieran stepped towards the Senator, who looked up at him.

‘We only have a few moments, Senator,’ he said. ‘The wave front will reach us very soon.’

The Senator nodded tightly; it was clear he was barely holding himself together. ‘I hope it’s-’

He shook his head. I hope it’s quick, Kieran knew he’d meant to say.

Kieran reached out, almost lovingly, and cradled the surprised man’s face in his hands.

‘I hope it is, Senator. But it may not be.’

He broke Arbenz’s neck with a sudden, swift twist. The Senator didn’t even have time to look surprised.

Kieran lowered the dead man’s body to the deck with due love and respect, before standing up straight again to wait for the end with the rest of the crew.

The shell of plasma swallowed the Agartha totally, tearing it apart and transforming it into superheated vapour in barely more time than it had taken to envelop the missile.

It continued to expand, racing towards Newfall, a hundred and thirty million kilometres distant, carrying the gaseous remains of the Freehold ship and its crew ever outwards, as it would continue to do for many tens of thousands of years.

On the sunward side of Ikaria, the effect was devastating. The amount of energy slamming into the planet was equivalent to several thousand nuclear warheads exploding every few seconds, as plasma that had been trapped within the photosphere of a star for untold epochs was unleashed instantaneously.

Ikaria’s crust literally began to melt away, turning white-hot and then vaporizing, the overwhelming fire digging deeper into the planetary crust at a rate of hundreds of metres every second. Ragged mountain peaks, which had formed long ago during asteroid impacts, exploded under the pressure as they slowly turned from the night side to face the rage of the dying sun.

Within hours, rather than days, the planet would cease to exist, joining the wave of expanding gas as it was reduced to its constituent atoms and spread through the local constellation.