Free Exodus: Machine War 1 Supernova. by Doug Dandridge Page B

that,” said the Dictator, his tentacles waving in the way of his
people, like a human shoulder shrug.  “You seem to labor under the
misconception that I have complete control over all the supplicants of the
religion I adhere to.  Nothing could be further from the truth.”
    “We will defend
ourselves against those weapons,” said Albright, pointing a finger at the
Dictator.  “By any means possible.  You might want to remember that, before
your people try to take out any of my assets.”
    With a thought
over her link she killed the transmission, feeling a small surge of victory as
the last thing she saw was the Dictator opening his speaking orifice to fire
back at her.  What the hell is wrong with these people ? she thought.  We’re
here trying to save them, or at least as many as we can get out of here with
our limited resources.  Can’t they see that?
    Unfortunately,
the religion of the Honish, the worship of their God, Hrrotha, of which the
blue supergiant was the physical manifestation, called for them to accept the
fate their deity had proclaimed for them. They looked forward to the end of
their race, believing that they would all awaken in the heaven of their God. 
As if that wasn’t bad enough, they also rejected the idea that anyone of their
race should survive, not just the relatively few nonbelievers of their own
land, but those of all other nations.
    We could
probably just get away with taking the volunteers from Tsarzor and the other
nations.  But I really want to get some of the Honish away as well, if they
would let me.
    She thought
again about the relief she had sent for.  The hyper VII courier would take at
least three weeks to get back to Exploration Command base.  Depending on what
was available, relief could head out in two or three days after the arrival of
the courier.  How soon they got here would depend on what they sent.  Hyper VII
would arrive in three weeks or less.  Ships with a VI hyperdrive would take
four times as long.
    It had been planned
to replace all the current Exploration Command ships with hyper VII vessels,
due to the huge volume of space they operated in.  The war with the Ca’cadasans
had sidelined those plans.  They had some VII vessels, and were receiving a
trickle of new ones, but the need for ships to match that of their enemy, which
were all hyper VII, had sucked most of the new ships out of the Exploration
Command pipeline.
    And if it
wasn’t for the damned war, we could do so much more here , she thought,
looking at the holo that showed a large scale representation of this section of
the Perseus Arm.  They could have rallied a true rescue mission, thousands of
ships lifting most of the population of this world and relocating them to safe
planets.  And that damned time bomb keeps ticking away.  How long do we
have?  I guess that Lewis will give us that answer.

Chapter Five
     
    A supernova is probably the most
interesting thing in this Universe that can kill you.
    Dr. Larry Southard.
     
    JULY 15 TH , 1000. 
D-355.
     
    “I really don’t
like getting so close to this thing, Captain,” said Commander Stephanie
Harrison, the Exec of the LC Merriwether Lewis.
    “You and me
both, Ms. Harrison,” agreed Captain Walther Huang, staring at the holo of the
bright blue ball that was centered within the viewer.
    From a distance
it had looked so peaceful.  From their current vantage of thirteen light
minutes, with the star on high magnification, it looked anything but.  Huge
prominences rose from the star, arcing millions of kilometers out into space
to, mostly, fall back onto the surface of the stellar body in great splashes
that could swallow scores of Jovian worlds.  Each flare would have totally
destroyed a terrestrial world  that got in its way.  But there were no worlds
that close in to the star.  The few planets it had were further out, the
closest over a hundred million kilometers, and entirely covered in either
molten rock or superhot