Trial by Fire - eARC (82 page)

“I suppose that would explain why the Ktoran’s human collaborators were largely unaware of these activities. You are to be congratulated on your talent for deception. We were too often taken in by your ruses and decoys. But the loss of your fleet near Jupiter: there were no decoys there.”

Riordan nodded. “There couldn’t be. We knew you’d have ample time to conduct post-action forensics once you were in our home system, so there, everything had to be authentic. So we accepted those losses in advance, and figured that the fight-to-the-finish you got at Jupiter would further convince you that our desperation was absolute. And if you picked up any survivors of those craft, that was exactly what they believed.”

Darzhee Kut bobbed, but there was one thing that still mystified him—had mystified all of his rock-siblings. “These notes ring true and obvious, now that we see how they were sounded, and why. But I am still perplexed: how did your relief fleet know to come to Earth when it did, and how did it arrive so quickly? I remember that you had one shift-carrier—the
Tankyū-sha Maru
—accelerating to preshift velocities when we arrived in the system. But it only shifted out less than an hour before your whole fleet shifted in to counterattack us in cislunar space. How is that possible? Our intelligence on your shift capabilities is not in error. It takes at least thirty-two days for you to build up sufficient kinetic energy to initiate your shift. How did your counterattacking fleet do it in mere minutes?”

The human smiled. “It didn’t have to build up the kinetic energy. The fleet was already traveling at preshift velocity.”

Darzhee Kut saw the answer—so simple, so elegant—with great suddenness. It was as though he had been deaf, but now regained his hearing from this clap of revelatory thunder. “Roof rock. Now I see it. Your ships were all preaccelerated. They were merely awaiting the word to return to your home system.”

“Just so. We used the same strategy to cut other key communication intervals down to minutes or hours. For instance, when you arrived in Barnard’s Star, you may remember detecting a shift-vessel almost fully preaccelerated, in the far outer system?”

“Yes, of course. The
Prometheus
, I believe.”

“Correct. And when it shifted, it went straight to Ross 154.”

“Which we sent part of our fleet to interdict.”

“As we would have, in your place. But that’s why there was already
another
preaccelerated shift carrier waiting in Ross 154.”

“And the ship from Ross 154?”

“It hopped to the system we designate as Lalande 21185, which is where we had stashed all our real fleet elements. The ships and crews you thought you destroyed at Barnard’s Star. That unit—Relief Task Force One—immediately began to load all ordnance and units, and secure for pre-shift acceleration. That was on November 26. They attained preshift velocity on New Year’s Day, and then they waited.”

Darzhee Kut bobbed. “They waited for the
Tankyū-sha Maru,
the shift-carrier that jumped out from your home system on the day of their attack
.
Which must have had a time-based estimate of where your fleet was in Lalande 21185. And so it was able to deliver the message swiftly.”

“Correct. And when Relief Task Force One arrived near Earth, that started the clock ticking for all the surprises we sprung on you on Java.”

Darzhee Kut considered. “Even without the Dornaani device in your arm, you might have won.”

Caine shrugged again. “Possibly. But it would have been a much, much costlier battle.”

“True. Caine Riordan, I must ask. How many of my rock-siblings in space had their songs stilled by the Final—by their own claws?”

The human seemed to study him closely. “Less than a dozen of your ships refrained from destroying themselves after the surrender.”

“Which your people no doubt saw as treachery, as a ploy to lure your boarding teams to their deaths.”

“Yes, it seemed that way.”

“Did they not understand that it was not our intent to destroy your people? That, because your computer virus paralyzed our ships, we had no way to scuttle them until
after
your soldiers had commandeered them?”

“Some knowledgeable—and calm—people concede that your actions may not have been intended to harm us. But even they do not understand why all the Arat Kur would be so determined to kill themselves.”

“But you do.”

“I might.”

“You must! You heard our discussions in the headquarters, the careless talk. You know that we remember your race, and what it did, even if your own people do not.”

“Darzhee Kut, in the epoch during which you claim your race was destroyed, the people of Earth had not yet even learned to navigate the oceans of our planet.”

“Then—it may not have been humans from Earth, but descendants of populations taken from there in earlier times. But what does it matter which star the ravagers of my planet were born beneath? Their blood is your blood.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“How can I not? I have seen the pictures painted in the deepest refuge-caves. There is no mistaking the shape of your species depicted as our destroyers, more than fifteen thousand of your years ago.” He stilled his claws. “And now you are back among the stars. But enough of the past. What has happened since you defeated the forces we brought to your home system?”

“The smaller fleet you sent to Ross 154 destroyed our military facilities there, and then withdrew after deploying a Hkh’Rkh shift-carrier for raiding down the Big Green Main. Meanwhile, the Slaasriithi stepped up pressure along your common border, putting you on the defensive.”

Darzhee Kut couldn’t decide whether he should be amused or annoyed at the human’s claims. “And how would you know all this? You speak of places more than a dozen shifts distant from your homeworld.”

The human stared. “The Custodians have been most helpful with intelligence.”

Darzhee Kut felt a small, coiling worm-twist in his abdomen. “The Custodians are to remain neutral.”

“Unless the Twenty-first Accord is violated. Which you did. And the Dornaani are too busy to correct all the recent abuses to the Accords on their own.”

“So you have been deputized by the Custodians?”

“That isn’t possible, since we were never confirmed as members of the Accord.”

The abdominal squirm doubled. “Then you are operating without constraint?”

“We are, but that would ultimately be your doing, wouldn’t it? We tried—very hard—to convince you that we should be made members of the Accord. You refused.”

Darzhee Kut let his limbs slump. “When the truth is sung clearly, there are no counterpoints with which it may be confounded. It is as you say: we are the architects of our own problems.”

“I am glad you see it that way, Darzhee Kut. And I am hoping that you can convince your leaders to see the current situation similarly.”

“Why? Are we to journeying to meet representatives of the Homenest? And you wish my assistance?”

“That is correct.”

“I am flattered, but, in truth, you do not need me. The Homenest’s leaders have adequate translation devices and they will listen to your words.”

“They have not done so thus far.”

Darzhee Kut felt the wormlike sensation move up higher, into his second stomach. “You speak as though you are already in contact with them.”

“We are.”

The worm twitched its tail as he asked the next, inevitable question, suddenly dreading the answer, on the verge of vertigo, the universe suddenly adrift and unsteady. “Where are we?”

“We are in a far orbit about your homeworld.”

Darzhee Kut rose slowly from his comfortable crouch. “That cannot be. By counting meals and sleep cycles, I estimate it has been about ninety-five days since we departed your home system.”

“That’s an excellent estimate, Darzhee Kut. This is the ninety-third day.”

“Then it is impossible for you to have reached Homenest, or what you call Sigma Draconis Two. Even for us, with our greater shift range and shorter preacceleration times, it would take much longer to make such a journey. And for your ships, the fastest way to reach us still required nine shifts. The better part of a year.”

“You know the star charts, and their strategic implications, perfectly, Darzhee Kut. But that is not the course we took to get to Sigma Draconis Two.”

Darzhee found that the six claws holding him up were tense, quivering. “It is the only one you can take, the only one possible for your technology.”

“For our technology, yes. For Dornaani technology, no.”

Darzhee Kut felt the cold floor come up under him, slap his belly-plate. “They modified your engines.”

“No, just the Wasserman field-effect generator. And they could only do it to certain of our shift-carriers—the Commonwealth, Federation, and Union designs were advanced enough to make use of the greater control and precision of the Dornaani guidance, containment, and navigation systems.”

Darzhee Kut saw the room again, as if it was reappearing from out of a fog. “So, you made deep-space shifts.”

“Correct. From Earth we shifted to a deep space site with two carriers—one from TOCIO, one a commandeered CoDevCo ship—carrying nothing but fuel. They served as tankers for the rest of our fleet, which shifted on to V1581 Cygni2.”

“Which is only eight light-years from Homenest.”

“Eight point two five, to be exact.”

Rotting flesh and plague, it is true. Humans are hovering over Homenest
. The ravagers had returned, after having repulsed an invasion of their homeworld. Darzhee Kut felt the lower digestive juices rise through the valves that led into his first stomach, clamped them down. “How many ships?” It came out sounding like a pebble-choked gargle.

Riordan shrugged. “Five shift carriers—two Commonwealth, two Federation, one Union—fitted to capacity with capital ships, ordnance, transatmospheric attack craft, commandos. And we used two of your shift-carriers, as well.”

Darzhee Kut felt his eyelenses grind against each other until they were a quivering, locked collection of plates. The world was an amber blur. “Two of
our
shift carriers?”

“Yes, one of which was your orbital flotilla’s command ship. We loaded it with a mix of our warcraft and yours.”

“But surely none of my rock-siblings would help you by—”

“No. The Dornaani provided us with control interfaces. We are running the craft ourselves.”

Darzhee Kut half-turned toward the wall again. Zkhee’ah Drur the Elder had once observed that while one is yet alive to complain of misfortune, the greatest of all misfortunes has not yet occurred. But this turn of affairs seemed very close to disproving that ancient axiom. “I take it that using our ships has made the invasion of our systems much easier.”

“Yes, although there wasn’t much of a fight in V1581 Cygni2. Only minor defense elements were present, no shift ships. But lots of useful intelligence. Then we shifted here. That was a sharper fight.”

“I’m surprised you won.”

“Well, since your leaders didn’t think we could hop straight into their laps, they kept most of your defense fleet at AC+54 1646-56. That’s the system that controls the route you, and they, presumed we would have to take.”

“That is only one shift away from Homenest, for our ships.”

“Precisely. That’s why we had to hit you hard and fast here in your home system. We didn’t want anyone shifting out and calling for help. So we used the ships we captured from you as lures.”

“Lures?”

Riordan nodded. “We made it seem like they were still your ships, returning from Earth. Your ships and command personnel took the bait. All but delivered themselves to us on a silver platter.”

“The story you tell is not possible. You would not have been believed, for you did not have our passwords.”

Caine Riordan looked away. “Actually, we did.”

Darzhee Kut rose on his front claws. “They were not stored in our computers, and those of my rock-siblings who had been entrusted with the knowing of them would never have surrendered them willingly to you.”

“They didn’t surrender them—willingly.”

Darzhee Kut’s antenna yanked into his carapace reflexively.
Sun-timing, blood-drenched savages.
“Your race is unchanged.”

Riordan nodded. “That may be true. But this time, it was my race’s homeworld that was threatened, invaded, fought over. Between the resentment over that, and a widespread feeling that the Arat Kur deserve whatever happens to them, there have been several acts—crimes—against your rock-siblings which are terribly wrong.”

“And will those who performed these actions pay for them?”

“Maybe. Or they might get medals. It is too early to say. At any rate, once we engaged your home defense fleet, the battle lasted about four hours.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. We had all your codes and passwords. Also, from your intact ships, we got a pretty complete picture of how you train your personnel, how you fight wars, how you try to trick adversaries, what you fear and how you try to minimize your weaknesses. Accordingly, our fleet was carrying a quadruple load of extremely heavy ordnance, particularly tactical nuclear missiles and nuke-pumped X-ray laser drones. Altogether, it made for a fairly short battle. Which was good, given how close your other fleet is.”

“And that is why you need me to talk to my leaders. Because despite your victory, you have limited time.”

“Exactly. If we assume that you, too, keep preaccelerated ships as waiting couriers, then news of the attack here could have arrived at AC+54 1646-56 two days ago. Now, best guess and captured intelligence both project that there will be a minimum two-week delay between the time your other fleet gets the message and their earliest arrival here. Which means capitulation must be secured before then.”

Darzhee Kut stared at the human. “And why do you think I will help you to enslave my people? And probably destroy them?”

Riordan rose, came closer, sat within reach of his claws. “Darzhee Kut, I am trying to keep your people from
being
destroyed. That’s why I need your help.”