Звезда Пандоры

It was the show of her lifetimes. Alessandra Baron knew nothing else would ever match live coverage of an alien attack. Thankfully she’d had the presence of mind to change out of her glamorous dress into the prim gray suit her wardrobe department kept ready for disasters and general bad news events. Now she sat masterfully behind her studio desk, perfect as moderator and guide while holograms of analysts, politicians, and junior navy officers flicked in and out of the show to answer her questions. They were interspaced with direct feeds from the assaulted planets whenever Bunny, the show’s producer, could get a decent link. The fact that the unisphere could be affected, that communications she’d taken for granted her whole lives suddenly now weren’t universal and guaranteed, troubled Alessandra almost as much as the nuclear explosions, though she kept her expression professionally impassive the whole time. And as for the shocking power losses when Wessex fought off the Prime wormholes, it brought everyone close to the battle, giving them a sense of involvement.

In the studio production office, Bunny was running multiple parallel information streams for accessors, summarizing the status of events on each of the twenty-four planets. The streams for Olivenza and Balya were ominously empty and had been for some time, while Alessandra’s virtual vision provided a grid of powerful images available from various reporters unlucky enough to be close to the front line. Force fields over cities constantly flared with shimmering opalescence as they warded off either debris or a howling radioactive hurricane. Reporters foolhardy enough to be standing close to the force fields revealed the new wastelands outside: eerily smooth craters with glowing basins surrounded by flat ground that had become a desert of midnight-black carbon. Then there were the human interest stories, interviews with terrified, barely coherent city residents as they wept. Those from outlying towns who’d made it inside the force fields in time. Those whose family and friends were still outside somewhere. All of their suffering and sorrow and rage skillfully woven into a story tapestry that made sure accessors could never leave.

Bunny and Alessandra played strong on one theme, always letting through the same overriding question: Where’s the navy? Time after time they replayed the spectacular nova-bright explosion of the Second Chance as she died in battle above Anshun.

The feeds from the assaulted planets made Alessandra grateful she was safe on Augusta, hundreds of light-years behind the front line. She asked Ainge about that, an analyst from the St. Petersburg Institute for Strategic Studies whose hologram was sitting beside her.

“I think it’s significant that they’re only assaulting our worlds closest to Dyson Alpha,” Ainge said. “It implies a range limit on their wormhole generators.”

“But Wessex is a hundred light-years inside the boundary of phase three space,” Alessandra said.

“Yes, but from a tactical point of view it was worth the expenditure risk trying to capture it. If they’d been successful, we would have lost a considerable portion of phase two space. That would almost have guaranteed our ultimate loss. As it is, we’re going to have trouble fighting back. We know the kind of resources they have available; it could well be we never regain the twenty-three outer planets.”

“In your professional opinion, can we win this war?”

“Not today. We need a radical rethink of our strategy. We also need time, which is a factor very much dictated by the Primes.”

“The navy says its warships are on the way to assist the assaulted planets. How do you rate their chances?”

“I’d need more information before I can give you a realistic assessment. It all depends on how well defended the Prime wormholes are. Admiral Kime has to succeed in sending a warship through to attack their staging post. That’s the only way to slow them down.”

Bunny was telling Alessandra that Mellanie had come on-line.

“I thought Randtown had dropped out of Elan’s cybersphere,” Alessandra said.

“It is, but she’s found some way through.”

“Good girl. Has she got anything interesting?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m giving her live access. Stand by.”

Alessandra saw a new grid image appear in her virtual vision. It shifted into prime feed position.