by John Grant
"These species do not wish to be under the command of Kortland. The Helgiolath can display a ruthlessness which is not to the taste of us ancients. The Onurg asked me if I would be the leader of their combined fleet."
Oh, great, thought Strider. Ousted out of the top job yet again. "Cancel that order, Leander," she said.
It was a moment before she understood the meaning of the next few words Polyaggle spoke.
"But I told the Onurg that I owed my loyalty now to the Human species, and that you were my commander." Click. Flutter. "He has said that he will accept your leadership."
"What?"
"The ancient species will pledge their fealty to you."
"But I hardly know my way around this joint," said Strider, waving a hand in the general direction of The Wondervale. "I'm incompetent even to be a full part of the Helgiolath armada. I'm just a sort of very minor pawn in a chess-game whose board is too large for me to comprehend."
"But this is what the Onurg and I agreed," said Polyaggle. "If you will consent to accept these ancient species."
"How big is this fleet likely to be?" said Strider, asking the question more for the sake of saying something than for any other reason. Her mind was reeling.
"About forty-eight thousand craft, all told," said Polyaggle. "But only about ninety per cent of them are warcruisers," she added apologetically.
#
Kaantalech, roused by one of her aides, looked to and fro among the array of monitors in front of her. In order to co-ordinate their attack on Qitanefermeartha, the Helgiolath had of necessity had to dispense with their communications shield, and for the first time she realized quite how huge a space-navy it was that the Humans had joined. She watched the way that the Helgiolath commander focused most of his firepower in one area, and put a forefoot to her proboscis in acknowledgement: this was exactly the tactic she would have used. The Autarch was too irremediably stupid to realize that the decoy could be larger than the killer force. His underlings would be too terrified of him to argue, because they knew that to do so meant a quick and certain death and their replacement by others more amenable to the Autarch's instructions, until at last, after some quick slaughter, the Autarch's fleet would be controlled by his catspaws. Better to take your chances in battle than to be killed out of hand by the Autarch. There was always just the chance that you might win.
Not this time, Kaantalech believed.
The Helgiolath had superiority not only in numbers but in intelligence and technology. If the battle started going against them they could flit themselves away singly to every corner of The Wondervale. The Autarch's warcruisers could follow them individually or severally, but in so doing would leave the home planet open to attack. Unless there was a lucky strike, those infuriatingly intractable Humans could harass the remaining Autarchy cruisers—and there were thousands of other Helgiolath vessels prepared to do the same.
No, Kaantalech reckoned, Qitanefermeartha was doomed.
Better for her and her fleet to stay out of it.
The holo to the side of her lit up, and she looked towards it with an appropriate expression of reverence and humility. There was, she supposed, just the most remote possibility that the Autarchy might defeat the rebels after all. A little token subservience could do no harm.
"Stars' Elect," she said respectfully.
"I require your fleet to come to Qitanefermeartha immediately," said the Autarch Nalla without preamble. Kaantalech could hardly believe it, but yet again he was taking part of his time out to copulate with one of his concubines. More than anything else, this persuaded her that she could find herself fighting on the wrong side of the war.
She gave a signal to an aide. Much as most of them loathed her, they loathed the Autarch more. Among the very first things they were trained to do was to recognize this rarely used signal.
What it meant was: Interference of communications—and damn' soon.
The aide quickly obeyed, pressing his foot to a large square on the floor—a square that normally the aides made very sure they avoided.
The image of the Autarch in the holo began to disintegrate, shards of the colors that composed it starting to drift aimlessly towards the edges of the cubicle.
"I'm having difficulty making out what you're saying," said Kaantalech emolliently. "Aide!" she cried off to one side. "See if you can fix this thing."
One of the aides started forward as if to obey, and she froze him with a glare.
Forming her words very carefully and clearly, Kaantalech said to the Autarch's dissolving likeness: "I am trying to hear you, but we seem to be being jammed by Qitanefermeartha's defenses. Which part of The Wondervale is it that you wish me to patrol?"
The holo of the Autarch faded into a nondescript miasma of brown-grey. On Qitanefermeartha he would be seeing Kaantalech's image doing exactly the same.
Once she had hoped he would turn his back towards her so that she could easily glide in the knife—twisting it as the whim took her. Now she was pleased that he had turned his back instead on the Helgiolath, and the Humans, and the F-14s and who knew how many other species. In tearing the Autarchy to pieces the rebels would be so reduced as to find themselves in a parlous state. The time would be right, then, for Kaantalech to ascend to the throne.
Autarch.
The Mighty One.
She gave her aides a few terse instructions, and her fleet began moving across the face of The Wondervale on what would seem like urgent business.
As if they were obeying Nalla's misunderstood orders.
#
Once the battle was joined in earnest things moved remarkably quickly. Strider, forcing to the rear of her mind the possibility that she might soon find herself at the head of an armada of nearly fifty thousand vessels (How the hell are you going to cope with that, Leonie? Stop goddam thinking, brain: you'll almost certainly be dead before then), applied herself to a Pocket. The Helgiolath's central puter was still enforcing its instructions on the Santa Maria's Images, who were shifting the craft according to Kortland's dictates. The secondary fleet was beginning slowly to move together.
But it was what was happening to the main Helgiolath fleet that held Strider's attention. The Pocket couldn't display the deaths of individual warcruisers: all it could show was statistics.
These started off depressingly—the Helgiolath were taking terrible punishment—but then became more reassuring as the rebels fought back ferociously. As she had when bombarding the manufactories on F-14, Strider found herself regretting the horrendous loss of life. Every Helgiolath warcruiser that died represented the lives of perhaps a thousand sentient beings. The same went for the Autarchy's vessels. All of these people were dying for something that wasn't even properly an ideal. They were being burnt alive or being spilt into space as if they were expendable—which was the way, Strider realized, that they were regarded. She had left three people behind on F-14 because they'd got lost, and she had realized fully the ruthlessness of that act—she still woke up, sometimes, from sleep in misery about it—but she'd never throw millions of people into the fray on the basis that more of them might survive than would of the enemy. Now she was facing herself honestly, what really started her from sleep was the question: If I thought I had to, would I?
Little sparkles of communication flashed in from other vessels of the secondary Helgiolath fleet. She assumed the Images were able to understand what they meant, and were operating themselves and the remnants of the Main Computer accordingly.
Polyaggle was still on the command deck, and clearly comprehended what was going on more than Strider did. Lan Yi was waiting around as if he wanted to be given a job to do, but at the moment Strider couldn't think of one to give him. She and the rest of her officers were too busy trying to stay on top of things as they and several thousand other vessels moved slowly, hopefully grouping not too obtrusively, towards Qitanefermeartha.
Abruptly their velocity picked up. However things were going for the bulk of the rebel fleet—
the displays of that battle in the Pocket were now such a jumble of constantly changing statistics and graphic images that it was impossible to make sense of them—Kortland must have decided that the Autarchy's defenses were as fully engaged as they were going to get. Although she had no real religion, Strider found herself praying briefly to Umbel that the Autarch's cruisers were taking the brunt of the damage. The ancient species didn't like the Helgiolath very much, but she liked the Autarchy even less. Many of the Autarchy's people were probably conscripts—if not slaves—which meant that they, as individuals, hardly deserved to die; but then neither did the Helgiolath troopers. Every time one of the Autarch's warcruisers went down it was another step towards the end of the tyranny. Every time a Helgiolath warcruiser met its explosive end, by contrast, the more likely it was that the tyrannization would continue. The equation wasn't hard to solve. Even so, Strider found herself morally uneasy about the death that the rebels were dealing out.
Which she herself might soon be dealing out.
#
The Santa Maria found itself at the spearhead of the secondary attack—as always, Kortland was regarding the Humans as expendable. There was nothing Strider could do about it: the commands of his central puter were being obeyed to the letter by the Images.
Suddenly the situation went beyond some limit of her patience. To hell with just hanging around passively hoping for nothing better than to not get obliterated. She was fed up with the way Kortland was treating her and her personnel as expendable surrogate Helgiolath. She was in command of the entirety of one of The Wondervale's sentient species, just as Kortland was. It was time she started behaving accordingly—time to move from the passive to the active.
The volunteers for ground action were already in place.
Through a communications Pocket, she established contact with Segrill.
"Are you still with us?" she said.
The alien's voice, when he spoke, sounded puzzled. "We surround your craft," he said. "Of course we are with you."
"What I meant was, are you still prepared to act in concert with us?"
There was a note of relief in Segrill's reply. "Yes. That has been agreed. We Trok keep to our agreements."
"Then I think it's about time that I took the Santa Maria out from under Kortland's control." Assuming the Images will cooperate, Strider added mentally.
WE ACCORD WITH YOUR ANALYSIS, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free.
"This is reasonable," said Segrill.
"I want to go for it," she said. "I don't just want to be the cannon fodder up front. I want us to be the ones who lead the assault."
"My species has little reason to love the Autarchy," said Segrill. "I will collaborate with you in any way you wish."
"Then let's leave the rest of the pack behind."
"This would please my people."
"Ten Per Cent Extra Free," said Strider, "I want you to increase our acceleration even further."
Certainly.
She cut communications with Segrill and moved to another Pocket. In it she could see, almost immediately, the Santa Maria begin to move away from the rest of the wedge of warcruisers. Small darts of light around the image of her ship showed that the swarm of Trok fighters was doing likewise. This was probably the stupidest thing she had ever done in her life—and it might be the last thing—but she didn't regret it. Attack was the best form of defense. Or something.
"Shouldn't we have discussed this move?" said O'Sondheim from somewhere behind her.
"No," she said.
She amplified the representation of Qitanefermeartha in her Pocket. Aside from the vast domed city, the planet looked much like Earth's Moon—although rather less hospitable. Behind the visual image, the Pocket was gabbling out data, the only important part of which, as far as Strider was concerned, was that there were only forty-nine warcruisers still waiting in orbit around the planet. Kortland's tactics had succeeded admirably. Hell, but right now she was in such a mood that she felt she could take out all forty-nine single-handed.
The speed with which the Santa Maria was moving ahead of the other rebel vessels had become giddying, even in the representation offered by the Pocket.
She sent a mental instruction to the Images, and Segrill's face appeared in her Pocket above the display of the Santa Maria's position relative to the rest of the fleet.
"Once we're within a few light-seconds of those babies," she said, "they're going to start opening fire on us. They probably won't notice you. That's when I want you to strike."
"This is understood." The Trok was concentrating hard on something else—presumably the instrumentation of his fighter. "If it were otherwise we wouldn't be here."
"Gonna be a rocky ride," said Strider.
"Too true," said Segrill. "Gonna be even rockier if you keep interrupting me."
"Stay in contact."
"Will do."
She maintained the image of Segrill's face in the Pocket but focused on the graphic display at the base. The Santa Maria was now closer to Qitanefermeartha than it was to the Helgiolath vessels trailing behind it. Spots of light told her that the Autarchy had finally noticed her ship's approach and were sending out a further flotilla of ballistics. They didn't worry her. The Santa Maria's defensive shield had soaked up the energies of all the impacting ballistics so far, and she was pretty certain it would continue to do so—the Images would have told her had it been otherwise.
More of a hazard were the forty-nine warcruisers.
She wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. Chances were that she and all her personnel would die, but that had been the case ever since they'd emerged into The Wondervale. This was probably their best shot to stay alive. She hoped so.
"Danny," she said, "here is what I want you to do."
#
The disc of Qitanefermeartha more than filled the view-window now, but Strider didn't have the time to admire it. Face deep in her Pocket, she was busy watching the disposition of the guarding warcruisers. As yet they didn't seem to regard the solitary craft as much of a threat, and the longer they continued to feel that way the better it suited Strider. By now they must have spotted that there was a fleet of several thousand vessels behind her. One ship alone could do little damage to Qitanefermeartha, they must be reasoning: ground defenses could repel it easily enough—if it was even worth their trying to do so. Better to concentrate on the imminent arrival of the main force.
Fingers crossed, Leonie.
"Segrill," she said out loud into the Pocket.
The alien turned his attention towards her. Seeing just his face in the Pocket, it was hard to remember how tiny he actually was.
"Now is the time?" he said.
"Yes. One of my Images will enter your squadron and give you any navigational assistance you require."
"We don't need any, Strider. You forget that we Trok have been a spacefaring species for several thousand years. We know what we are doing."
There was no discourtesy in the response, but even so Strider felt rebuked. Sizeist! she said to herself.
"Good luck from here, Segrill."
"See you downside if we both make it, Strider. If not . . ." The alien showed her his teeth in what she assumed was a smile.
Within seconds the Trok swarm was off. She imagined the little craft as being like stinging bees, and the Images therefore represented them in her Pocket as exactly that. The fighters spread out with astonishing rapidity towards Qitanefermeartha and then in both directions along the rough line of the planet's equator, the belt in which almost all of the warcruisers still orbited. She hoped the Autarchy wasn't able to monitor the course of the Trok fighters as clearly as she was: if so, they were dead before they even started.
There was a peculiar trace of guilt in her: the Trok craft were so small and the warcruisers were so large. Then she remembered what Segrill had just said about having been a spacefaring species for so many thousands of years. Yeah, it was a contest of equals.
Things bec
ame even more equal when the first warcruiser went up. Strider, fascinated despite herself, amplified the representation in the Pocket. The huge ship was peeling itself open as if someone were cutting it apart with a knife. When the knife got to the drive unit at the rear the effects were spectacular.
So you were worried about the Trok, Leonie? she thought.
"Any chances of one or more of you three going at these bastards, like you did around Spindrift?" she asked the Images.
IT WOULD BE MOST UNWISE. YOU NEED US AMONG YOU. It was Angler who was speaking this time. He was the Image whom she knew least well, if it could be said that she knew any of the Images at all. Even more so in a short while.
"How short a while?"
If you wish to take the best advantage of the circumstances, we would suggest that you disengage within the next ten minutes.
Another Autarchy warcruiser seemed to be splitting itself open, almost as if it wanted to do so.
YOU MUST MOVE QUICKLY, BEFORE THE REST OF THE FLEET ARRIVES. AS SOON AS IT DOES, THE SANTA MARIA IS CERTAIN TO BECOME THE OBJECT OF ENEMY FIREPOWER.
"Who's staying with the Santa Maria?"
WE ARE, warbled Heartfire and Angler together.
"Look after Danny and the rest," she said.
WE WILL.
"He's not that bad."
Um.
"He's not."
Silence.
She pulled herself away from the Pocket—possibly this was the final time she would ever do this—and barked to the command deck in general: "Anyone who's volunteered for ground duty, it's time to move it."
Nelson and Leander moved immediately towards the lockers along the wall. Lan Yi was already suited up except for his helmet, which surprised Strider: she'd hardly thought of him as a warrior. Pinocchio was nowhere to be seen, which startled her even more: where the fuck had the bot got to? She didn't have time to worry about things like this if the urgency in the Images' paired voices were anything to go by. Polyaggle had vanished as well: the Spindrifter had probably separated up into her component bits again so that she could re-infest the remnants of the Main Computer. Strider herself jostled past Leander and dragged her suit from its locker.
