24 Hours
Andromeda Ascendant emerged from slipstream high above the reddish-brown disk of Arzawa III. The planet's crust was rich with iron ore, which gave it a rust-colored appearance from space. Andromeda appeared on the viewscreen. "Admiral Hasturi is calling us," she reported.
"On screen," responded Dylan.
The screen cleared and the image of Admiral Hasturi appeared, his pristine blue uniform matching his piercing blue eyes. His close-cropped gray hair in the High Guard military style made him look like the quintessential warrior. As always, he looked dangerous. But today he looked frightened. Dylan had never seen that look attached to that face before, and it did not inspire calm.
"Captain Hunt," he began. "We're glad to have you here. We need you to set up a blockade position at the coordinates we're transmitting now. There is a significant new threat from these machine creatures. Apparently they were able to build a ship somehow and they used it to try to leave the planet. The High Guard blockade fired on their ship, but it had some sort of invisible shield that protected it from our missiles and beams. We've never seen anything like it. It had almost completely left the atmosphere, and only a determined attack by a squadron of Centaur fighters finally shut down the shield and vaporized it. This ship was so small that we thought it would take only a single missile to destroy it, and instead it took everything we could throw at it and almost got past us and out into the galaxy." His voice dropped down to a lower register, and Dylan could see the beads of sweat on his forehead. "Dylan, whatever these things are, they scare the hell out of us. We can't allow them to escape from the planet and infest our worlds. As a last resort, if we can't destroy the next ship that takes off, you are authorized and encouraged to engage it with grapples and carry it down into the planet's crust at maximum acceleration. Think about it, Dylan. You're one of the most resourceful officers I know. If the Commonwealth can't come up with a plan to destroy these things, we're going to have to sterilize the planet with nova bombs and kill the half million inhabitants on the southern continent. I'm giving the same order to every commander and every officer on every Commonwealth blockade ship. Find an answer within twenty-four hours, or I will destroy Arzawa III. Hasturi out."
The Andromeda bridge crew stood motionless, staring at the fading viewscreen image. Finally Harper said "Whoa!" and the spell was broken. They looked at each other, trying to understand how they could destroy five hundred thousand fellow Commonwealth citizens and yet understanding completely that they would have to kill them all in the worst-case scenario.
"All right, people," said Dylan. "Let's see if we can figure out how to kill these things."
