Arun felt an unexpected pulse of solidarity in his heart that made him want to shake Kreippil’s hand or pat him on the shoulder. But the species gulf separating him from a comrade who resembled the sea monsters of Earth legend was too great, and the moment soon passed.
A rattling in the bulkheads announced that pumps were starting up that would soon flood the Ops room with water. He nodded at the Littorane admiral, wished Indiya good fortune, and hurried after Del-Marie and Xin.
Arun halted once through the Ops room airlock and out into the passageway that would lead to the hangar and the shuttles waiting to take them to their ships. Typical Xin, she was all business. Never mind that the enemy fleet was maintaining a holding pattern in the outer system, using dwarf planet slingshots to maintain a good tactical speed. Even if they advanced toward the Legion defenders around Khallini-4 at full burn, they wouldn’t get within effective firing range for nearly a day. But in Xin’s mind the initial battle plan was settled, and now she wanted to enact it. Everything else was a distraction.
What Xin didn’t suspect was that there was one important detail that had not yet been settled.
“Colonel Lee,” Arun called after her. The armored figure stopped; Del carried on to his shuttle, not looking back. “Xin. I need a brief word in private first.”
“What, here?” she asked, not bothering to turn around.
“No. Back on the Lance of Freedom.”
For a moment, Arun thought she was going to ask why they couldn’t talk here on the Vengeance. But she spared him that awkwardness and started her bouncing low-g run toward the shuttle that would take them back to the Lance.
The prospect of that private word on the Lance worried him more than the battle with the 3rd Fleet. It would involve him doing something he had never dared to do before: speak with Xin and Springer at the same time.
— Chapter 42 —
It was good to see Springer again, bringing home just how little of her he had seen of late. Perhaps he should have tried this long ago: ordered her into his presence.
If she felt any reciprocal pleasure at their reunion, she was hiding it well. “What the frakk are we doing here, General?” Springer asked. “There’s a battle to be fought and we’re not going to win it in your ready room, sitting around talking.”
“Let Arun speak,” Xin countered. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have summoned us here if it wasn’t important.”
Arun had a feeling that the conversation could easily have happened in the opposite order, that both women had arrived ready to question his summons, and whichever hadn’t would have leapt to his defense by reflex, merely to take the opposing view to the other. Life would have been so much easier if the two of them could just get along.
“Thank you both for coming,” he said. In truth he hadn’t given either of them any choice, but bearing in mind what he was about to say politeness seemed the best policy – Del would have been proud of him. “I promise this won’t take long and you’ll be able to return to your posts in plenty of time for the coming action. However, it’s important that you know about something.”
Arun had rehearsed this moment in his mind over and over, but the actuality was another matter entirely. Sensing the impatience of both women, he bit his lip and plowed ahead. “This isn’t easy, so bear with me… It has to do with Pedro.”
Springer snorted. “What concern is your insect buddy to us? He’s your pet – or you’re his – whichever applies, just keep me out of it. Now if that’s all…” She went to leave.
“No it isn’t!” Arun shouted. “Stay where you are, Marine, and listen to me. That’s an order.” He glared at Springer, willing her not to make this any more difficult than it already was. “You may recall, shortly before the Wolves put me into cryo, that Pedro was in a bad way. He was dying, because of something I’d said…”
“General, if you’re looking to unburden yourself, we seem an odd choice for confidantes,” Xin said slowly. “Perhaps you should be having this conversation with somebody else.”
“And maybe do it after the battle rather than immediately before it, eh?” Springer added.
Gods, they were both determined to be awkward. “I’m telling you two because it affects both of you directly, all right? When we were chased out of the Tranquility system, I told all command staff to reveal everything they knew or suspected of conspiracies, or anything at all that impacted the future of the Human Legion. I was sick of the Hummers, Jotuns and Pedro keeping secrets from me. I told them all that if I ever found they were still withholding information that I’d execute them.”
“Let me guess,” said Springer. “Your favorite alien was holding back.”
Arun nodded. “He was. The stress of knowing that I would have him executed, combined with the internal conflict caused by maintaining his silence, was doing the job in any case – killing him.”
It was a little odd to see Xin and Springer united over anything, but he had their attention now.
“So what’s the secret?” Springer said.
“Babies,” Arun blurted the word out. “Or rather embryos. Pedro took genetic material from me without my knowledge and developed one hundred embryos.”
“You’re kidding,” Springer said.
“Hang on,” said Xin, whose expression suggested she was afraid of where this was leading, “what does this have to do with us?”
“You two are the mothers.”
“What?” said Springer, while Xin said, “Both of us?” the two of them speaking at the same time.
“Yes, both. Pedro acquired your DNA and… Each of you is mother to half the embryos.”
“The sick alien bastard… I’ll kill him!” Springer had pushed herself away from the wall and was pacing, unable to keep still. “Gods. Arun! How? I mean I’m sterile. I can’t have kids…”
“He took the genetic material before… Look, this hasn’t been easy for me either. I know how you feel.”
“Do you? Do you really, Arun? You know what it’s like to want something so badly but to have the door slammed in your face, locked and barred against any hope of it ever opening again, and then suddenly… This!”
“I…” He’d had no idea that Springer felt so strongly on the subject.
She held up a hand, forestalling him. “Don’t bother, Arun. Frakk, now I have to go into battle with this on my mind? You’re an idiot, you know that? If I get killed this time around, it’s down to you.”
With that she stormed out of the room, and this time he didn’t try to stop her.
In contrast to Springer’s angry animation, Xin had remained still, dangerously so. She was staring at Arun in a manner he found difficult to gauge.
He felt obliged to explain. “What happened down on Khallini-4 when we took this system brought home to me just how mortal we all are. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to you or Springer without you ever knowing… You deserve to at least know.”
Was it his imagination or did Xin’s expression soften slightly?
“And you really thought now was a good time to lay this on us?” She shook her head, but reached out and pinched his cheek. “Springer’s right, you really are an idiot. I have a job to do, that’s got to be my focus right now, but don’t think for one moment this is over, not by a long shot.”
So saying, she left him too, and Arun let out a long sigh of relief.
— Chapter 43 —
“Frakk! Frakk! Frakk!” Springer’s entrance disturbed Furn from where he had been tinkering with his rig for testing the thermal dynamics of K-Space. He looked up in alarm as she swept into the compartment trailing expletives.
She hadn’t deliberately set out to find Furn, but after storming out of Arun’s cozy little meeting her feet had somehow conspired to bring her to the workshop deep within the guts of the Lance where he often took refuge. She needed to let off steam. Umarov was currently suiting up ready for the coming battle, and Furn had proved much better company than she would have credited before
their adventure with the mudsuckers a few years ago. It was a sobering thought, how small her social circle had become. Too many friends had died, while Madge and the few others from her days as a cadet who still survived now seemed as distant to her as Arun.
“Bad day, I take it,” Furn said, setting down a slender wand-like device that Springer didn’t recognize.
“And then some. I’ve just been given the worst best news ever.”
“As a scientist, I feel obliged to point out that what you just said makes very little sense.”
“Welcome to my life.”
“Do I get a prize if I can guess who’s responsible for your current mood?”
“No. General Arun frakking McEwan, that’s who’s responsible.”
“Pity. He would have been my first guess. So what has our esteemed lord and master gone and done this time to earn your ire?”
She told him. Not in any coherent or logically structured fashion, instead it all came tumbling out – her fixation on Arun since their training days, her frustration at his own preoccupation with Xin when she had always been the one who was there for him, her bitterness at knowing they could never be together after her own body and the injuries it suffered betrayed her. She explained how she had tried to cut him out of her life for both their sakes, having accepted Arun’s need to father children that she could never provide… But it was hard, so terribly hard. And then she told him of Arun’s revelation just now, the bombshell that against all expectation and contrary to everything she had forced herself to accept, she could be a mother after all. More than that, in a sense she already was, to babies as yet unborn.
“And even this she’s had to go and ruin,” she concluded. “Little Miss Xin the Sun Shines Out of Her Perfectly-formed Butt Lee.” She realized she had worked herself up to the point where she was on the verge of crying, and paused to fight back tears that she had no intention of shedding, not for Arun McEwan and especially not for that sour-faced skangat Xin.
“How precisely has Xin done that?” Furn asked, his voice soft, surprisingly gentle.
“Two batches of embryos,” she explained. “Fifty in each: Arun is the daddy of all of them, but half are mine… and the other half Xin’s.”
“I see. Yes, I understand how that might… rain on your parade.” Furn said the phrase slowly, as if trying it out for size.
She frowned, uncertain of what he meant.
“Spoil things,” he supplied. “Shame about Xin’s embryos,” he continued. “I imagine that were it not for them, this news would have delighted you.”
“Yeah, probably.” Except that Arun had known about this for a while and had only bothered to share it with her now; and, in truth, she hadn’t yet had time to get used to the idea and work out what she felt.
Furn turned away from her, calling up a screen. “If these embryos are aboard Lance of Freedom, I should be able to find them,” he said, “now that I know they exist.”
“Actually, it’s okay, don’t bother.” She felt embarrassed, and suddenly regretted confiding in Furn, confiding in anyone. She should have resisted the impulse and kept her mouth shut until the anger had cooled a little and she’d had the chance to think things through for herself.
He looked up from the screen. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Look, sorry to burden you with all this… I just needed to talk to someone.”
“No problem.”
“I’d better scoot. I’m not even suited up yet, and I don’t get excused from duty just because General Skangat McEwan decides to mess with my life again.” On impulse she leant forward and kissed the top of his head. “Thanks for listening.”
— Chapter 44 —
Furn watched Springer leave, feeling a complex mix of emotions: admiration, pity, sympathy, righteous anger, pride that she had chosen to confide in him, and more…
She didn’t deserve to feel like this. He replayed the conversation in his mind, knowing only too well what it was like to be constantly overlooked and taken for granted by the one you loved. The difference being that whereas his situation was hopeless maybe hers wasn’t. She deserves better. He resisted the temptation to stroke the spot on his head where she had kissed him and instead kept his hands still as he considered his options.
Heidi-23, the Lance’s security AI: she had to know where the embryos were hidden, and if he could enlist her help… He rejected the idea even if it occurred to him. There seemed too much likelihood that Heidi would have been primed to report any attempt like that. Perhaps he could persuade the AI that this was an exercise to test her security measures, that he had been tasked with ensuring the embryos were effectively hidden…
Dangerous possibilities chased each other through Furn’s thoughts as he turned back to the screen. Heidi-23 was a copy of the security AI still operating on Beowulf. Overwriting the original security AIs with a known and trusted personality was a key measure to ensure the loyalty of the defeated ships that had declared for the Legion. It had been his idea and his project to copy the AIs. Naturally, he had left himself backdoors.
He set to work.
— Chapter 45 —
On the main screen, colored dots fought a silent war in the minefield shell around Khallini-4. Under the able control of Admiral Kreippil and the Jotun Captain Cythien, the commanders of the First and Second Legion Carrier Groups, friendly drones sparred with the drones of the enemy 3rd Fleet.
Merde! We’re getting slaughtered. Indiya mouthed.
“We’re still within success parameters,” replied Kreippil. “Drone strength casualties at 55%.”
Indiya glanced across the flooded CIC deck at the admiral. How had he heard her mumble? The Littorane acceleration couches were transparent squashed cylinders that the amphibians laid down on rather than Indiya’s couch brought over from one of human ships, in which she sat, partially bent over. Vengeance of Saesh was circling at only 1.5g, which meant the couches weren’t fully enclosed yet.
“Agreed,” Indiya replied to the Littorane. “But we’re losing drones too quickly. Notify me when our drone losses reach 63%.”
“Aye, sir.”
He was strange, this Kreippil. The more perilous the situation, the more respectful he became to his human superior, and yet he made no secret of either his frustration at not commanding the fleet himself, or of how repulsive he found the physical form and scent of humans.
Indiya turned her attention back to the main screen.
Her Legion fleet was split into First and Second Carrier Groups, circling Khallini-4 in tight orbits. An additional reserve orbited two of the planet’s moons in even tighter orbits.
Everything rested on the enemy not detecting the 125-klick deep minefield shell around the planet. So far the New Empire had opened the battle with a cautious reconnaissance in force, sending two columns of drones through the hidden minefield to wear down the Legion fleet, while keeping the warboats and warships of a strong probing force outside the mined region.
Was the position of the enemy forces outside the minefield bad luck or had the enemy detected the mines? When the Legion had seized Khallini, they had only detected the mines when at point blank range. Her flotilla would have been blasted into plasma if the gremlins hadn’t disabled the mines. And back then, the mines hadn’t been perfected. A multi-species development team had spent the intervening years perfecting the design to make it undetectable. All their lives were staked on their work being a success.
If the enemy emerged victorious in the drone vs drone conflict, it wouldn’t matter what the larger ships did or how effective the mines might have been. The battle would be lost anyway.
“Come on,” Indiya urged the enemy. “Your drones are slaughtering ours. Seize your chance. Follow up your advantage. Come a little closer.”
All Indiya’s urgings resulted in was a curled lip from Kreippil, who seemed to have tasked himself with overhearing everything she whispered inside her helmet. How he managed that at the same time as commanding hundreds of drone cra
ft was impressive and annoying.
Indiya ignored him, tried to ignore too the sense of panic creeping up from her gut. She considered banishing her fears with a release from her hormonal control implants, then dismissed the idea; she needed her mind sharp, not blunted.
Out there, drone craft were blasting each other with missiles, X-ray beams, and lasers. They whirled and danced in such blurs of brutal acceleration that many were destroyed by so-called maneuver attrition. With little or no armor, and at such close range, maneuvering at crushing levels of acceleration was the only way to survive.
With the drone craft of both fleets essentially built to the same design and programed with the same tactics, it looked certain now that victory would come down to the 3rd Fleet’s superior numbers, despite the efforts of Kreippil and Cythien, the drone commanders, to squeeze an advantage for the Legion out of their tactical skill.
And still the boats and ships of the enemy advanced force maintained a low-g holding formation a few thousand klicks outside of the minefield.
So close, but not close enough.
“Incoming!”
Close enough to harass us with long-range missile barrages, though.
“All hands, brace for impact.”
“Tracking 198 missiles inbound for First Carrier Group. Half are directed at the Vengeance.”
“Just trying to wear us down,” said Indiya on the fleet command channel. “We’ll get our chance to hit back.”
She tried to keep a look of serenity on her face as she allowed the responses to the missile strike wash through the water-filled CIC. She heard each announcement in the human speech, a computer-translated echo that followed a split second after her ears registered the groans and clicks of the Littorane underwater language.
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