Edward M. Lerner (31 page)

Eva prodded the moist soil with the tip of one muddy shoe. “How did you deal with it?”

“Long ago, I studied humans. Do you know Nietzsche? ‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger.’ A horrible concept with an element of truth.” Her tentacles repeated that strange back-and-forth ripple. “I despair at how strong the crew-kindred has become.” And she shared a little of that experience….

The enormity of the Centaurs’ suffering overcame Eva. Her selfish prying dissolved into sympathy, her sympathy into empathetic horror.

Reliving the past was far harder on Gwu. Abuse and privation were mere hardships to be endured. Worse was the remorse that gnawed at her: for the lives lost in futile resistance, the dreams unfulfilled, the children foregone, and the lost opportunity to make a difference.

Eva found herself enfolded in Gwu’s arms—tentacles had become too impersonal a term—and Gwu in hers. Both were shaking. Captivity, misery, and futility stretched before them all.

It struck Eva she had, in fact, discovered something of vital importance: her resolve. No matter the cost, they—humans and Centaurs alike—
must
escape while human space remained within their reach.

The bridge of
Victorious
had returned to normal, a place of confidence and purpose. The feeling was palpable. Mashkith was almost relaxed, for the first time in years. He would completely relax when the straggler caught up to them.

“Recommendation, Foremost. Sortie of inspection.” Lothwer had performed superbly on his recent mission—and he knew it. His suggestions, while polite, had become noticeably more assertive. More … challenging?

“Review of available data,” Mashkith said.

“Respectfully, Foremost, data inconclusive. Opportunity for expanded knowledge.”

“Review of available data.” Mashkith put a trace of growl into the repeated order.

Lothwer took notice and summarized. The lone ship struggling to overtake them, to the extent it could be sensed, looked visually and on lidar like
Audacity
. The time and place of its emergence from behind Jupiter was consistent with a strategy of playing dead until it had drifted far from the human fleet. Its exhaust temperature was appropriate for a Hunter vessel. Its engine stuttered and surged, well below its rated capacity. It did not reply to hails.

It was on that last point Lothwer had fixated. “Identification a requirement of doctrine.”

Lecturing him on his own bridge about doctrine? One success does not make a Foremost. His aide needed a reminder of roles; perhaps some among the crew needed a reminder who protected them all. “Loss of
Courageous
in rescue of your mission,” Mashkith snapped. “Unknown but extensive damage and casualties on
Audacity
for the same purpose.” Your success was not without a high cost. “Maybe survivors unconscious, with ship on autopilot. Maybe damage to radio gear, as to engines. Your suspicions unwarranted. Existence of small risk at rendezvous at these speeds. My decision: unjustified risk to crew on return from unnecessary sortie. Denial of your recommendation.” He twisted the knife a little. “By doctrine.”

Lothwer had the good sense not to argue further.

As the watch grew long,
Audacity
drew closer and closer. It was almost upon them, engine stuttering on its final approach, when a painful memory asserted itself: another failing vessel, a crash, a gaping hole in their hull.

His family gone.

Mashkith had just netted out a precautionary collision alarm when the ship shuddered.

The precision missile attack pulverized the metal patch in
Victorious
’ hull.
Deep Throat
’s close-in laser defenses were briefly busy zapping wayward shrapnel, and then a round of slow-speed, armor-piercing rockets trailing guide wires disappeared into the breach. In an instant, combat-armored marines were jetting along the cables into the rift. Debris blew past the warriors into space.

More missiles fanned out across the target. One salvo attacked every large—interstellar-capable—antenna ever observed on
Victorious
. A follow-up barrage targeted most remaining antennae. A few small dishes were left unmolested. They were too close together to jury-rig into a larger antenna. Retracted antennae were no safer than those deployed in plain sight, the patched area struck by the first salvo having provided an unmistakable point of reference.

And, while the Snakes were presumably maximally distracted,
Deep Throat
disgorged a stealthed vessel from its lifeboat bay.

A sprinkling of far-red alarms shimmered in a mostly orange status display. The herd had designed well; auto-sealing hatches and self-inflating emergency bulkheads now sealed the area near the breakin. Loss of pressure had been contained, thank the Clan, without affecting the nurseries, hospital, and family dormitories. Attitude jets were already damping the wobble from the explosions.
Victorious
would survive—barring more damage.

“Status,” Mashkith snapped.

“Attack vessel on station outside the breach. Armed human intruders in evidence on nearby corridor sensors. Military police in initial response.” Lothwer displayed a corridor scene, in which heavily outgunned Hunters were falling back—or just falling. “Distribution of heavy arms and combat armor in process.”

“Objective of attackers?” Did he dare to suppress the real-time display of the corridor slaughter? Did it convey critical status, or Lothwer’s not-so-veiled rebuke to his recent decision?

“Toward central core. Objective thereafter indeterminate.” Lothwer began netting tactical guidance to the assembling forces.

Where might the enemy be headed? Nothing crucial was on the deck they had penetrated. Mashkith assumed the patch had been chosen as a known weak spot. The raiders could go anywhere from the central core, which was why no humans until the recent Himalia refugees/prisoners had been allowed to see it.

Humans had probed
Victorious
early on with deep-penetrating radar, using too many ships at once to be misled by electronic trickery. He had to assume the invaders knew the ship’s higher-level structure. “Elevators to disabled state. Inter-deck hatches to latched state.” That would slow them down, however briefly. With luck their obsolete maps would confuse them—reconfiguration from spin state had significantly altered the interior layout.

He
had taken over this starship with but one ship’s crew, but there had been no opposition. The herd had been in suspended animation. Did the humans think a single ship of their warriors could defeat his whole clan? Inconceivable.

Whatever their plan, he would foil it. As a first step, “Keffah. Six warships to battle stations. Immediate destruction of human vessel.”

Let the intruders, like Arblen Ems, fight with no means of retreat.

The window of opportunity was at most a matter of minutes.

Snake warships would surely be dispatched to destroy
Deep Throat
. Logically, they would be launched from the far side of the starship, rather than make obvious targets of themselves as they emerged from the landing bay. Helmut dove the lifeboat into the landing bay near to
Deep Throat
.

The airlock controls were unfamiliar in labeling but obvious in function. With a squad of special forces in the lead, Helmut, Art, and Carlos slipped into
Victorious
.

Moments later, the network link with
Deep Throat
dissolved into static.

A few pulses of ultra-wideband, wall-penetrating radar would have revealed any opposition forces on nearby decks. Those same pulses might also have disclosed the second raiding party’s presence, defeating the purpose of their stealthy entry. The special-ops team relied instead on speed and trained reflexes, advancing quickly into the depths of
Victorious
. Any obviously unarmed Snakes they encountered were disabled with Tasers; anyone else met a few silenced, large-caliber rounds.

There was a large betting pool on how many decks aft they could sneak before someone put out the alarm. Art’s money was on two; he was happy for once to have been proven pessimistic.

A massive firefight raged a few decks forward, announced in distant explosions and, on helmet radios, the calm, clipped professional voices of the marines. Capture of the bridge was unlikely, but the high visibility assault in that direction had already accomplished its primary goal: diverting attention from the special-ops penetration. Carlos’ smaller team headed the opposite way, to the engine room.

Victorious
had elevators, which were likely to be ferrying Mashkith’s troops to the battle. The raiders stuck to the stairs, Art huffing from the unaccustomed weight of combat armor. The peripheral stairways typically descended for only a few flights, after which they would burst from a stairwell to hunt for a path further downward. His at-a-gallop guess was that the treads and risers each measured a good thirty centimeters. A peek into a stairwell a few months earlier would have made plain this could not possibly be a Snake ship. Art fell a bit behind, only to bump into Carlos, who was swearing quietly to himself, looking around for the next stairwell. Helmut and the special-ops team had already run far ahead. “What is it?” Art asked.

“The layout is nothing like our maps. How can that be?”

How the hell should he know? Who had ever been allowed into this part of the ship? “It doesn’t agree with the navy’s ground-penetrating radar scans?”

“Not even close.” Carlos paused as a huge explosion from forward shook the ship. “Are we even going in the right direction?”

“No question. We saw the fusion drive running on approach. It was on the ass-end of the ship, like you’d expect. There must be some kind of engine room aft, and ship’s acceleration makes clear where aft is. We’ll find our way.”

There was a burst of gunfire from down the next stairwell, and a brief maniacal cackle from the guy who had won the pool. “Crap. Vacation is over,” Carlos yelled, running toward the firefight. “Take over the mapping.”

Art shouted at the receding back, “What do you mean?”

A translucent 3-D corridor map popped into Art’s head, sprinkled with red dots. A net address labeled each dot. “Piece of cake. Remember the micro-planes you bought your son and yourself? Think smaller.”

Jogging after, Art netted to one of the dots. The POV had a fisheye lens and multi-spectral sensing. From the way the ‘bot’s course only approximated his directions, it must be gnat-sized and battered by air currents. And—

With a guilty whoop, he began trying out features totally beyond his recently purchased toy. This ‘bot did double duty as a wireless router, and it carried for dispersal a cargo of even smaller, non-mobile sensor/router devices. Carlos had been spreading a robust, low-powered comm network throughout the decks and corridors.

Art was imagining new uses for the ‘bots when the lights went out.

The incursion was efficient and professional, Mashkith admitted to himself: deadly professional. The attack had almost immediately taken the lives of nine Hunters, with many more wounded. He would be furious with himself when he could spare the time—not that an inspection sortie would necessarily have revealed the deception. Scoopships all looked alike.

The human raiders steadily fought toward the former location of the bridge, their route to that apparent destination circuitous and inefficient. He licked his lips in satisfaction.
Victorious
had been massively reconfigured for acceleration mode. Any interior maps the humans had used to plan their assault were now far removed from reality. In case the humans discovered their error, a squad of the clan’s finest troops were posted here on the bridge. Two more squads held a defensive perimeter that included the adjoining rooms and corridors and the deck beneath.

Mashkith thoughtfully interlaced his hand talons. Lothwer had the situation well in hand. The humans fought well, supported one another effectively, and had minimized their own casualties. It was an adequate strategy for defense, but too conservative for their purpose. Bereft of the element of surprise, they were too few in number to prevail.

Talons clicked softly against each other. Something about the situation seemed off. What? The humans were surrounded. In their ignorance, they were moving away from, not toward, the bridge. Their numbers and ammunition were dwindling. The breach had been sealed, and their ship destroyed. Heavily armed Hunter reinforcements were on their way to the battle. The humans’ caution was only postponing the inevitable.

Their caution—that was what bothered him. The disguised, all-the-time vulnerable pursuit of
Victorious
had demonstrated great daring. He could not reconcile the two—unless the cautious invaders were a diversion. They were moving forward, drawing his best troops forward. “Lothwer. Your status?”

“Excellent, Foremost. Complete containment of the enemy. Mobilization of our forces. Our counterattack imminent with overwhelming superiority.”

The tactical map presented only the front fourth of
Victorious
. Its center was the firefight which Lothwer was directing. That narrow mindset reinforced Mashkith’s concern. “What of the remainder of the ship?”

“All quiet. Essential personnel on-post, noncombatants in their dormitories, others on their way to the battle. Lockdown of prisoners complete. Prison access codes reset. Prisoner surveillance ongoing by AI resources.” Perhaps recalling a long-ago rebuke, Lothwer licked his lips in amusement. “Risk managed.”