Empire from the Ashes

by David Weber

  "I don't like the idea of running away," Colin muttered rebelliously.

  "Now thou'rt childish, my Colin," Jiltanith said firmly. "Thou knowest how feel we all towards Dahak, yet thy presence will not halt the missile or beam which would destroy him. How shall thy death make his less dreadful?"

  "Her Majesty is correct," Dahak said, equally firmly. "You would not refuse to evacuate via lifeboat, and there is little difference, except in that your chances of survival are many orders of probability higher via mat-trans. Please, Colin. I would feel much better if you would agree."

  Colin was stubbornly silent. Of course it was illogical, but that was part of the definition of friendship. Yet they were right. It was only the premeditation of the means whereby he would desert his friend that bothered him.

  "All right," he sighed at last. "I don't like it, but... do it, Vlad."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The dot of Zeta Trianguli Australis burned unchanged, for the fury of its death had not yet crossed the light-years.

  Senior Fleet Captain Sarah Meir, promoted when Colin evicted Dahak's crew, sat on the planetoid Ashar's command deck and frowned as she watched it, recalling the dark, hopeless years when she and her Terra-born fellows had fought with Nergal's Imperials against Anu's butchers. There was no comparison between then and now... except that the days were dark once more and hope was scarce.

  Scarce, but not vanished, she reminded herself, and if Colin's reckless battle plan shocked her, it was its very audacity which gave them a hope of victory. That, and the quality of their ships and handful of crews.

  And Dahak. It always came back to Dahak, but, then, it always had. He'd stood sponsor for them all, Earth's inheritance from the Imperium on this eve of Armageddon. It might be atavistic of her, but Dahak was their totem, and—

  "Captain, we have an inbound hyper wake. A big one," her plotting officer said, and adrenalin flushed through her system.

  "Nail it down," she said, "and fire up the hypercom." Acknowledgments came back, and she called up Engineering. "Stand by for Enchanach Drive."

  "Yes, ma'am. Core tap nominal. We're ready to move."

  "Stand by." She looked back up at Plotting. "Well?"

  "We've got an emergence, ma'am. Ninety-eight hours, about a light-month short of the vanguard's emergence locus."

  Sarah frowned. Damned if she would've hypered in this close to the "monster nest-killers" the vanguard must have reported! Still, with their piddling communication range, they had to come in fairly close... and a light-month gave them plenty of time to hyper out if bad guys came at them.

  Usually, she thought coldly, but not this time. Oh, no. Not this time.

  "Communications, inform the flagship. Maneuvering, head for the rendezvous, but take us on a dog-leg. I want a cross-bearing on this wake."

  Stars streamed across the display, and she relaxed. In another four days the uncertainty would end... one way or another.

  Great Lord of Order Hothan twiddled all four thumbs as he replayed Sorkar's messages yet again. Hothan was small for a Protector, quick-moving and keen-witted. Indeed, he had been severely disciplined as a fledgling for near-deviant inquisitiveness and almost denied his lordship for questioning what he perceived as inefficiencies in the Nest's starships. Yet even Battle Comp agreed that those very faults made him an excellent strategist and tactician, and they had helped Great Lord Tharno select him for this duty.

  Yet Sorkar's reports made him more than simply curious. There was a near-hysterical edge to them, most unlike his old nestmate. But, then, this was the Demon Sector, and Sorkar always had been a bit superstitious.

  "Emergence confirmed and plotted," Dahak announced. "Margin of error point-zero-zero-zero-zero-two-nine percent."

  Colin grunted and ran down his mental list one last time. Dahak was at eighty-six percent efficiency; his other ships were all at ninety or above. All magazines were topped up, and transferring Dahak's skeleton crew to Ashar had given them sixteen autonomous units once more. They were as ready as they could get, he thought, deliberately not looking at the hastily-installed mat-trans which had replaced the tactical officer's couch and console.

  "All right, Dahak, saddle up. Get the minelayers moving."

  "Acknowledged." The unmanned colliers moved out, accompanied by Dahak and his bevy of lobotomized geniuses, loafing along under Enchanach Drive at sixty times light-speed. They weren't in that great a hurry.

  The colliers reached their stations and paused, adjusting their formation delicately before they began to move once more, now at sublight speeds.

  The brevity of the first clash with the vanguard, coupled with the ships lost at Zeta Trianguli, meant Colin had more spare missiles than planned. He rather regretted that—though he would have regretted depleted magazines more—for each missile was three or four less mines his colliers could lift. Still, they had lots of the nasty little buggers, and he watched them spill out as the colliers swept across the Achuultani's emergence area at forty percent of light-speed.

  He bared his teeth. Mines were seldom used outside star systems, for it was impossible to guess where an enemy might come out between stars. But this time he didn't have to guess; he knew, and the Achuultani weren't going to like it a bit.

  Great Lord Hothan stretched one last time before he folded his legs and sank onto his duty pad. Before Sorkar's messages, Hothan had not worried about routine emergences from hyper in interstellar space, but he had no more idea how the nest-killers had surprised Sorkar than Battle Comp did, and, like Great Lord Tharno, he was determined to guard his own command.

  His nestlings had been carefully instructed before entering hyper. They would emerge as prepared to confront enemies as nestmates, yet if these nest-killers were indeed the demons Sorkar had described that might not be enough, and so he and Great Lord Tharno had taken a radical decision with Battle Comp's full concurrence. Protectors could not serve the Nest if they perished; should the nest-killers be waiting once more, prepared to kill his ships in great twelves, he would return to hyper and flee.

  He watched the chronometer and checked Battle Comp for final advice. There was none, and he made himself relax. Half a day-segment to emergence.

  Colin watched the hyper traces flash blood-red in Dahak's holo projection as the vanguard's tattered couriers and the main body rushed together. They would rendezvous in one more hour, and the battle would begin. It would be a battle, too; more terrible than the oncoming Achuultani could possibly imagine. And probably more terrible than he could imagine, as well.

  Dahak floated at the core of a globe of fifty-four stupendous planetoids, and Colin felt a brief stab of unutterable loneliness as he realized he was the sole living, breathing scrap of blood and bone in all that horrific array of firepower. He shook it off; there were other things to consider.

  The waiting minefield frosted the black velvet of Dahak's display like a glitter of diamond dust. The stealthed colliers ringed the mines, waiting obediently to play their part in Operation Laocoon, and fifteen more stealthed Asgerd-class planetoids were invisible even to Dahak's scanners, their positions marked only because he already knew where they would be. Those ships were 'Tanni's command, the reserve which could move and fight without Dahak's control. Yet they were more than counters on a map. They were crewed by people—by friends—and too many of them were about to die.

  Great Lord Hothan tightened internally despite years of discipline and training. He chided himself for his inability to relax. Yet perhaps that was good, for tension honed reactions and—

  His thoughts broke off as one of his read-outs suddenly peaked. That was odd. The depths of hyper space were unchanging: seething bands of energy that ebbed and flowed in predictable, regular patterns, not in sudden peaks.

  But his read-outs peaked again. And again and again. Glowing numerals flashed with a jagged, stabbing intensity whose like he had never seen, and his nerves twisted in sudden dread.

  Colin smiled coldly as the mines began t
o vanish.

  The Achuultani could play many tricks with hyper space, but there were a few which hadn't occurred to them. Why should they, when they were perpetually on the offensive? But just as they had planned and trained for countless years to attack, so the Imperium had schemed and planned to defend, and the Empire had refined the Imperium's basic research.

  The Imperium's mines had entered hyper only to jump into lethal proximity to hyperships as they re-entered n-space; the Empire's mines popped into hyper, located the nearest operating hyper field, and then gave selflessly of their own power to make that hyper field even more efficient.

  But only locally. A portion of the field was abruptly boosted a dozen bands higher, taking the portion of the ship within it with it, and even ships large enough to lose a slice of themselves and continue fighting in normal space were doomed in hyper. Its potent tides of energy rent and splintered them and swallowed their broken bones.

  Even with Imperial technology, the mines were short-ranged and not very accurate in the extreme conditions of the hyper bands. Ten, even twenty, were required to strike a target as small as a single drive field... but Colin's colliers had deployed five million of them.

  Great Lord Hothan put the puzzle of his read-outs aside as Deathdealer re-emerged into normal space. He had more immediate concerns, like the total absence of Sorkar's fleet. Sorkar himself had specified this rendezvous, so where was he? Surely his entire fleet had not been wiped away. Hothan knew Sorkar well; he would have swallowed his pride and fled before he allowed that!

  But Sorkar's absence was only one worry, and he swore as he saw those of his own nestlings who had already emerged. Whole flotillas had miss-timed their emergences, leaving gaping holes in the neat intervals of his command. How could their lords be so clumsy now of all times?! He would—

  Wait. What was that? Something had suddenly departed into hyper. And there—another hyper trace! And another! What—?

  He barked an order, and a scanner section obediently redirected its instruments. What were those things? Certainly not Sorkar's nestlings—indeed, they were too small to be ships, at all! And why would ships enter hyper at a time like this? But if not warships, then what... ?

  Nest Lord! They were weapons... and Sorkar was dead.

  He did not know how he suddenly knew, but he knew. Sorkar was no more, and just as he had been ambushed, so had Hothan! Not by warships, but by something worse—and he could do nothing but watch as the enigmatic weapons vanished... and his nestlings did not emerge. The holes in his formation were suddenly and dreadfully comprehensible, for Sorkar had been right. These were the demon nest-killers of legend!

  But he fought his dread, made himself think. Perhaps there was something he could do. He snapped orders, and Deathdealer's thunder ripped at the weapons which had not yet attacked. Furnace Fire flashed among them, and they had no shields. They died by great twelves, and now other ships were firing, raking the floating clouds of killers with death.

  Colin felt a moment of ungrudging respect as anti-matter warheads glared. Damn, but somebody over there was quick! He'd realized what was happening and done the only thing he could.

  That big a fleet took time to emerge from hyper. Its units' emergences must be carefully phased lest they interpenetrate in n-space, so its commander couldn't just run without abandoning those still to come; he could only attack the mines which had not yet attacked. He couldn't kill many with a single missile, but he was firing thousands of them, which gave him a damnably good chance of saving an awful lot of the follow-up echelons.

  Unless something distracted him from his minesweeping.

  "Alert! Alert! Incoming fire!"

  Great Lord Hothan's head whipped up, but he was not really surprised. Any nest-killer cunning enough to lay so devilish a trap would cover it with his own ships if he could. But expected or not, it presented Hothan with a cruel dilemma. He could kill mines while his ships already in n-space died, or he could engage the enemy's ships and let his nestlings in hyper die.

  Yet he had already realized that only a fraction of those weapons were finding targets. Best trust the Nameless Lord for the safety of those still to come and respond to this new attack... assuming he could find the attackers!

  Adrienne Robbins watched the first Achuultani ships die and suppressed an oath. Herdan herself seemed to strain against the prohibition from firing before Jiltanith released her weapons, but it made sense... even if seeing so many targets she couldn't attack was hard to endure.

  Great Lord Hothan sent his fleet fanning out in search of its killers and gritted his teeth at how his own actions paralleled Sorkar's. It should not be so. He should have planned and prepared better. Yet how could one prepare for this sort of thing? How did one fight ghosts one could not even see?

  Great twelves of his questing nestlings died, and still their enemy was hidden! Only the fleeting wisps of his missiles' incoming hyper wakes even suggested his bearing, and Hothan's lead scouts were already at their own hyper missile range from Deathdealer. How far out could the nest-killers be?!

  Colin watched the Achuultani flow towards him, re-orienting to drive deliberately into the zone of maximum destruction, trying to deduce his bearing from the furrows of death his missiles plowed through them. It was horrible to see such courage and know the beings who possessed it were bent upon the murder of his entire race.

  But they had a long way to come, and Dahak was a sniper, picking them off by scores and hundreds. If only Colin had more missiles, he could have backed away indefinitely, faster than they could pursue, flaying them with fire from beyond their own maximum range. But he didn't have enough missiles to stop a million enemies, and if he had, they would only have fled into hyper. If he would destroy them, he must scatter them. Their weapons were deadly enough, but short-ranged and individually weak compared to his own; it was coordinated, massed fire which made them lethal, so he must split them up—scatter them for 'Tanni to harry to destruction. And for that he must get into energy weapon range and blow the heart and brain out of their formation with weapons not limited by the capacity of his magazines.

  "Advance," he said coldly, and a phalanx of battle steel moons moved forward, plowing the wake of its missiles.

  At last! Almost all of his nestlings had emerged from hyper, and it was time to forget pride, time to flee. His formations were rent and over-extended, and too many of his command ships were among the dead. He needed time to sort things out and reorganize in light of these demonic weapons.

  "They will complete emergence in twenty-seven seconds," Dahak announced.

  "Execute Laocoon," Colin replied.

  "Executing."

  The colliers ringing the minefield engaged their Enchanach Drives. No human rode their command decks, but none was needed for this simple task. They flashed through their preprogrammed maneuvers in an intricate supralight mazurka, exchanging positions so quickly and adroitly that, in effect, one of them was constantly in each cardinal point of a circle twenty light-minutes across.

  They danced their dance, harming no one... and wove a garrote of gravity about the Achuultani's throat. They were invisible stars, forging a forty-light-minute sphere in which there was no hyper threshold.

  Great Lord Hothan stared at his instruments. No one could lock an entire fleet out of hyper space!

  But someone could, and his plan to hyper out was smashed at a blow. He did not know how it had been done, but his Protectors had become penned qwelloq awaiting slaughter.

  He shook aside panic, if not his fear. So. He could not flee, and the incoming salvos were arriving at ever shorter intervals. That meant only one thing: the nest-killers had him trapped and they were closing for the kill.

  But he who entered the sweep of a qwelloq's tusks could die upon them.

  "Hast done it, my Colin," Jiltanith whispered. "They cannot flee!"

  A susurration of inarticulate delight answered her whisper, but, like her, her bridge crew did not look away from Two's display. The
mines must have been twice as effective as projected, for barely three-quarters of a million Achuultani ships had emerged. That augured well, but now Dahak was closing with the enemy. Soon there would be deaths they would mourn, not cheer.

  * * *

  Hothan was a Great Lord, and his orders came crisp and sure.

  Greater twelves of his ships had died, but higher twelves remained, and the enemy was coming to him, so he need not continue the useless expansion of his formation to seek him. A tendril continued to lick out in the direction of the incoming fire, its end a comet of flame as the ships which made it died, but the rest of his formation gathered itself.

  He was proud of his Protectors. They must be as frightened as he, but they obeyed quickly. Holes remained, weak links in the chain of order where too many command ships had been slain, but they obeyed.

  And there were the nest-killers!

  He swallowed a spurt of primal terror as he saw their relayed images. As vast as Sorkar had described them, and more numerous. Four twelves, at least, sweeping towards him behind the glare of their thunder, huge as moons, driving lances of the Furnace's Fire deep into his fleet. But they had not yet reached its vitals, and their own tremendous speed brought them into his reach.

  He allocated targets, coordinated his attack patterns, and his nestlings crowded forward, placing themselves between Deathdealer and the foe. He wanted to order them aside, but his deputy lord had never emerged. He and Deathdealer must live if the fleet was to have a chance.

  A musical tone sounded, and he frowned. A courier message? From where?

  Then it dawned. Sorkar had tried to warn him, but the courier had arrived late. Now a high-speed transmission squealed into Battle Comp, and the powerful computers digested it quickly. The nest-killers were still closing when the data suddenly coalesced, flashing onto Hothan's own panel, and he paled as he saw the record of those terrible energy weapons and the greater horror of a sun's death. Saw it and understood.