by Diane Duane
“You will do no such thing,” Ael said. “You will take yourself down to sickbay and tr’—” Then Ael stopped, and breathed out, and shook her head. Old reflex had asserted itself; it was hard to avoid. For so long, there had been that friendly face sitting in the cramped little space, always with a kind word or bandage, or at least a kind word when the bandages were few.
Ael helped Aidoann up to her seat. “Hvaid,” she said, turning to the weapons officer, “you had some training with—with our healer.” Already Ael was finding herself having trouble saying the name. Maybe I now better understand those who have trouble saying mine, if they see my actions as anything like as treacherous as hers. “Go you down to sickbay and run the basic diagnostic program on Aidoann. I would not like to think that she was concussed and still trying to stand up. Go now!” she said, as the two of them started to protest that they were needed here. “We have a lull for the moment. I will pull together the damage reports and do whatever’s necessary up here for the next little time. Go now, while these few quiet moments last.”
She turned to Khiy. “We have been run a good way off from the others. That may have been someone’s intent, or an accident. No matter. Get us back to the armada. And be careful how you go.”
The remaining Grand Fleet vessels were fleeing. Kirk stood in front of Enterprise’s tank and watched them go. “They’re falling back closer to ch’Rihan,” Veilt said from Tyrava. “I would be careful how we follow them, Captain. If we go straight in, or straight toward Grand Fleet headquarters, we will doubtless run into an ambush. And unfortunately, we have no way to break this new cloak. Such is a matter of long study, not something to be done in an hour.”
“Normally I would agree with you,” Kirk said, “but when you have all your best people, and Ael’s engineer tr’Keirianh, and Spock and Scotty and K’s’t’lk all in one place, I expect better results than usual. So let’s jump down to…” Jim paused, picking up his padd, starting to page through it, and then tossing it aside; he already knew what he would have been looking for. “Seven-l. That section suggests that at this point, any forces we can successfully scan are probably the visible component of a trap for us—unless they are moving at considerable speed between ch’Rihan and ch’Havran, in which case they are the result of our ‘Hail Mary’ play.”
Jim could just hear Veilt putting up his eyebrows. “Captain, forgive me, but just who is ‘Mary’ and why would it be hailing on him?”
“Um, let’s just say that it’s a slang phrase, and leave it at that. At any rate, three-k through-l suggest that this is the point in our choreography for a long elliptical insertion toward ch’Havran, one from which we can quickly break off toward Grand Fleet HQ. Let’s pass all the ships the necessary ephemerides corrected for our present location, and get ready to start our fall into the system.”
“Captain?”
“Ael,” he said, relieved. She would have been the next topic of discussion. “Where are you? Is Bloodwing all right?”
“Well above the ecliptic,” Ael said, “and while we have some damage, we can function. But I desire no more violent maneuvers for a while. Aidoann is hurt, and so are a number of my other people, shaken about when that last plasma disruptor hit us.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Looks like Grand Fleet has a few tricks up its sleeve that your sources didn’t know about.”
He heard Ael let out a breath. “Our thoughts march together, Captain,” she said. “That was a very interesting weapon. I covet it, rather, as it suggests they have solved the problem of the old matter-disruptor’s worst weakness. For all its effectiveness against the enemy, the technology had an unfortunate tendency to—I believe in your idiom the phrase would be, ‘hot run in the tube.’ Lack of maintenance, or lack of staff trained in proper maintenance of the weapon and its delivery system, meant that over time we lost nearly as many of our own ships to it as did the aliens we used it to attack. The technology was abandoned for a while. But if someone in Grand Fleet has hit on the idea of using newer technologies to update the older system, making the disruption plasma programmable as Spock was suggesting—”
“There’s no reason it couldn’t be done,” Jim heard tr’Keirianh say from his position. “In fact, if you attached a singularity to one of those old systems—”
“Tr’Keirianh,” Ael said, “you and your singularities! Tell me this is not something you’re seriously considering.”
“Well, khre’Riov, it had occurred to me that—”
What usually occurred to Jim when he heard his own chief engineer start a sentence that way was that it was better to steer the conversation in some other direction, quickly. “Uh, forgive me, Tr’Keirianh,” he said, “but, Ael, is your shielding sufficient for the moment? We’ve got work to do.”
“We have some protection,” Ael said, “but not nearly enough to suit me. Certainly I do not desire to have that thing fired at me again, at anything like such close range! And I suspect you share this desire.”
“I think you may have something there,” Jim said. “All right, time to get cracking again.” He paused and looked into the tank. “I expect Grand Fleet to be well protected, probably by ships with that weapon,” Jim said. “Probably it’s carrying some itself, now. So we have two choices.”
“What, Captain,” Ael said, with just the slightest smile in her voice, “you mean you’re not going to direct us to the page for eight-a, ‘sudden discovery of unknown superweapon?’”
“As a matter of fact—” Kirk said.
Ael cleared her throat. “Were your gift for extrapolation not likely to keep the souls of many of us inside our skins today, I would swear you do it merely to annoy.”
“Ahem,” Kirk said, and grinned. “The question now becomes, to what targets will the people commanding Grand Fleet commit the vessels carrying those weapons, if in fact Fleet headquarters itself isn’t adequately protected? I think they’ll be concentrating on Kaveth and Tyrava. They’ll have had some time to prepare their strategies for such ships, but not very much. And under the circumstances, to make sure that they don’t have enough time to move any useful materiel up to Grand Fleet or down from it, I think we had better get Tyrava down in there in a hurry and start interdicting transporter function.”
“It is a little earlier than we have thought to be doing that,” Ael said.
“Yes, well,” Jim said, “I know you’d just love to flaunt Bloodwing in their faces some more and fight her all over the system, but if you were wise, you’d get your butt off that ship, send her out of harm’s way, and put yourself somewhere well defended enough that we can ensure that at the end of this exercise, you’re still alive.” He was taking care to sound wry about it. This was no time to allow Ael to get into one of her aggressive lone-wolf moods. “And since Mr. Spock is looking at me, with that expression, and his eyebrows up, I can only suggest that you would be about to have some company in the form of me. I think it’s become time to transfer the flag to Tyrava, at least for the moment, where K’s’t’lk’s gig will be ready to take us where we need to be when the troops go down. Which reminds me; do you have body armor that you wear in battle situations, or something similar? If you don’t, we can run something like that up for you.”
“I am a naval officer,” Ael said. “Even on ceremonial occasions, we never wear armor. But I agree. If we are going down onto a ‘dirt’ battlefield, probably some minimal amount of protection is best.”
“Listen to her,” Jim said to Spock, slightly amused. “We’ll take care of it. Meanwhile, we still have Grand Fleet HQ to think about.” He looked at his tank.
Ael said, “On the off chance that Grand Fleet or ch’Rihan has managed to install planet-based weapons of the kind we saw at Artaleirh—not that I think they have, but much can be done when one is terrified and has a few days’ space—I would prefer to attack Grand Fleet when it is on the side of ch’Rihan, away from ch’Havran. Better to be caught between one set of such weapons rather than two.�
��
“Agreed,” Kirk said. There was a moment of silence while he ran the planet positions forward in his tank. “We’ll have a time slot suiting that description in one hour and forty-eight minutes,” he said. “That window of opportunity will last approximately—”
“Fifty-six minutes, your time,” Ael said. “I know Grand Fleet’s ephemera all too well. I will bring Bloodwing over, and we will grapple her to Tyrava’s hull.”
“Ael, why grapple outside?” Veilt said. “We have several holds big enough to take Bloodwing.”
“Veilt,” Ael said, “you know I take that very kindly. But with all the respect due to your great experience, I would rather resist that suggestion. We will grapple to you. If there should later be need or desire, we can then let go quickly. But I would be glad if you would offer my people sanctuary until Bloodwing is ready to fly free again.”
“Let it be as you say,” Veilt said. “But you should get over here now. And, Enterprise, we would be pleased to offer you the same refuge if you like.”
Jim thought for a moment, then let out a breath. “With respect, Veilt, thank you, but no. There are certain—” He paused. “—legal niceties.”
“Such as the fact that being taken inboard by another vessel can, in the case of an unfriendly court-martial, be seen as a willing act of surrender,” Veilt said. “I take your point. Nonetheless, Captain, in case of emergency, we have room to take all your crew.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jim said. “Meanwhile, let’s move on Grand Fleet HQ. Damage and readiness reports, all vessels.”
The next few moments became a hubbub of voices and various electronic beeps and hoots as people reported in by voice or simply signaled by a beep or two that they were ready. “This is section seven-k,” Kirk said. “Ladies and gentlemen, stay sharp and watch out for one another. I expect Grand Fleet to have another of those plasma balls. I don’t want anyone getting personal with it. At the same time, our job is to protect Kaveth and Tyrava until they can get close enough to Grand Fleet to do what needs doing. Any questions?”
There were none. “Then let’s do it,” Kirk said. “Seven-k. Go, go, go!”
The ships began to move in a smooth synchronized curve, outward and downward into the system, toward the plane of the ecliptic. Slowly Eisn grew in the viewer, and slowly the little sparks of light of ch’Rihan and ch’Havran, locked in their eternal dance, began to swell on the viewscreen. In her bridge, Ael stood up with the Sword in her hands, watching them grow. Her hands were sweating, and in them the Sword slipped, and was cold. At last, she thought. At last.
“Khiy,” Ael said. “It’s time. Take the ship around the back of Tyrava. Find a good flat spot to lock down. There are plenty of grapples back there, as we saw from their plans.”
“Ie, khre’Riov.”
As they slipped around the rear of Tyrava, the view of Eisn was hidden from them. Minutes later, Bloodwing made herself fast to a grapple sequence toward the back of Tyrava’s huge bulk. The whole ship clattered and rumbled with the sound of the grapples linking through the matching mating clamps on Bloodwing’s belly. Most larger Rihannsu ships had such, but for the sheer size of the surroundings, this was more like landing at a spaceport than anything else. Ael looked out over the huge expanse of the hull and prayed that it would stay sound, as Tyrava’s shields came to life again overhead.
Ael picked up the Sword and slapped the comms button on her chair. “All-call,” she said, and the ship came alive with her voice. “Move out, my children. For the moment, we abandon ship. Once in Tyrava, go where your hosts direct you.” She glanced around her bridge, let out the usual unhappy breath at leaving it, and waved Khiy to the lift. “Time to go.”
They headed out. Together she and Khiy made their way down through the cramped corridors to the belly of the ship and the underside exit bay. Just being there again was odd. The last time they had used the airlock when grappling to another structure was when they had still been in Grand Fleet. It seems a lifetime ago.
Inside the bulk of the main mating clamp, they found the farside airlock already undogged for them. It was very strange to open their side of it and smell a strange ship’s air flowing into Bloodwing. But there was little time to waste savoring the strangeness. Ael waved her crew on down the broad access ladder. One of the last to go down was Aidoann, moving like someone with a very sore head, Hvaid helping her.
Last of all Ael followed her crew down into the strange, slightly heavier gravity of Tyrava, then pulled from one of her pockets something she had not used since Fleet HQ—the electronic key that would open her ship to them again. The inner hatch shut down, and chirped its reassurance that it was locked.
At the bottom of the ladder they found themselves in yet another of Tyrava’s tremendous corridors. Crewfolk were running down toward a marshaling area at one end, all armed, some armored. They were getting ready to go downplanet when this phase of the attack was through. One crewman came hastening over to Ael. “Madam,” he said, “Veilt asks me to bring you down to the launch bay. Kirk and his first officer and the Hamalki are there. They are getting ready to go downplanet.”
“Lead on,” Ael said, and they all trotted down the corridor in the crewman’s wake. Tyrava’s own attack klaxons were sounding, and everywhere, in every direction, crewfolk ran by their hundreds, eventually their thousands. Being here was like being in a city that was about to be bombed.
Ael put that simile far away from her for the moment, as they came into another marshaling area. At the far side of it, K’s’t’lk’s little gig was sitting. Kirk stood by it, along with Spock. The golden latticework of the thing intrigued Ael, but she had no time to spare for admiring its beauty. She hurried over to Kirk, who glanced at her, and the Sword.
“It goes where I go, for the time being,” Ael said, “and probably for some time after that. Where are we wanted? The bridge?”
“No need for that, it seems,” Kirk said. “Believe it or not, they’ve got a ‘spare bridge’ right over here.” He waved off to one side. There, off to the right of the force-fielded hangar door through which K’s’t’lk had brought her ship, was an area with not only a huge viewscreen but a tank as well, and a number of chairs.
Ael privately doubted that any of them were going to be sitting very much. On that huge screen, the dive in toward Eisn could be seen more and more closely. The sun grew larger. “Captain,” Ael said, “Enterprise—”
“Mr. Sulu has the conn,” Kirk said. “He knows the battle plan as well as I do.” He looked at Ael. “Ready to go?”
She nodded. “When it’s time—”
On the screen, Eisn grew larger. The planets were now clearly visible—two half crescents against the night—as Tyrava and her cohorts swept into the system. They were no more than a hundred million kilometers from the planets, and there was no resistance—here, at least.
Kirk studied the screen. “A little quiet out there,” he said.
Ael simply nodded. She held on to the Sword, saying nothing, and watched the sun grow.
They swept past Eisn. Ahead of them, as they dropped into the plane of the ecliptic, Grand Fleet Headquarters could be seen off to one side of ch’Rihan. Ael swallowed hard. She did not know which of the two she had more desire to see; the planet, or the thing she was about to destroy. But it was ch’Rihan that drew her eye. Those continents, those seas…
And then the light and the fire came boiling up from Grand Fleet. “Here we go,” Kirk said. “Spock, that shield retune—will it hold?”
Next to him, Spock stood quite still and watched that bloom of deadly fire come toward them. “The odds are overwhelmingly in our favor, Captain.”
“How overwhelmingly?” Kirk said.
“There is,” Spock said, “of course, always a possibility—a probability I should actually say, a very small one.”
“How small?” Kirk said.
“Oh, certainly no more than—” Spock looked thoughtful. “—approximately zero point zero ze
ro zero zero zero one percent.”
Kirk folded his arms and looked at the viewscreen. “Oh, well, if that’s all—”
And the ball of fire struck Tyrava, which shuddered in all her bones. The whole ship jumped, the shields, seen on the viewscreen, whited out, and the lights flickered.
Ael swallowed. Seeing the lights flicker was never a good thing on a ship as huge and complex as Tyrava. But then they came back up again, and the screen as slowly came up out of the white blindness that the energy weapon had imposed upon it. “As I said,” Spock said, very calmly, “only a hundred thousandth of a percent.”
Kirk looked at him. “Mr. Spock, sometimes I suspect you of pulling my leg on purpose. But certainly you’d never do such a thing at a time like this.”
Spock managed to look delicately offended. “Certainly not, Captain.”
They stood there and watched Tyrava dive closer to Grand Fleet, with Kaveth coming up next to her now. They watched another of those blooms of guided plasma leap up at them from one of the ships riding guard over Grand Fleet HQ, and another one from another ship, and a third from the Fleet facility itself. They watched that weapon fire at them again, and at Kaveth, and at them both at once—not just once but a number of times. And it did no harm. Oh, the ship shook, things fell down, and people clutched at one another. Ael very carefully put the Sword down on the chair again, and braced herself against the back of it, as she had done many times before on Bloodwing.
“Transporter interdiction is in place,” Veilt’s voice said. “Ten seconds to optimum range…”
Kirk looked at Ael. “How many people in HQ,” he said, “when it’s battle-staffed?”
She looked at the screen. “Between fifteen hundred and two thousand. Many of them are good people, who genuinely enlisted to do their worlds’ service.” She let out a breath. “Unquestioning service.”
And once again her eyes strayed to ch’Rihan, off to the left of Grand Fleet HQ as they approached, and now rapidly swelling into something that took up almost all that side of the screen. Jointly, Tyrava and Kaveth fired down at the massive space station. The weapons fire from Grand Fleet HQ had stopped a few moments before: now all its power was being diverted to its shields. For a long time, as Kaveth and Tyrava swept around the great space station in concert, that shield resisted, always stubbornly reinforced where it was beginning to waver. The two great ships fired on, while around them raged a small cloud of Grand Fleet vessels of every shape and size, firing wildly at the interlopers, trying to overload the two ships’ shields by sheer amount of pumped-in energy rather than the power of any one weapon. But finally one spot on that blue-burning shield around the station started to burn less brightly blue under Kaveth’s concentrated fire, and less brightly still, and finally trembled down into darkness. Tyrava came sweeping around and brought her own beams to bear on the spot where Kaveth had been firing. The beams burst through and struck the station.
