Depth Of Sacrifice

Part 4

"Well, the virus worked, but the colony had time to reprogram the harvesters... They knew they were dying, and they weren't going to go quietly into the night, they wouldn't let the military win. I went further out-system to locate the harvesters only to find them running at full capacity, fully automated..."

...

As he climbs higher, he unifies with his Others for a millisecond. The sky goes black, stars become bright crystal diamonds. Looking down via the rear cameras, he sees the fighters fall away. Earth spreads out from one edge of the hemisphere to the other via the ship sensors, a 360-degree view not possible with his human eyes, the band of blue atmosphere atop the horizon like a circular ribbon. Blue sky and clouds of white lay beyond the terminator edge of night and day. Dawn is some time away.

Pinpoint white light bursts above him, he senses sheets of radiation and electromagnetic pulses streaking down from the explosions, hears the radio noise created. The carrier ship has begun sweeping satellites from the thermosphere above him.

As he approaches 24,000 meters above sea level, he stops thrusting. He rises up, then slows. Leaning his nose, he rotates towards the Earth in a backflip dive. Then he thrusts hard and the G-force of acceleration mounts.

He sees the fighters below, calculates vectors, and fires. His 9 mm guns send out volleys in different directions. Bullets containing small magnetic bottles race downward. At the proper time, the electric charge dissipates and the magnetic bottles fail. Antimatter collides with matter, and the release of energy is equivalent to a small nuclear device.

Probability of fighter destruction at 97 percent.

Dismissing them, he turns his attention to the base below. Targets are catalogued, given priority, then he fires. The ship bucks with the launch of this ammo even through his physical body.

The single front-bow cannon fires repeatedly as he scans the Earth spread out before him, the whole continent from this altitude. The ship jerks with round after round, and he adjusts for the resulting loss of speed by thrusting harder.

He observes in magnified view people scrambling below to what must be a warning siren. Vehicles rush about, and fighter jets tow toward the runway. A rain of 70 mm bullets containing magnetic chambers smash into the ground. The few atoms of antimatter contained within annihilate themselves with white fire, releasing tremendous amounts of photon energy. The multiple runways explode in sequence, beginning with the outer edge of the strips. One hit after another, working towards the base. A jet accelerates down the runway when hell erupts around it, engulfing it in flames.

When the explosions reach the planes on each side of the runway, it seems as if they themselves erupt into white annihilation before the wave of fire arrives. Helicopters parked away to the side of the runway explode. Flames engulf the hangars themselves, shockwave after shockwave pulses through the air, looking like expanding bubbles from above. Anti-aircraft missiles soon follow the way of the other targets as direct hits penetrate their underground storage sites.

Withdrawing from the close-up before his scanners burn out from the intense white light, he sees the beginning of a bloated mushroom top start to distort the air below him. He notes damage and possible threats remaining.

The computer and he are one now. He does not value the goal, it does not matter, but the mission is set. He must see it through. The precision of cold combat is what brings satisfaction.

Base neutralized.

Turning to his next goal, he banks a slow circle in front of the expanding fire ring around the base. Straightening out, his engines light up as he thrusts forward. Soon the mushroom cloud of ash grows smaller in his view.

He checks his Others. Four are at the rendezvous points, one is in heavy combat, but probability of victory is 91 percent. There are only so many they can save. For a colony to survive, to live and thrive, they needed technicians, agroscientists, doctors... skillsets from almost every field imaginable.

And children. Many children.

He could only include one school... Making that choice for the mission parameters as a mere human had been excruciatingly hard, he remembers that. But the memory is distant and cold, the mission is his focus now.

He flies low above rooftops and soon the city lights fade into the darkness of the forest. The land rolls towards him as he scans for hostiles. Within a few moments, he reaches the purpose of his flight. Banking to circle from a distance, he zooms his vision into focus on the building below. Guards around its perimeter freeze with faces turned upward, watching. They have a right to be nervous. His ship is large and of an unidentified design, yet clearly a combat fighter.

Commands flow out and systems activate. His consciousness shrinks to blackness and then expands again into a new system.

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