A Call to Arms (20 page)

The ships from Earth were suffering, but Sheridan saw a group of four smaller ships--civilian vessels, from their size--zero in on a single Drakh ship and harry it through a series of tight maneuvers, their light weaponry making no real impression on the enemy. But they occupied his attention long enough for an Earth-Force destroyer to join the attack and, aided by his wing destroyer, make the kill. That was the good news.

Sheridan was also aware that the Drakh were cutting down Earth ships as fast as they could be put up, their armor, speed, and weaponry more than a match for Earth’s best. Only
Excalibur
and
Victory
could slug it out with the Drakh on an equal footing, and both prototypes were engaged in an attack on the deathcloud.

Sheridan saw the thing looming ahead of him as he bore in on it. As he closed, he saw that it was larger than a planet; of course, since it was designed to engulf a planet. But there was no time to think of that. He drove
Excalibur
hard, grimly hanging on while his ship was rocked time and time again by incoming hits.

“Distance to target!” Sheridan demanded.

“Ten thousand miles!” his navigation officer replied.

“Fire forward guns, maximum power, wide dispersion pattern.” Control told him, “Sir, at this range the beams will disperse... They won’t do any damage.”

“I’m not looking to do any damage yet. I want to find out what that thing’s made of.”

“Aye, sir,” control said. “Firing.”

Excalibur
was momentarily checked in its onward dash as it fired its main forward guns. Sheridan tracked the volley on the tactical display. Some of the bursts penetrated the cloud and continued on into it, to explode deep in its interior. Other bursts passed straight through it.

“There,” Sheridan said. “Some passed right through, others were stopped. That tells me there’s a superstructure of some kind inside. If it’s solid, we can hit it, and if we can hit the right spot, we can destroy it.”

He wiped his forehead. This was hot work. He continued, “Scanners to maximum, full spectrum, starting at infrared and moving outward. Nothing we had before could ever penetrate that thing. Let’s see how advanced this ship really is.”

“Aye, sir,” control said.

The display began showing shifting colors as
Excalibur
penetrated the outer edges of the cloud part of the deathcloud. Other screens, their cameras aimed aft, panned across the actions of the two fleets. They showed increasingly heavy damage being suffered by EarthForce.

And
Excalibur
seemed to take forever getting into the cloud.

“Come on,” Sheridan muttered. “I could’ve painted this thing in oils by now.”

“There!” Dureena cried.

They had finally penetrated the cloud deeply enough to reveal the superstructure that was concealed within it. It was a solid box of hinged steel, larger than Everest, an almost inconceivable product of evil but brilliant engineering, a juggernaut designed to crush a planet.

The great black metallic mass of long, spidery arms was moving through space, majestically, inexorably. A diffused light allowed Sheridan to pick up details of its missile array. There had to be thousands of the missiles in long racks within the superstructure, awaiting launch. And bad as that was to see, what was worse was that this great jointed mass of metal was expanding, opening up like a grotesque flower of evil, getting ready for the big one.

The crew of
Excalibur
was stunned for a moment by the sheer size of what they saw. The communications officer stood with his mouth open, printouts dropping unnoticed from his hand. Dureena had both fists clenched, and her body was a tense bow, as if somehow she thought she could hurl herself at this grim object. The navigation officer had lifted his hands to his face and now, somewhat sheepishly, was taking them down again and finding his voice.

He said, “My God! How are we supposed to stop something like that? It’s as big as a planet.”

“David and Goliath,” Sheridan replied. “You just have to find the right point.”

Dureena was listening to Sheridan’s words, but her mind was far away. She was back on Daltron 7, in the dark, swirling place of the catastrophe. And she could hear Galen’s voice again, as clearly as though he were speaking to her now, saying, “When the time comes to choose your target, be sure to pick the right one. Because you will get only one shot.” She had thought he meant Sheridan, but...

She could see the display focusing in on the dead center of the jointed steel device. Sheridan had frozen the display.

“There,” he said. “That has to be the control center; it’s right in the middle of the thing. We hit it with everything we’ve got, and---”

“No,” Dureena said.

Sheridan and the other officers looked at her, surprised by her intrusion.

“Excuse me?” Sheridan said.

Dureena was suddenly very sure of herself. “Hit that part, and you’ll fail. And your planet will be destroyed.”

They all clutched for support as
Excalibur
was rocked “Look,” Sheridan said, “we don’t have much time. We can’t take too many more of those hits.”

“Then listen,” Dureena said. “Your friend was right about me. I’m a thief. And proud of it. I work like a thief, I live like a thief, and I think like a thief. So do they.”

She paused to be sure she had their full attention. She had. Maybe they thought she was crazy, but they were listening.

“The first thing a thief learns is that the biggest jewels are never hidden in the safe. They’re hidden in a box or book
next
to the safe. They’re never in the obvious place, so you learn to look where they do not want you to look.”

She walked up to the display and pointed to the center object.

“Maybe they assumed nobody could penetrate the deathcloud to its center. And maybe they did, in which case they’d know that the centerpiece would be the obvious target. So they reinforce it, but move the main segments of the control system elsewhere.”

“Such as?” Sheridan asked.

Dureena studied the display, steadying herself and not even registering it as the ship took another hit.

“Here,” she said, pointing to the screen. “Magnify.”

Sheridan studied the image. It was a joint area located between fingers of the fist that formed the superstructure. It looked identical to all the other joints... except, as the image magnified, one very important difference became apparent.

“This looks like a joint between parts of the device,” Dureena said. “Same as a thousand others. But if there’s nothing special about it, then why all the short-range weapons surrounding it? Why are they so determined to protect it? If it’s just one more joint in the mechanism, there’s no reason for the extra weapons.”

“Unless it’s more than it appears,” Sheridan mused, picking up her line of thought.

“Exactly,” Dureena said.

Anderson’s voice came in. He had been monitoring their conversation. “Sheridan. We’re watching your situation. Enemy ships closing on our position. We’re running out of time. We can hit one or the other, but not both. Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it fast.”

Sheridan looked at Dureena. She met his gaze steadily.

She said, “I wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t a reason, if I didn’t have something to contribute. Maybe it’s not a thing. Maybe it’s a way of thinking.”

She looked at him hard. “I know I’m right!”

Sheridan hesitated only a fraction of a second more. Then his mind was made up. He said, “Engines at full! At weapons, prepare to fire as soon as we’re within range.”

“Which target?” the navigation officer asked.

“Hers!” Sheridan said.

The
Excalibur
seemed to take a running leap through space,
Victory
following, blasting away from the main group, still firing their other armament at the surrounding Drakh fleet. Beam weapons played across Drakh ships, letting off coruscating sparks. Incoming rounds exploded off Drakh hulls in a mounting dazzle of explosions. They raced away from their accompanying Earth destroyers, some of which were already on fire.

Closer and closer
Excalibur
came to the superstructure, weapons firing, hits coming in as more enemy guns began to bear on their targets. Behind them, the Earth was a pale-colored sphere barely visible through the cloud, swimming alone in the heavens, looking naked and vulnerable. And now
Victory
joined her firepower to
Excalibur
’s.

For a moment, Sheridan’s maneuver looked as though it would work. But more and more Drakh ships came pouring into the area, adding their firepower, deflecting shots that had been aimed at the superstructure.

Aboard
Victory
, Anderson saw that they had been checkmated. He didn’t need it when his first officer spelled out the obvious. “Weapon fire not getting through, Captain. Autodefense systems are bad enough, but we just had five more ships join in the shield.”

“How long until it can hit Earth?”

“We’re minutes away,” the first officer said. And then he was thrown halfway across the bridge as the
Victory
took a solid hit in the rear.

The first officer picked himself up, face bloody, read his screen, and reported, “Main rear weapons are hit!”

“How bad?” Anderson asked.

“They’re destroyed, sir,” the first officer replied.

Anderson paused a moment. In his mind’s eye, Earth was engulfed in a torrent of red death. Then he said, “My daughter’s down there, Phil. I promised I’d protect her from the monsters. What kind of father am I... if I can’t keep my promise?”

He thought for a moment, then said, “Get me Sheridan.”

“Aye, sir,” the first officer said.

Sheridan looked at Anderson’s agonized face on the screen, heard him say, “Sheridan... standard weapons fire isn’t getting through.”

“I know,” Sheridan said.

“Only one thing to do. Fire your main guns. It’ll put you out of commission for one minute, but we’ll cover you until you can navigate and get out of here.”

“At this range,” Sheridan said, “the most we’ll do is knock out some of those ships.”

“Exactly. But you’ll clear the way so we can use our main guns, then you can cover us. Just open the door, Mr. President... We’ll take it from there.”

Sheridan looked at Anderson, a look that said a lot. Then Sheridan said, “Ready main guns. Stand by to fire.”

The tension aboard
Excalibur
at that moment was almost unbearable. All of them on the bridge were caught up in their most private thoughts.

The navigation officer caught a memory glimpse of a small cottage in upstate New York, a place not far from Ausable Chasm, a place where, despite the rigors of the climate, roses grew, where a young woman waited for him, and a small boy waited, too.

Dureena caught a glimpse of the possibilities of life that lay ahead of her, a place for new memories, since her old ones had been obliterated along with her world.

It was the same with the others on the bridge. Each of them was caught up in a momentary flash of vision, a flash that told them how good life was, and how sad it would be to leave it now in a hell of molten metal and freezing vacuum. The moment seemed to stretch, to grow, lasting on and on...

Until Sheridan said, “Fire!”

The blast of the
Excalibur
’s main armament came crackling with the essence of living plasma. The beams from all four primary guns met in front of the
Excalibur
and shot out like a serpent’s tongue, disturbing the fabric of space itself.

That fire, burning brighter than a thousand suns, consumed itself and flared up again as it screamed through space, exploding into a group of Drakh ships. This was the majority of the enemy force, hastily assembled to protect the superstructure behind them. In the blink of an eye, that great array of war vessels, with their well-wrought alloy bodies, optical-fiber nerves, computer brains, and their thousands of Drakh soldiers, was utterly consumed. It vanished from sight as though it had never been.

It was a signal victory, but a Pyrrhic one, as was apparent to everybody as they crowded around the screens. For
Excalibur
, plunged into darkness now as a result of the sudden expenditure of all her accumulated energies, had indeed maimed the Drakh fleet to the point of death, but had not touched the superstructure, protected as it was by so many Drakh ships and soldiers.

In the darkness, Sheridan remarked to Dureena, “Looks like you won’t have a chance to shoot either of us.”

Dureena shrugged. “I’ve grown accustomed to disappointment.”

Suddenly the navigation officer cried out, “Sir! The
Victory
. She’s breaking away!”

“What?” Sheridan said. He rushed to the window, looked out.

He saw
Victory
, side guns firing, racing toward the Drakh command center, picking up speed as she went.

Aboard
Victory
, Anderson gave his command.

“Ramming speed,” he said.

“Aye, sir,” the first officer said. He relayed the order to the engine room.

There was no reply. “Hey,” he called. “Engine room, come on! Someone!”

Again a long wait. And then a voice made stupid with shock and pain said, “Engine room, Flagler reporting.”

“Give me Lieutenant Dryson.”

“Dead, sir.”

“Then put on Sergeant Halloran.”

“He’s dead, too, sir. They’re all dead. All except me. And I’m not sure of me.” The first officer read his dials. They were dipping toward the black. What a hell of a time to lose power. “Flagler?” he said urgently. “You’ve got to do something!”

“Yes, sir. I figured on dying next, sir.”

“Flagler, listen to me! You can’t die yet! Are you listening?”

Flagler heard the first officer’s words, but he couldn’t find anything to say. He lay in a corner of the engine room, where the explosion had flung him. On all sides of him were twisted metal and shattered bodies. Some of the eleven men present had been shredded by the exploding metal. Arms and legs lay scattered across the deck or plastered on the walls and ceiling. A jagged hole almost three yards long had been torn in the hull.