Short Story: Bomber's Moon

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

Short story; if it's well-recieved, I might write another set in the same universe.

“BOMBER’S MOON”

I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds
- Words spoken on the detonation of the first atomic bomb

Space twists and buckles as the Kaesoron-class Assault Carrier Lupercal bursts out of hyperspace. It’s approximately six miles long, dagger-shaped, lethal-looking. A weapon of revenge and submission, sent to this world for its treachery, to punish it with its coterie of bomber-planes. Focus on a hangar, one of many aboard the vessel, and on the space-plane within. A flying-wing design, 200 metres of wing-span, its powerful engines capable of flying between the world below and its moon in hours at most. Not that its full speed will be necessary on this particular mission. It’s painted black, but that won’t disguise it, its emissions are heavy in all spectra – not that disguise is warranted, for the Imperial Navy wants its former subjects to realise their doom long before the first hyper-incendiaries and low-level atomics drop. Make a desert, call it peace.

‘Ready for takeoff,’ says the voice from the cockpit, feminine but calm. She’s done this particular mission hundreds of times before. In the vacuum of the hangar, the plane’s grav-repulsors and engines make no noise; they’re as silent as the grave. The hangar doors suddenly open, making no sound, for there is no air to carry it. With uttermost silence the plane’s plasma engines activate, taking it fast towards the planet’s night side in the shadow of twin moons.

~*~

And the LORD rained down fire and brimstone from the LORD out of Heaven
- The Bible

Stefana Castellucio takes off her flight mask. The fires of re-entry have mercifully not damaged the plane, and they’re now in the atmosphere, in the pressurised environment of the cockpit. Gravity is normal, all equipment is green. She’s ready to release bombs – if not for the fact that she’s flying over mostly unpopulated countryside. It would not be much of a show of force if the Empire was to bomb defenceless farmers. No, the cities must burn with incendiary and atomic fire, to teach this world’s people a lesson: treachery begets retribution. Still, there’s a city ahead, shining in all varieties of the EM spectrum. Castellucio does not feel grand, does not feel all-powerful, watching cities burn beneath her. It’s just a job that she does because of loyalty and the fact that it pays very well. That it involves killing people barely, if ever, enters into the equation.

‘J’ai ton amour, et je veux ton revanche,’ she mutters. Those were words spoken by an ancestor, very distant, a composer from the very early post-spaceflight era. Her name is almost forgotten except in some obscure books and data-repositories, but her words perfectly exemplify the status of traitors – they want the Empire’s love, if in some twisted way, but as traitors they also bring its revenge, its brutal and terrible wrath, down upon them – if not in the form of bombers, then in the form of the Army, the Marines and other military forces it possesses.

‘Target at ten klicks,’ the voice of her co-pilot softly speaks. The city’s lights are very close up ahead, and she knows that its destruction, the razing of one of their key commerce-centres, will teach these rebels a lesson, will give them something they will never, ever forget. She looks to the sensor panel – interceptors up ahead. Primitive machine-gun bullets bounce off her plane’s armour. Reflexively, she activates the AI-guided energy cannons. Guided by very unintelligent artificial intelligences, they track targets and fire automatically. Bolts of blue energy fire from the turreted guns, low-level versions of the same weapons that let the Navy’s battleships melt planetary crusts and shatter moons with broadsides.

Interceptors explode, the planes blasted into vapour with each cannon-blast. The anaemic skills of their pilots are nothing compared to the tracking systems on the turrets. Within seconds, the number of interceptors has dwindled to nothing. They’re over the city now, over the industrial areas that form its beating heart.

‘Release incendiaries,’ Castellucio orders coolly, professionally, signing the city’s death warrant.

The bombs rain down, each containing a cocktail of hyper-incendiary compounds designed for flammability and destructiveness. The earth beneath the bomber is instantly consumed in fire, red-hot flame that’s oily and sticks to anything it touches. Below, screams of terror are heard, as the heat becomes great enough to make flesh run like wax, boil and cinder and melt in the heat, but nobody on the bomber hears. The fires spread, all-consuming like the fire-giants of ancient Scandinavian mythology. This was Prometheus’ gift to man, and for very good reason, for fire holds within it the power to create – or to destroy, as this action demonstrates. Then the plane drops more incendiaries, this time over a residential area. Countless habitation-blocks vanish instantly beneath the all-consuming flame. But they’re running low on incendiaries – more conventional explosives will be necessary. Plasma bombs explode below, taking out anti-air emplacements with consummate ease.

The downtown area, the hub of stock exchange and entertainment and government, stands before them. What to do is clear.

‘Release low-level atomics,’ the order comes from Castellucio’s mouth.

The fusion missiles move fast, like blurs. Three miles out, they detonate, amidst the city spires. A flash of blinding light, automatically dulled by the cockpit auto-filters but still terrifically bright, appears, the combined fury of the fusion-bombs detonating simultaneously. A fireball, a storm of flame that reduces buildings to charred skeletons, broken husks, in moments. A shockwave that shatters these broken husks, sends the charred remnants of these once-mighty buildings tottering, then ever so slowly yet inevitably tumbling down to the broken ground. Men and vehicles are sent flying away like toys by the fury of the shockwave, smashed against the ground. Air, oxygen is sucked into the void, the vacuum created by the immense explosion, yet the plane continues climbing. The rebels’ capital has been obliterated, their head has hopefully been cut off. The plane releases seven more missiles, bunker-busters, to guard against the possible survival of the rebel leadership – a good precaution.

‘Red-1 to Lupercal,’ Castellucio speaks into the radio. ‘Target has been eliminated. Orders?’

‘Go home, Red-1,’ the voice on the other end replies. ‘Army and Marines are en route for mop-up operations.’

‘Orders accepted,’ Castellucio replies, putting the bomber on autopilot for the journey back to the Lupercal.

The mission is complete.

[KhorneFlakes]

I presume the genocidal people here were inspired by the IoM?

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

I presume the genocidal people here were inspired by the IoM?

In a vague sense - there are two Warhammer 40K references contained within. There'll be much less references (of any kind) in whatever I write next though.

[evilsoup]

Is that it..? I'd say it's too short, even for a short story - it's more like a single scene than a story.

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

Is that it..? I'd say it's too short, even for a short story - it's more like a single scene than a story.

Yep - next time I'll try and write longer. Blame it on it being written in a couple of hours, as most of my things are.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

You're scale is way off, ten kilometers is only about six miles, almost spitting distance for modern aircraft, let alone things built by a civilization that can cross interstellar distances just to bomb some primatives. Three miles out is also needlessly close to even a "low-level" nuclear blast, as well. Depending on what you consider "low level," you might actually be in the fireball at that range.