by Steve White
"Instruct the computer to compensate, and scan the area," he ordered. A few moments ticked by while his command was carried out. He motioned a subordinate aside and seated himself at the scanner console. Then he gazed at the readout and froze.
"Now, Aelanni?"
Aelanni shook her head in a preoccupied way, oblivious to the pleading note in Rosen's voice. The Terran drew a shaken breath and glanced out the viewport again.
There was no possible doubt. He could distinctly make out the serried ranks of tiny objects far ahead, their visible separation gradually growing as he watched.
They really were coming into visual range!
Grashkul surged erect from the scanner console. "General fleet alert!" he bellowed. "All ships are to come up to full power and . . ."
"Aelanni, you crazy shiksa!"
Simultaneously with Rosen's yelp came Aelanni's command. "Launch all missiles!"
Naeriy's hand swept over an array of lights and the fleet's linked computers implemented the targeting solution they had already worked out during the long approach. Full salvos of missiles leaped from all the ships simultaneously and sprang ahead. Piling their acceleration atop the ships' velocity, they swept into the Korvaash formation too swiftly for any thought of defense by ships in the process of receiving new orders.
The first hit awoke like a small but very intense sun. Others followed in such rapid succession as to seem a chain reaction, a spreading contagion of flame as one Korvaash ship after another expanded and split apart in a horrible, unnatural birth of hellfire.
The armorplast of the viewport automatically polarized, saving the eyesight of all in the control room of the still-approaching Liberator. Aelanni, eyes riveted on the spectacle, gave a second order. "Launch message drones!"
A second series of salvos dropped from the ships, but these sped toward the Seivra displacement point, past the savaged Korvaash defenders who grew in the screens at an ever-accelerating rate.
And then they were past, flashing by with the velocity to which they had been pulled by Tareil's gravity over the past weeks. And as they passed the holocaust, insanely close, the shock wave reached them. The expanding, superheated gas of vaporized metal, plastic and Korvaasha formed a wave front through which they passed, still in free fall.
Artificial gravity could not begin to compensate, and Liberator bucked and plunged madly. Rosen was flung to the deck but Aelanni hung onto a stanchion and remained grimly erect. Rosen gazed up, half-stunned, and saw her standing steady amid chaos, illuminated by the lightninglike flashes of continuing explosions from the screens. There was no wind for her hair to blow in, but there should have been, for she was like an elemental spirit of vengeance and destruction riding the storm that she herself had loosed on the world.
And then the moment was over. The still-exploding Korvaash ships were receding astern, the deck steadied, people picked themselves up, and Aelanni calmly gave the order for the prearranged course change. Then she extended a hand and hauled Rosen to his feet.
"What's a shiksa?" she inquired.
* * *
"Quiet!" Grashkul thundered, momentarily stemming the flood tide of panic-stricken reports and queries. By sheer presence, he quelled the incipient hysteria (which would have looked like mild agitation to human eyes, but which was without precedent among the Korvaasha) in the command center of the undamaged flagship.
"No more reports! We can assess the damage later." He turned to his chief of staff. "Get all ships with undamaged drives turned around and go to maximum boost in pursuit of those ships. The damaged ships that still have weapons capability can keep watch on the displacement point."
"But Effectuator," the chief of staff replied with a slight quaver in his voice which meant what open hand-wringing would have in a human, "we'll never catch them! A stern chase . . ."
"Effectuator!" The impropriety of the interruption from the scanner chief would have been shocking at any other time. "The inferior beings have altered course! They have ceased retrofiring and are now proceeding on a course of . . ." A series of figures followed, delivered with the machinelike precision of old, to Grashkul's relief. Conditioning was reasserting itself.
"Then it won't be a stern chase," he declared with vicious satisfaction. "We can intercept them on that course—it will take time, but we can do it. And"—he glanced at the command readouts, noted the estimated tonnage of those ships, and made a mental adjustment for the efficiency of Raehaniv engineering—"we still have what must be ten times their firepower." He turned back to the chief of staff. "Get with Navigation and carry out your orders, Kaathgor!"
"At once, Effectuator!" But Kaathgor hesitated momentarily. "Ah, Effectuator . . . what of that second salvo of missiles the inferior beings launched?"
"What of it? They all missed and proceeded outward. Something must have gone wrong with their targeting." Grashkul was as close as any Korvaasha ever comes to fidgeting with impatience. He had to overhaul and obliterate these intruders, whoever they were, thereby salvaging something from this debacle.
Kaathgor's voice broke into his thoughts. "That is the point, Effectuator. You see, they are proceeding directly toward the . . ."
Grashkul's pent-up rage erupted. "Enough!" he roared with a volume that hurt Korvaash auditory apparatus. "Stop wasting time and carry out your orders, you . . . female!"
At the deadliest insult in the Korvaash language, Kaathgor's face and voice went totally expressionless. "Of course, Effectuator," he said smoothly. "It will be as you command."
The Korvaash warships that could still do so lumbered into correct alignment, and fusion fire speared blindingly from their drives, sending them on the optimum intercept course. No one except Kaathgor—who had no intention of bringing it up—noticed that that course happened to take them away from the Seivra displacement point on its emergence bearing.
Meanwhile, unnoticed, the missiles that were not missiles reached that displacement point.
* * *
DiFalco tumbled into Andy J.'s control room, cursing the fate that had—of course!—brought the long-awaited alarm in the middle of his first sound sleep in far too long. Varien, he noted, was already there, strapping himself into his assigned acceleration couch.
"Report!" he rapped, midway into the command couch.
"It's confirmed, sir," Farrell stated, excitement barely under control. "That first emergence was one of the message drones—it's broadcasting like mad now. The other one should start any time . . . there! They're both ours!"
DiFalco and Varien exchanged looks. The weak link in their plans had, from the beginning, been the problem of coordinating two fleets on opposite sides of a defended displacement point. No non-material signal could be sent through, so they had devised material ones: missiles whose warheads had been replaced by very simple transponders and very complex nav computers that might attempt the displacement transit that had heretofore been the exclusive province of manned vessels. Of course, they knew better than to rely on such new and chancy devices; the odds against one of them making a successful transit were overwhelming. So Aelanni's ships had foregone a second missile salvo, instead devoting their entire launching capacity to a swarm of the new drones that would—they hoped—beat the odds by sheer numbers.
DiFalco expected exultation on Varien's face and saw annoyance. "Only two, out of all those drones . . . !"
"That's exactly two hundred percent of what we need," DiFalco snapped. "Aelanni's there! Mister Farrell, execute Plan Omega, Phase One!"
Fusion drives roared and, at an acceleration that only their counteracting artificial gravity fields made endurable, they began their run at the displacement point. By the time they reached it, they had built up such a velocity that precise computer control was required to activate the gravitic pulse that would hurl them through it at precisely the right moment. But the programming did its work, and they burst into the Tareil system at a pace that would normally have been sheer insanity for attackers of a defended displac
ement point.
At least, DiFalco thought as the stars rearranged themselves into the sky of Raehan (the sky Aelanni grew up with, flashed through his mind), the speed of their transition didn't seem to intensify its discomfort. Then the instrumentation stabilized, and scanners began to detect the drifting wreckage from which they could deduce the full dimensions of what Aelanni had wrought.
"Holy shit," DiFalco breathed, looking up from the readout. Varien muttered something in Raehaniv.
Then they were in among the fields of ball bearings the Korvaasha had strewn along the emergence heading. The millions of dense little objects would normally have reduced ships moving at their velocity to collanders. But each cruiser put out its forward deflector shield and, like a man advancing into driving rain with an umbrella held in front of him, drove grimly through the metal storm.
"Colonel," Farrell called out, "we've pinpointed Aelanni's force, and their pursuers." The tactical holo tank activated, revealing a small cluster of friendlies and a larger mass of bogies on converging courses only a few degrees apart.
It was, DiFalco thought dourly, going suspiciously well. Aelanni had led the Korvaasha on almost precisely the chase they had planned on. Now they'd have to start playing it by ear.
"Mr. Farrell, resume acceleration on optimum pursuit course. And give me a projection on when we can expect to catch up to the Korvaash force."
Fusion drives that had been cut off for the transit—no need to unnecessarily complicate an already tricky maneuver—reawoke, and again there was a slight surge before the compensating fields could take hold. Ahead of them, the pyrotechnics intensified as ball bearings impacted the deflector shield at an even higher relative velocity and were burned out of existence by lost kinetic energy that had to go somewhere.
"Ready with that computer projection, Colonel," Farrell reported. DiFalco nodded, and the holo tank awoke into new activity as glowing lines curved ahead along projected courses at accelerated time. Aelanni's green line and the red Korvaash one slid together while his own green track was still some little distance away. Then it, too, intersected the others, and all three continued on together in what would be an embrace of death.
Aelanni would just have to take it for a while.
Varien was also looking at the tank, face expressionless. DiFalco recalled his own attempts to convey the difficulty of coordinating simultaneous force deployments over vast separations of space and time, but he did not remind Varien of it. My character must be improving, he thought gloomily.
"Continue on course, Mr. Farrell," he ordered. "And pass the word to stand by for combat with those immobile Korvaash units ahead. It looks like we're going to pass them within missile range."
* * *
Grashkul kept outwardly impassive as he received the report—delivered without inflection by Kaathgor—of the seven newly arrived hostiles from Seivra. They had flashed past the damaged ships he had left to watch a displacement point that had seemed no longer so important, exchanging missiles in a brief spasm of violence, but had not paused. Instead, they had continued accelerating, adding onto a velocity that should have brought them to grief in the obstructed zone. And now they were on a course which would bring them into the battle that was about to begin with the nine mysterious intruders that had savaged his fleet and now approached this system's asteroid belt on their sunward course.
Inwardly, his guts seethed. Kaathgor could, of course, not remind him that his own impatience had prevented the chief of staff from reporting the heading of those missiles of the second salvo, which would have mandated the incredible conclusion that these raiders, already here in the Tareil system, were somehow connected with the conquerors of Seivra. No, Kaathgor couldn't openly bring it up—but his entire attitude fairly screamed it.
"It appears," the chief of staff was concluding, "that our cripples were unable to inflict appreciable damage on the newcomers in the brief time available to them."
"Of course not," Grashkul replied testily. "They were unprepared, and most of them have damaged targeting systems . . . ." He let the futile line of thought die a natural death. "It is clear that these two groups of inferior beings are acting in concert," he resumed, watching Kaathgor closely for anything that even resembled smugness. "So we must defeat them in detail. We will overwhelm the ones who attacked us before those from Seivra can overhaul us."
"There is another possibility, Effectuator," Kaathgor said diffidently. "We could break off the engagement. The dynamics of our present astronomical situation would permit us to retire on Raehan if we commence the course change within . . ."
"Preposterous!" Grashkul's eye bulged with astonished fury. "What are you suggesting? We could still defeat both these pathetic forces together in a straightforward battle, if we had to! Open fire on the ships we are pursuing as soon as we enter missile range!"
"As you command, Effectuator."
Grashkul turned away without even formally dismissing Kaathgor and studied the tactical display. Of course they would win. Of course. If he had still had his full strength of battleships, there would have been no doubt; he would have smothered those ships ahead of him in an avalanche of long-range missiles. But unfortunately, his losses had been heaviest in the missile-armed behemoths—the raiders must have specifically targeted them. So the brunt of the first battle would fall on the battlecruisers, which had been pulling steadily ahead and would come into energy-weapon range of the enemy only minutes after the missile engagement began. Of course, it would take them longer to close to the short ranges where energy weaponry was really effective.
His eye glowered at those nine blips. Who were they? Their design was pure Raehaniv, and he had been going on the working assumption that they belonged to the Free (of necessity, he used the Raehaniv word for the untranslatable concept) Raehaniv Fleet. But their order of battle for that fleet included no such ships. And how could they have gotten away from the carefully monitored asteroid region to launch an attack that had clearly originated in the outer reaches of the system, far from the ecliptic? (He would have words for the Obtainer of Foreknowledge after this was over!) And how could they be coordinating their actions with the mysterious occupiers of Seivra?
If Grashkul had been human he would have shaken his head ruefully. This newly incorporated region had yielded one surprise after another of late. Through all the centuries in which the Unity had expanded in precisely the manner predicted by the Acceptable Knowledge, nothing had ever surprised the Korvaasha.
Then the deck vibrated under him and he heard the rumble of the first missile salvo. Soon it would all be academic.
* * *
Liberator's control room seemed to lurch as they absorbed another hit. Aelanni rapped out a series of orders, then studied the status readout.
They had given far better than they had gotten. Their defensive lasers had been able to cope with the big missiles from the depleted ranks of the Korvaash battleships. And their own missiles had taken toll of the advancing Korvaash battlecruisers until they had given out. But then the battlecruisers had drawn into energy-weapon range, and their massed laser batteries (specialized armaments were a feature of Korvaash ship designs) had begun to stab at her ships. They had fought back, with weapons enjoying the advantages of Raehaniv engineering. But the battlecruisers, in their ungainly massiveness, could absorb a lot of punishment. And they could mount a lot of weaponry—even crude, inefficient Korvaash weaponry. The brute mathematics of tonnage and firepower, which did not recognize gallantry as a factor, were inexorably wearing her force down.
Avenger had fallen out of formation early, and had by now ceased to communicate. Deliverer had blown up with a spectacular effulgence of light. Other ships had suffered various degrees of damage. Liberator had gotten off lightly—but not for long. The Korvaasha had now closed to plasma-weapon range, and the slugging match that was commencing could have but one conclusion.
Her eyes met Naeriy's, and no words were necessary. Eric's ships (Eric!) were still not e
ven within missile range of the Korvaash battleships. When they did pull into range, they would face the Korvaasha alone.
Things would be different if we had deflector shields like the Terran ships, she thought, oddly calm. But then we wouldn't have had the drive modifications that enabled us to get here. It was a tradeoff we freely accepted.
Her eyes went to the viewport. Yes, the Korvaash battlecruiser that showed in all its hideousness on the screen was now visible, like a child's model toy across a twilit lawn. She turned to Rosen and knew that, in some ways, she mourned him more than anyone else. For all the rest of them were Raehaniv, and could not have done otherwise than be here. She felt she should say something. But then he gave his gently ironic smile, and his voice told her not to worry.
"We gave them a good run, didn't we?"
She smiled back. "Yes we did." Then she reached out and grasped his hand, hard. (It would once have been unthinkable for a Raehaniv. He was right; they had changed.) And she spoke a word he had taught her. "Shalom, Yakov."
"Shalom, Aelanni."
Suddenly, their faces were bathed with light from the screen. An instant later, the tiny Korvaash battlecruiser in the viewport was replaced by a little bit of sun—a point of light which began to grow, and then was all the sky there was. The armorplast darkened just in time to save them from blindness, but spots continued to dance before their eyes as the glare died away, revealing an expanding halo of glowing plasma that had been a battlecruiser.
After a heartbeat, the dead silence in the control room was shattered as the communicator squawked. "Calling the unknown vessels! Calling the unknown vessels! This is the Free Raehaniv Fleet. Please acknowledge."
In one unbroken motion Aelanni was out of her crash couch, across the control room, and at the comm console, elbowing the communications officer out of the way. "This is Aelanni zho'Morna, daughter of Varien hle'Morna. Please make visual contact."
