Akura staggered back from the comm panel, looking as though she were in physical pain. Sheeawn’s face paled as he translated. “Communication has failed to all parts of the launching system. At least one feeder ring has also come back on. Telescopic observations indicate the main targeting rings are rotating into a new position. To target something else.”
Sheeawn stumbled in his words, and Akura gestured to him to hurry up and convey the message. “It appears they are turning to target Uduon itself.”
***
How long do we have? Bandicut wanted to know. How long before the first rocks flew? Ammunition had to come from the feeders. How long did they have to stop it? Akura didn’t know; the observations weren’t that precise. She had gotten back on the comm to her fellow Watcher, and told him to pass the news of a planetary emergency. In return, she received provisional support from the Circle to do whatever seemed necessary to protect Uduon. It wasn’t clear that all the Circle believed everything she reported—not because they didn’t trust her, but because it all must have seemed so outlandish. The support she had would have to do.
“Can we get readings of our own?” Bandicut asked. “Are we close enough yet?”
“The long-range view is getting better,” Copernicus said. “But we’re not close enough to take action.”
A window sprang open in the viewspace, showing a highly magnified image of the number four orbiting launch complex. It was not so much a single structure as a cluster, all arcs and coils and hard-edged lines, curving around a common axis, and gleaming in the reddish sunlight like strange wire sculptures. There was no central hub where a crew might dwell; there was no crew. The cluster extended over several kilometers of space. Several bowl-shaped collectors glowed dully, receiving beamed energy from much larger solar collectors a hundred kilometers away. The larger collectors were arrayed like petals around a flower with the launcher at the center. The barrel of the weapon, a long series of linear-accelerator rings, was moving very slowly, changing its alignment to point toward Uduon.
The planet was now a wispy blue and brown and white ball, prominent in the unmagnified portion of the main viewspace, three times the size of Earth as seen from the Moon. Bandicut and everyone else just stared at the magnified image of that barrel, imagining it hurling killer asteroids down onto its own homeworld. If anyone had wanted to make sure the Uduon were truly afraid of the Mindaru, this was definitely doing that. The Long View was coming in fast, but was still too far away to do any good.
In the magnified window, something emerged into view from behind one of the energy-collection bowls, gliding toward the axis of the launch system. It was the Mindaru, a shimmering blur, not quite in focus. Copernicus tried to adjust the image to give them a clear view of it, but it seemed impossible. “Either it’s employing some kind of shielding field, or it still isn’t quite solid,” Copernicus said. “It does seem similar in appearance to the one in the starstream.”
“Did it look that way back at Karellia?” Bandicut asked.
“We never got close enough to see,” said Copernicus.
Ruall, who had been staying quiet, clanged loudly. “It is still in a waveform state. That’s what Bria and Dark talked about.”
Bandicut opened his hands emphatically, prompting for more.
Ruall let out a shivering-cymbal sound. “Bria and Dark noticed that it had not taken any offensive action, even back at Karellia. Other than hacking . . .everything available to be hacked. Possibly it can’t take offensive action, not while it’s in this form.”
“And our weapons can’t touch it? Because it’s not solid?”
“Quite likely.” Ruall paused. “But Bria and Dark think they know a way to kill it.”
Bandicut blinked in surprise, remembering Bria’s urgency upon returning to the ship, and the hasty conference. “Now’s the time to tell us! How do we kill it?”
The Tintangle didn’t speak for a few seconds, but just spun in frustration. Finally she stopped with a long reverberation. “It is too dangerous for Bria! She must throw herself at the Mindaru, and try to induce it to collapse out of its wave function and become solid! So that it can attack her.”
Bandicut’s stomach lurched. “Bria is going to take on the Mindaru? By herself? That’s—”
“As soon as it’s solid, Dark believes she can hold it steady long enough for us to kill it.”
Li-Jared had turned to hear the last part of the conversation. He bonged softly in amazement.
Copernicus broke in to say, “I can’t tell how long it will take the Mindaru to aim the launcher, or where on the planet its target will be. But if you look in this other direction, you’ll see there’s no lack of ammunition waiting . . .”
The viewing window split, and the right half zoomed out, pitched down, and settled on a much larger ring, some distance from the launcher. This was a collection ring; inside it, a sizable cluster of rocks was drifting around an invisible center. It was an enormous ammunition magazine, ready to supply the launcher. “As soon as they’re done aiming,” Copernicus said, “I don’t see what’s to keep them from launching.”
“Can we go any faster to intercept?” Bandicut asked. He was trying to imagine how they could coordinate an attack with Bria and Dark—if Ruall was willing to take that chance with the gokat.
“We are closing rapidly, Cap’n. But the timing will be close.”
Li-Jared abruptly became animated, waving his hands and shouting, “Wait—why don’t we forget the Mindaru for now—and just take out the launcher instead? Can we shoot at it from this range?”
Jeaves and Ruall floated together to the center of the viewspace and studied the image. “It’s a longer shot. But I think, my friend, it’s a good suggestion,” Jeaves said, turning. “At least it’s not moving. Three quantum implosion warheads ought to destroy it, or at least disable it. Ruall?”
The Tintangle spun, considering. “It will be in range soon. It is worth trying. I authorize the use of two warheads. We have a limited number, and there may be many Mindaru.”
The two Uduon were grimly silent, and Quin and Koro simply looked stunned.
***
The quantum-bolts flashed out from The Long View. Bandicut held his breath. The points of light snicked into the dark and vanished, and then after a heartbeat reappeared in the magnified view. The points streaked toward the accelerator rings, and then . . .
The Mindaru suddenly was between the bolts and the launcher. The bolts winked out, one after the other.
Ruall made a dissonant sound of distress.
“What happened?” Bandicut asked.
“I am not certain,” Jeaves said.
“The damn thing isn’t solid! How could it have stopped the warheads?”
“Well, the warheads are designed to cause a sudden and devastating collapse of quantum states. Maybe our friend was able to short them out, or turn them against themselves.” Jeaves sounded sorrowful. “I am only guessing.”
“What now?” Li-Jared demanded, with his gaze angled at the unhappy Akura and Sheeawn.
Copernicus said, “Does anyone mind if I try to reach Dark?”
“Call her!” Ruall rang. “Tell her we need her now. In the meantime, change course for the nearest solar collector!”
Sheeawn stirred back to life and gathered his nerve to ask, “Why? What will we do there?”
Ruall made a soft ringing sound, almost like laughter. “They can’t use the launcher without power from the collectors, can they? I doubt the Mindaru can move fast enough to protect them all.”
Bandicut murmured approval. “Let’s do it. Now.”
Ruall gonged, “Be ready to fire particle-beams at the collectors. That might even draw the thing toward us, so we can take another shot at it!”
“Dark,” Copernicus said, “is asking what we want her to do.”
Ruall gonged again. “Tell her to prepare to do what she planned with Bria—and hurry!”
***
The first petal of the
gigantic, flower-shaped solar array began to wither under fire from The Long View. It was unprotected. But it was also spread out over a vast area, and this was just one petal of a dozen feeding power to the launcher. By destroying this one petal, they were whittling away at the power supply—but this was not a quick way to disable the launcher. It was, however, getting the Mindaru’s attention.
Copernicus steered them along the edge of the solar array, burning metal and glass as they went. The Mindaru would catch up with them in about seven minutes.
Bandicut felt Dark approaching before he saw her. His stones tingled, exchanging long-range greetings. Bria strutted past him like a wiry cartoon character, cocking her triangular head one way and another, as though taking a good last look at everyone. Then she murmured something to Ruall that Bandicut could not understand, and blinked away.
“Dark is about three minutes from intercept,” Copernicus said. As they all gathered to watch, Copernicus began to zigzag across the open swath of the solar collector, flying like an angry child, burning and slicing with The Long View’s particle beams.
“May I ask why you are flying that way?” Sheeawn asked.
“Distraction,” Copernicus said. “If the Mindaru is focused on us, it might not notice Dark coming down on it from above. And it might not notice Bria. We hope she can startle it.”
For the next minute, Ruall was exceptionally tense. Bandicut suspected she badly wanted to be out there with Bria, but could not, because she was in command here.
In the viewspace now, they could see the great curve of the solar panel, gleaming against space, huge furrows being plowed in it by the particle beams; and sliding across the face of the panel was what looked like a blurry spot of rain on a windshield. It was the Mindaru, shimmering and not quite real; except it was real, and it was threatening to kill uncounted Uduon down on the planet.
Ruall suddenly ordered Copernicus to fly straight and maintain distance. “Bria is getting close to it. Let her do what she can.”
Jeaves reported, “The enemy is probing at the periphery of our intelligence systems. Our firewalls are holding, but it is learning fast.”
Ruall muttered a low gong, and instructed Copernicus: “Calculate best firing range. If Bria can jolt it into taking solid form, be ready to spike it.”
Sheeawn was pleading in his silence. Kill it, his eyes said. Kill it!
Bandicut opened his mouth to say something encouraging, but never got the chance. Ruall clanged wordlessly, and out in space near the Mindaru, there was a flash, and then Bria was visible—tiny in the distance, but coruscating with white and crimson light.
“It’s noticed her,” Copernicus said. “I think she must be drawing strength from Dark somehow.”
And then Bandicut felt in his stones, connecting to Dark’s stones, that the cloudlike singularity was on the move. Dark became visible in the viewspace also, a shadow-shape rippling across the sky, three times larger than the Mindaru. Pulsations of fire appeared in the murk within her. Bandicut felt Dark’s presence through his wrist-stones, felt her hard determination to protect her friends. She moved quickly. She dropped onto the Mindaru. At the same time, Bria strobed brighter still.
With an abrupt convulsion, the Mindaru was transformed from a blur to an angular shape with crystalline spines sticking in a dozen directions. It was shockingly beautiful, like a mineral specimen—so beautiful that for an instant, Bandicut almost felt it would be wrong to destroy it.
And then, inside the Mindaru, something came alight.
Ruall let out a twang, a cry of warning to Bria.
“I believe it’s energizing weapons,” Copernicus said. “It had to become solid to do that.”
Bria darted left, and Dark veered right. Now it was Dark that changed abruptly, stretching wide, and in an eye-blink transforming into a bubble around the Mindaru. Bandicut felt a sharp tingle in his stones, and Copernicus cried, “She wants us to take the shot. She’s holding it!”
Ruall’s head was spinning, whick whick whick. “Shoot!”
There was a buzzing in the deck, and a snap, and the beam of a high-energy pulse lanced out into space, followed half an instant later by a quantum warhead. Both vanished into the bubble of Dark.
Nothing else happened.
The Mindaru sparkled visibly inside Dark, perhaps trying to escape. Then all the light was extinguished, and the bubble of Dark was dark, indeed. Nothing moved.
“Yes?” Bandicut whispered. Was Dark holding both of them in some kind of stasis, a time-freeze?
Bria suddenly popped into the air on the bridge, making a trilling sound as she landed forepaws first.
The shadow of Dark’s bubble abruptly softened, and an intense violet light welled where the Mindaru had been. In that fireball, Bandicut imagined, quantum forces were breaking down, atomic structure collapsing, the Mindaru dying. After three heartbeats, the starburst faded.
And his translator-stones spoke. *Dark says this Mindaru is gone.*
Dark’s bubble vanished, and the shadowy singularity glided to take up a position on The Long View’s left flank. Copernicus was drowned out by cries of joy and relief when he reported the same thing Bandicut had just heard.
Bandicut could not keep from grinning. But he also thought: We’re not out of this yet. He shouted through the commotion, “We need to go see if it left any launch commands ticking!” He hooked a thumb back toward the launcher complex. “Now, Ruall.”
Chapter 16
Protecting Karellia
AS THE ASTEROID launcher grew again in the viewspace, Jeaves announced, “The accelerator rings are powered up! And it’s pointed at Uduon. I can’t determine the exact target yet, but somewhere on the planet.”
“That can’t be right!” cried Sheeawn, with Akura speaking in a distraught voice beside him.
Bandicut felt his head spinning. Mother of . . . He strode to the front of the viewspace. “It must have programmed the shot before we got it. Can you take out the launcher, Coppy?”
“Without the Mindaru protecting it, I think so,” said Copernicus.
“Particle beam on the main ring,” Ruall ordered. “Then work your way back.”
Moving the ship into position and setting up the shot took a few minutes, during which power levels steadily mounted in the launcher. Then Copernicus fired. The first burst exploded on the left-hand side of the main ring. A minute later, the control section was vapor and dust and slag, drifting apart in a cloud. There would be no more asteroids fired from here.
“We need to check the other launchers,” Ruall said to Akura. “Unless you can assure me that you have control over them?”
That sent Akura back to the comm system to speak to the defense chief. Ruall hovered impatiently. Bria appeared at her feet with a pop, and the Tintangle and the gokat engaged in a raspy, metallic-sounding conversation. Ruall seemed to become less impatient as she talked to Bria. Finally Akura turned from the console and said, “The other launchers are all shut down, and there is no indication of Mindaru interference.”
“All right,” said Ruall. “Bria confirms.”
“Huh?” said Bandicut.
“She just went and checked for us.”
“Um, how?”
“She—no, that discussion can wait until later. Our next immediate concern is back at Karellia. There may be more Mindaru coming. We must return at once.”
“Wait,” said Akura. “Can we stay long enough for me to go down to the surface and meet with the Circle? There is so much they need to know.”
Ruall’s head spun around, and she seemed to give the request serious thought. “We cannot afford the time,” she said finally. “The temporal field is still in place around Karellia, which means more Mindaru may be on their way. You may use the communication equipment as long as you need to.”
“But—”
“Copernicus, let’s visit the other main launcher and make sure it can never be used again. Then we must set course for Karellia. Best speed.”
&
nbsp; “Excuse me,” Sheeawn said. “But if Watcher Akura needs to confer with her Circle—”
Ruall made a sharp ringing sound. “I have given my reasons and allowed her use of the comm. Do you want to risk more such attacks?”
“No, but—”
“Then we must see at once to shutting down the Karellian shield.” Ruall buzzed, which produced an unpleasant vibration in the air. “So kindly refrain from interfering.”
For about ten seconds, there was no sound on the bridge. But Bandicut saw the two Uduon and the two Karellians exchange long, silent looks. He wondered what was being communicated in those wordless gazes. The silence was broken when Akura stepped forward. “Would you think it . . . interfering . . . if we were to share with you information about any asteroids still in flight? So that they could be deflected before they arrive at Karellia?”
“I would welcome such information,” Ruall said. “I would not consider it interfering.”
Akura bowed. Bandicut imagined her thinking, This Tintangle has no sense of irony at all. All she said was, “Then I will seek that information.” She returned to the comm unit.
Ocellet Quin stepped forward and spoke quietly to Sheeawn, words that Bandicut couldn’t hear, but was pretty sure translated as Thank you.
While Akura made her call, Ruall approached Quin and Koro. The two Karellians had spoken little since the ship’s arrival at Uduon. Ruall made a muted steel-drum sound. “You’ve now seen firsthand what’s at stake. Will you order the shield around your planet to be shut down?” She paused a beat, then continued, “Can you do that? Or will we need to take that action ourselves?”
Given all that they had just seen, Quin seemed remarkably composed as she said, “Yes, I can and will order it. Provided we can be assured that any asteroids currently in flight are deflected or destroyed beforehand. There may be those in my government who disagree. But I hope we will not have too many problems on that account.” She looked squarely at Koro, who nodded reluctantly. He clearly had been shocked by what he’d seen, but just as clearly, he did not find it easy to acknowledge that shutting down their main planetary defense was the right thing to do. “Thank you, Commander,” Quin said. Her tone seemed to say, Yes, we can talk more later. But I have decided.
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