Hidden Empire - Kevin J. Anderson [93]
Blue lightning from the pyramidal protrusions of all fourteen alien ships converged, then shot downward in a single beam, slamming into Ben's already unstable surface. Heat glowed, land masses vibrated as acoustic waves transmitted powerful energy throughout the rocky body.
Serizawa shouted into the communications systems, as if the aliens might understand his outcry or even respond to him. "What are you doing? Please stop! This is human territory. This is—" He looked at his companions, but no one offered any suggestions.
The weapons fire continued. Gases erupted from the moon, the rocky continent broke apart, and orange heat boiled upward from the now-exposed core. Ben began to shudder, splitting under the onslaught.
It took the silent aliens twenty minutes to demolish the moon and break it into glowing coals that drifted apart in space.
"My God! Why?" The techs and astrophysicists were wild-eyed.
The crystalline globes moved smoothly away from the hot rubble of Ben and headed straight for George. Serizawa's face glistened with sweat. Though his skin seemed as cold as ice, he felt as though he were burning with anger.
The fourteen diamond spheres hovered over the second moon. Analyzing? Mapping continental flaws, fractures in the core structure? Then the lightning hammers blazed downward again.
Serizawa's anger turned to terror. "Transmit these images! Call for help, a general distress in all directions." He cursed the fact that their poorly staffed observation platform had no green priest aboard to provide instant telink communication.
"Dr. Serizawa, it'll take weeks before anyone receives these transmissions."
Serizawa knew that full well. He spread his palms, panicked and helpless. A man dying of a medical emergency does not write a letter to summon an ambulance—but that was all he could do now. "Somebody's got to know."
The technician sent the distress call, without further argument. "Like a message in a damned bottle," he grumbled. The transmission went out in all directions, hoping to find someone who could hear.
The other team members used the resources aboard the observation station to record and study the moon-crushing blasts, to image the complete destruction of the rocky satellites. "They could have become lovely terraformed worlds," Serizawa said.
Aboard the station, they had no way to defend themselves, could only gather information, collect data...and hope the destructive spheres did not notice them.
After the silent and ominous alien warglobes had obliterated the moon George, they moved on to Christopher.
And finally Jack. All four moons vaporized.
Serizawa was weeping now. He stood in front of the observation window, staring at the perfect spheres, and the destruction of everything he had created at Oncier. "Why are you doing this? What have we done to you?"
The aliens had transmitted no messages, no ultimatums, no warnings or explanations. Hovering in their parking orbit far from blazing Oncier, Serizawa and his team could not move or flee. Worst of all, they could not understand.
The fourteen monstrous ships left the destroyed satellites and paused above the funeral pyre of what had been the gas giant Oncier. Then like a swarm of angry wasps the globes moved to surround the observation platform.
The technicians scrambled backward, away from the windows, as if they would be safer within the fragile platform. Serizawa did not even bother to move. In the last moment, he closed his eyes.
The awesome blue lightning crackled again.
While it had taken the crystal globes some time to obliterate the four rocky moons, the total annihilation of the space platform required only seconds.
43 KING FREDERICK
Behind closed doors, the mood around the Whisper Palace was shocked and genuinely frightened. King Frederick didn't know what to do.
The planetary engineers and terraformers had returned to Earth at the stardrive's maximum speed—wasting huge amounts of ekti to deliver the terrible news. The crew had arrived on schedule at Oncier, only to find the moons blasted into rubble,