by Steve White
“I wonder,” mused Trevayne, “if automation is the only reason for that. I wonder if the Bugs have been able to exploit direct neural interfacing.”
Everyone’s expressions reflected the distastefulness of the subject. “I know that’s been a theoretical possibility for centuries, Ian,” Magda objected. “But it’s never proven practical for humans or any other sentients outside of controlled laboratory conditions—certainly not in combat.”
“That’s because of the impossibility of screening out irrelevant mental ‘chatter.’ But the Bugs…well, I think it’s safe to say that their individual units are a good deal less complex and more focused than beings like ourselves. Perhaps they, unlike us, could give coherent mental commands—especially if they’ve genetically engineered a caste with a highly developed nervous system specialized for the purpose, and probably with a rudimentary body permanently hooked into a ship’s controls.” Trevayne saw the general distaste deepen, and he waved the subject aside. “That’s just speculation. It’s not something we need to know at the moment. Andreas, bring up the strategic display please.”
Hagen obeyed, and a standard warp-network chart glowed to life on the screen. “The Bugs are in Home Hive One, from which they will undoubtedly continue to fight their way into this system—”
“Let them!” snarled Threeenow’hakaaeea. “We slaughtered these less-than-chofaki when they tried it before, and we can do it again!”
“But they have the numbers to waste,” Trevayne reminded him. Even the Orion joined in the glum silence that followed. They all knew that this Bug armada exceeded even the legendary proportions of the Bug hordes of the Fourth Interstellar War.
“And,” Trevayne resumed, “the combined Kaituni fleets were in Orpheus-1 when we last saw them. If I’m right about where they stand with respect to the Bugs, they’re still there. Now, it may be that the Bugs will detach forces from Home Hive One to proceed by way of Orpheus-2, Orpheus-3, and Home Hive Three. Or, it may be that Kaituni forces from Oprheus-1 will do the same thing. But one of them or the other—I rather doubt both, again granting my assumptions—will surely follow that route and go for the jugular by driving along the warp-chain through the old Bug systems in the direction of Alpha Centauri. And if they take Bug 05…” He left the sentence hanging.
“We’d be trapped here in Pesthouse, hopelessly sidelined, and the way to the Heart Worlds would be open to them,” said M’Zangwe, voicing what they could all clearly see.
“Admiral,” Shang ventured, “are you suggesting that we should abandon Pesthouse and fall back on Bug 05?”
“No.” Trevayne was emphatic. “I don’t want to write off Pesthouse until and unless I absolutely have to. Its strong defenses provide Bug 05 with defense in depth. But your basic instinct is correct. We have to defend Bug 05. Otherwise, Pesthouse becomes untenable. And, although Home Hive Three is of course lost, as far as we know they haven’t entered Bug 03 yet. So, while appealing to Alpha Centauri for all the reinforcements it can send, we will fight a delaying action in Bug 03 to give us as much time as possible to fortify Bug 05 with more fortresses and more minefields.”
“And also perhaps the devastators and superdevastators, to be employed as they were here,” Magda suggested.
“Only if it turns out that it’s the Bugs we’re facing there. If in fact it’s the Kaituni—and I strongly suspect that it will be—then the risk is simply too great.”
Threeenow’hakaaeea rose to his feet, russet fur bristling and whiskers twitching. “Ahhdmiraaaal, I request permission to lead the holding force to Bug 03.”
He was somewhat junior for such an assignment. But…“Request granted, Great Claw. And…may your claws strike deep.”
*
Zum’ref was in a discursive mood.
“Do you know, Inzrep’fel, that when the First Dispersate arrived in human space, the humans’ inability to communicate with them in their accustomed way caused something akin to panic, because it aroused memories of the Arachnids?”
The ha’selnarshazi Intendant fairly radiated (revulsion). “Do you mean, Destoshaz’at, that the humans actually thought we were those creatures?”
Zum’ref decided not to reprimand her for her doubtless-unconscious use of we to include the First Dispersate. Those Illudor-forsaken traitors were, after all, inescapably members of the same biological species. “Not the Arachnids themselves, no, but perhaps something similar,” he affirmed. “Yes, the fact that the humans could have made such an assumption is indeed distasteful. But it serves to illustrate one reason the Arachnids serve Illudor’s purpose. The mere thought of them is enough to trigger primitive, irrational fears in humans—memories from their myths and legends of monsters come to eat their children. Actually encountering them, when they were believed to be safely buried in the past, can only weaken their morale.”
He dismissed the subject and stood up, walking toward the viewscreen, which was set to view-forward. At its extreme right edge, the yellow sun of Home Hive One shone dimly across seventeen light-minutes.
He had entered this system from Orpheus-1 followed by the fleets of six Dispersates. One he had left behind in Orpheus-1. To the remaining two—the ones from Zephrain which had so narrowly and frustratingly failed to trap the fleeing griarfeksh fleet—he had magnanimously granted an opportunity to redeem themselves in his eyes and Illudor’s, for he had sent them to Orpheus-2 to begin the great advance along the main warp chain that led to the already-crippled human Heart Worlds. If they could take Bug 05 swiftly, they might be able to trap their original intended prey after all, in Pesthouse. But Zum’ref wasn’t counting on that, for he had come to know this human admiral too well.
In the meantime, there was business to be attended to here in Home Hive One. Which was why his fleet, having emerged from the Orpheus-1 warp point, was now headed directly away from the Pesthouse warp point around which the Arachnids swarmed. Those eerie creatures (Zum’ref could almost understand, if not sympathize with, the humans’ feelings) would be left strictly alone, to do the sanguinary work of trying to force an entrance into Pesthouse. And as his fleet moved away from them, it was beginning to separate…
“Have all the subordinate commanders acknowledged their orders?” he asked, still gazing at the Home Hive One sun and contemplating the three now-dead planets that circled it, each of them once a pullulating mass of Arachnids.
“Yes, Destoshaz’at.” Zum’ref could feel a certain ambivalence in the Intendant’s selnarm.
“What is it, Inzrep’fel?”
“Well…is it certain that any one of the blocking forces we are dispatching to each of this system’s other five warp points is strong enough to hold the Arachnids in if they should make a determined effort to get out?”
(Calm confidence.) “I believe so. Granted, they have a myriad of ships. But our technological superiority should make up the difference.”
“Strange that they have advanced so little in all the time they’ve had to stew in their hidden system. Or, perhaps not so strange. A life form like that…”
“Actually, they have shown more capacity for innovation than the humans’ records of them would suggest. But their innovations have, for the most part, been in the biological sciences. Instead of improving their weapons, they’ve sought to improve themselves.” (Firm subject-closing.) “At any rate, it is essential that we keep them here in Home Hive One—staying well behind them, of course—and leaving them nowhere to go but Pesthouse.”
“And thus we continue to herd them in the direction we wish them to go.” (Fawning agreement.) “And if another…herd should come through Home Hive Two—”
“—Then the fleet we left behind in Orpheus-1 will leave them nowhere to go except the Star Union, as has been our intention all along. In the meantime, the Arachnid fleet here will continue to serve our purpose: keeping the griarfeksh pinned in Pesthouse by continuing to singlemindedly try to battle their way into it.” (Wry amusement.) “In fact, ‘singlemindedly’ goes withou
t saying in their case. They are a single mind!”
*
So the Newest Enemies had closed off this system’s other five warp points. And no doubt they had done the same in the system from which they had come, fearing—correctly—that another fleet would be emerging from the System Which Must Be Concealed.
In the long run, it was unimportant. That fleet would simply proceed to the systems of the Old Enemies, following the warp route that the Newest Enemies had revealed after going into the New Enemies’ mysterious artificial warp point. So the Newest Enemies could, after all, be useful.
And eventually, of course, they would be useful as a protein source.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Threeenow’hakaaeea died a death befitting a true hero of the Zheeerlikou’valkhannaieee.
Bug 03 was a barren system with a type K orange primary star and a fairly distant red dwarf companion. The Bug 05 warp point was at twelve o’clock, at a distance from the primary of seventeen light-minutes. The Home Hive Three warp point from which they could expect attack was on a nine o’clock bearing, at twenty-one light-minutes. Soon after arriving from Pesthouse with a delaying force comprising everything Ian Trevayne had been willing to spare, Threeenow had come to the glum conclusion that the fortresses guarding the Home Hive Three warp point were hopelessly inadequate, even with the additional ones Trevayne had had time to send lumbering through on their slow maneuvering drives.
But he had also believed that Trevayne was right in his intuition that he would be facing the Kaituni here, not the Bugs. And Andreas Hagen had briefed him thoroughly on the lessons from the fall of Zephrain, learned at the cost of Yoshi Watanabe and his fleet, on the subject of meeting a Kaituni warp point assault. So he had arranged his defenses accordingly…and, in addition, prepared a certain surprise.
When waves of pinnaces came through the warp point, dispersing microsensors whose readings were gleaned by accompanying survey escorts, Threeenow immediately sent a message drone through the Bug 05 warp point, confirming that Trevayne’s instinct had been correct. As those escorts reversed course in the way permitted by reactionless drives and sought to escape with their selmarm-acquired data, the fortresses and the monitor-sized and smaller capital ships saturated the region of the warp point with searing energy-torpedo fire—but only from that weapon’s maximum effective ranges, and soon ceasing, for Threeenow had a fairly good idea of what to expect next.
Nor was he disappointed. The modular anti-missile superdreadnoughts began to transit, seeking to draw the defenders’ energy-torpedo fire away from the SBMHAWK barrage that was to follow. But Threeenow was not deceived, and as per his order the fortresses and capital ships had shifted their energy-torpedo batteries to anti-missile mode, and the SBMHAWKs began to die in great swathes of crackling, flaring antimatter annihilation.
Then the heavily armored Kaituni warp-point assault monitors began to transit, and the battlespace became an inferno of brutal, point-blank ship-to-ship slugging. But with their energy torpedoes back in the offensive fire datanet, Threeenow’s fortresses and capital ships were ill prepared to respond when the expected missile-launching framework hulls began to arrive and belched forth their single-shot salvos.
Threeenow watched, heartsick, as the warp point defenders died faster and faster. And more than heartsick, for it was an affront to his entire warrior tradition of theernowlus, or “risk-bearing,” that he himself was not there at the warp point with them. But he had to be where he was, in order to implement his plan. Long ago, in the First Interstellar War, the newly encountered humans had taught his race the bitter but valuable lesson that the fiery eagerness of a warrior must yield to the cold practicalities of war.
And soon enough, there would be ample opportunity to expose himself directly to danger as theernowlus required.
After his losses had reached a certain predetermined level, Threeenow swallowed another portion of his honor. He sent the order for his mobile forces to abandon their no-longer-defensible position and withdraw toward the Bug 05 warp point and escape. Sullenly, unwillingly, they obeyed, leaving behind those who still lived in the junk-sculptures that had been orbital fortresses. The fleets of two Dispersates completed their warp transit, completed the obliteration of the fortresses, and followed, harassing the retreating survivors.
Bug 03’s two warp points were separated by twenty-seven light-minutes. The pursued and the pursuers had only covered a small portion of that distance when they passed within three light-minutes of the system’s third planet, a gas giant of more than-Jovian mass with five substantial moons as well as the usual array of insignificant moonlets. Beyond that, they continued on a course that almost paralleled Planet III’s orbit and, about halfway to the Bug 05 warp point, brought them within mere light-seconds of its trailing Trojan point.
Bug 03 A had an asteroid belt, out in the chill darkness of the outer system at an orbital radius of sixty-five light-minutes, where the gravitational perturbation of the red-dwarf Component B had prevented a planet from coalescing. It would have been quite a large planet, for the belt held an exceptional quantity of planetesimal rubble. Over the eons, Component A’s gravity had drawn a good many of those rocks inward toward itself. And quite a few of them had collected, as such space-junk will, in the Trojan points of Component A’s two gas giant planets.
Thus it was that the Kaituni, in their singleminded pursuit of the griarfeksh delaying force, passed close by, and ignored, a cluster of asteroids. Their rearmost elements were past it when Threeenow finally gave an order that had required all his self-discipline to hold back for so long. His carriers and their escorting cruisers, which had been lurking among those trailing-Trojan asteroids, powered down to minimal life-support and sensor requirements, awoke to ferocious life and swept out, launching their fighters at the Kaituni sterns.
Blood-chilling howls filled the comm circuits as Orion pilots hurled themselves at the chofaki who had slaughtered untold billions of their race and turned their old and new homeworlds into deserts. At this moment, the climactic moment of their lives, they were as indifferent to death as their Arduan opponents, even though they anticipated no reincarnation. Their lives simply didn’t matter now. All that mattered was vengeance. And, pouring rapid-fire energy torpedoes into the blind zones of Kaituni warships, they took vengeance.
Threeenow wished he could be out there among them. He also wished he could call back the capital ships to turn on their pursuers as his fighters savaged them from astern. But then they all would have died, for the odds against them were simply too great for them to even think of victory or even survival. For that matter, they could all have stood together and fought and died at the Home Hive Three warp point. But Ian Trevayne was going to need every one of those monitors and superdreadnoughts in Bug 05. And he was also going to need all the time Threeenow could give him.
Thus it was that the capital ships continued on toward their warp point of escape while Threeenow fought an action intended to do just what his delaying force was for: to delay. As the Kaituni armada turned to deal with the stinging insects astern, he swung his force aside, forcing the enemy to swerve with him. And, as the fight snarled on, he swerved again and again, drawing the Kaituni further way from their original course.
He was able to keep it up longer than he had dared hope, for the Kaituni fighters had been engaged in pursuit when he had struck from astern, and it took finite time to bring them back and rearm them. But it couldn’t last, as he had known it couldn’t. They were gradually smothered in sheer, brute numbers of Kaituni. And these Dispersates, coming from Zephrain, were well supplied with the new selnarm-directed fighter triads, and very experienced in their use.
But even as he watched his ships die, and the life support of his half-wrecked flagship begin to falter, he knew he had done his duty, and fulfilled the demands of theernowlus. And the knowledge was a flame inside him.
He was giving voice to a scream of defiance when the flame in his soul became one with the flame
that consumed what was left of his flagship.
*
“There is no time for us to mourn a hero,” Trevayne told a somber conference of his senior commanders. “We must choose between our strategic options—which have now become very limited.
“The Kaituni are now one warp transit away from Bug 05—the system we must defend. We are strengthening its warp point defenses, and have assigned a higher percentage of our mobile forces to it. The question is this: do we continue to try to hold Pesthouse as well?”
“I say pull everything we’ve got back to Bug 05,” rumbled Adrian M’Zangwe. “Including the fortresses, which I realize will take time, and evacuate the station’s personnel. If we stay here in Pesthouse, we risk getting trapped if the Kaituni take Bug 05 before we can pull out.”
“The same arguments against writing off Pesthouse as before still apply,” Magda reminded him. “And now there’s a new one. We don’t think the Kaituni and the Bugs are communicating with each other in any real way, or coordinating their actions except on the very crude level of the Kaituni herding strategy. But we don’t know that for certain. If we’re all concentrated in Bug 05, with the Bugs as well as the Kaituni just one warp jump away, and they do mount a coordinated attack so we have to defend two warp points simultaneously…” She let the sentence trail off.
“But,” M’Zangwe persisted, “if the Kaituni attack Bug 05 first, and make faster progress than we anticipate, are our forces in Pesthouse going to be able to get out in time? I guarantee the fortresses won’t, on their maneuvering drives. And what about Commodore Allende’s devastators and superdevastators? If the Kaituni catch them in Bug 05 before they can get away to Bug 17, they’re dead!”
Abruptly, Trevayne stood up and walked to the display screen. He brought up a split-screen image of two system displays, with Pesthouse on the right and Bug 05 on the left. No one broke the silence as he studied the arrangement of the systems’ warp points morosely. When he spoke, it was half to himself, with his back still turned to the conference table.
