Extremis (61 page)

And then the beginnings of understanding came to her. She commandeered a system-ranged
selnarm
repeater and sent an urgent message to one of the drone launcher/tenders hovering at the very edge of the Mercury-to-Athena warp point. “Urgent. Prepare for immediate relay. Message begins: ‘The humans have modified the warp point joining Mercury to BR-06. I conclude that it is extremely improbable that the immense human fleet now attacking Mercury could have been concealed anywhere in the Trebuchet Trace. I therefore conjecture that the humans have found a way to link other regions of their space with one or more systems within the Trebuchet Trace. Urgent. If this is true, Mercury is now a strategic bottleneck and must be held at all costs.’ Message is for immediate
selnarm
relay and warp-point transmission, both to New Ardu and the current Flag Command site of Admiral Narrok. Send immediately.” With any luck, given
selnarm
’s instantaneous transmission, the drone that was already plunging back into Athena would immediately activate its cousin that was waiting on the other side of that system, poised to dart through the warp point to Hera. And so, from one system to another, the
selnarm
-linked drones would trigger each other like a string of firecrackers going off. Conceivably, the message would be received at both terminal destinations within the hour.

But in the meantime, what did the human modification of this warp point portend: What advantage did the humans expect it might confer upon them?

At that moment, an impossibly huge green icon emerged from the warp point in the holotank and furnished a stupefied Unshezh with the horrifying answer to her question.

TRNS
Taconic
, Allied Fleet, Mercury System

Li Han stood on the flag bridge of
Taconic
and observed the Battle of Mercury unfold.

In the holotank, the main body of her ships moved inexorably from the newly enhanced BR-06 warp point in the direction of the Athena warp point, obliterating anything that stood in its way. Her devastators were organized into datagroups of four, with two escort cruisers armed exclusively with anti-fighter weaponry stationed in the traditional flanking-and-astern position to cover the capital ships’ blind zones. Any target of four devastators’ firepower, datalinked into a single time-on-target salvo, did not need to be targeted a second time. The devastators’ limited maneuverability scarcely mattered as Han advanced steadily through the center of the frantic Baldy defenders.

She turned to the tactical plot. Her daughter’s carriers flanked the phalanx of devastators, streaming aft in a skirtlike fashion, providing fighter cover that so far had barely been necessary. Trevayne, with the remainder of the vanguard, was off to the left (in terms of the system’s ecliptic plane), which placed him more or less in the direction of the Treadway warp point, guarding against the possibility of any fresh Baldy incursions from that direction.

“Admiral,” Adrian M’Zangwe called from the ship’s bridge, “the Baldies seem to be breaking up into two bodies. One is continuing to resist us. The other is withdrawing in the direction of the Treadway warp point.”

Li Han expanded the holotank’s scale and understood. Her irresistible advance had split the Baldies’ system-defense force in two, and her force now stood between the retreating elements and the Athena warp point, which was doubtless where they would have preferred to go.

“Raise Admiral Trevayne,” she ordered. While she waited, she sent a series of orders to Mags. Soon she began to see the skirt of carriers sweeping forward, reconfiguring into a net with which to trap the Baldies who still showed fight.

“You are in the best position to deal with those retreating elements,” she told Trevayne. “Of course, your monitors aren’t as fast as their heavy superdreadnoughts, but—”

“But this won’t be a stern chase,” he completed her thought. “At the course they must follow, we’ll be able to intercept them at a converging angle. Don’t worry. They will be attended to.”

Han wondered if the hormones of Trevayne’s youth were inducing excessive cockiness as she watched
Mags’s fighters herd the Baldies into the furnace door of the devastator formations. Meanwhile, Trevayne’s monitors, armed predominantly with missiles, began to savage the Baldies well before the two forces slid together and interpenetrated. Finally, like a prey animal tormented beyond endurance, the Baldy commander had his ships turn sharply, in echelon, and roar toward their pursuers. But Trevayne’s superdreadnoughts included a number of Pan-Sentient Union ships with a better short-range weaponry mix, and these were in his van. They and the Baldies had an exchange of fire whose intensity Han could barely imagine, before the Baldies flashed through them and neared the monitors.

But Trevayne had pushed through an innovation in Rim monitor and supermonitor design—partly inspired, Han recalled with pride, by what Mags had done to the Baldies at Third Bellerophon. He had decreed the removal of most of their limited beam weaponry and its replacement by energy torpedoes. These came as enough of a surprise to disrupt the Baldy attack, giving Trevayne’s lighter ships time to come about in the manner possible to reactionless, inertia-canceling drives, and attack from astern. The battle dissolved into a chaos of engagements, which could have but one conclusion.

No,
Han thought.
Trevayne hasn’t lost his edge.

A
rduan SDH
Hrun’pah’ter
, System Defense Force, Expeditionary Fleet of the
Anaht’doh Kainat
, Mercury System

The long shudder that rippled through the hull of Unshezh’s flagship was an ominous sign.

“Fleet Second, we are losing antimatter containment for the powerplant. In two minutes or less we will—”

“Time to repair?”

“Repair is not possible. We must fight our ship or abandon her.”

“That choice is no choice.” Unshezh looked carefully at the holoplot. Harried by fighters, her tattered system-defense force was either dying in place or being pushed back toward the Treadway warp point. She doubted any of them would make good their attempted escape. But she had to hold the humans here a little bit longer, make them pause, at least, so that reinforcements might arrive from Athena.…

She stabbed a greater tentacle into the plot, impaling the closest
murn
-colored icon. “This monitor, the one from their initial breaching force.”

“The second warship that entered the system? Yes, Fleet Second, what do you wish to know about it?”

“If we run our engines at max plus twenty percent—”

“We will overtake the human warship in approximately seventy seconds. Our engines will probably go critical about twenty seconds later.”

“And if your other estimate is correct, our antimatter pile will detonate thirty seconds after that. We have a choice of cataclysms, Helm. I choose the one that serves the Race.”

The helm—and the entirety of Unshezh’s bridge staff—sent (accord, joy, ferocity, resolve). Unshezh’s helm prime set course for the large
murn
-colored icon.

Unshezh settled back into her command-pod and happily anticipated being reborn into a world where these patchy-furred humans had either been tamed, contained, or eliminated. In consequence, her next life would surely be a far more pleasant one. “Tactics, all priority to defensive weapons. Communications, signal our sister ships
In’sehert’tepsh
and
Sho’ahah’fikir
to concentrate their main batteries on the other two human monitors to draw return fire. Then signal the remainder of our van: regroup around Fleet Third Sefet’hes and exploit any surprise our attack might generate in the humans. Helm: no evasive maneuvers. We go straight in. Ops: launch all small craft to help shield and screen us. Systems: all secondary and auxiliary command nexi are to be manned and operational. If this bridge is hit before we complete our run…”

“Understood, Fleet Second. For the Race.”

“For the Race,” Unshezh echoed proudly and watched as the vermillion icon of her beloved
Hrun’pah’ter
leaped toward the speck denoting the sluggish human warship. Beneath her, she felt the beginnings of a tremor that originated back in engineering, back in the overstressed tuners and coils that were pushing her forward. Like the heart of a great predator that refused to stop throbbing during an arduous pursuit, they would eventually burst.

But not before she took down this final prey.

TRNS
Hochblitz Azhanti
, Combat Group November, Allied Fleet, Mercury System

Lewis gaped. “I don’t believe it, sir.”

“Believe it.” Torrero-Suizas’s grim confirmation sounded more like a snarl than a statement. “Ops, who do we have that can—?”

“No one, Captain.
Devourer
was our outrider as we turned to provide flank support for the admiral’s push toward the Athena warp point.”

“And you’re sure that Baldy superdreadnought is trying to ram?”

Helm confirmed it. “Range closing, bearing constant.”

“Damn. General order to the Group: concentrate all batteries on that Baldy. Continuous fire.”

Lewis swallowed loudly. “Sir, if we ignore the other two SDHs that are—”

“Dispatch fighters and two cruisers to engage them directly. If the other two SDHs ignore those attacks to stay focused on us, we’ll let our giant-killers bag them.”

Lewis, ashen, nodded and passed on the orders.

Torrero-Suizas felt his ship begin to quake as the missiles began running out in a steady stream at the enemy ship that was closing on the
Devourer
. The human monitor, having the maneuver characteristics of an overloaded dross barge, was executing its inevitable, and pitiful, attempts at evasive maneuvers.

* * *

The
Hrun’pah’ter
’s bridge—and with it, Unshezh and her entire staff—were reduced to subatomic particles twenty-eight seconds later. Five seconds before their incandescent discarnation, however, helm control had passed to Auxiliary Station Two. Auxiliary One had already been replaced by a very big hole in the SDH’s savaged sides.

Twelve seconds later, the
Hrun’pah’ter
’s last shields went down and pieces of her started coming away in chunks as beams gouged at her sides and antimatter missiles almost reached her hull.

But four seconds after the
Hrun’pah’ter
’s shields went down, she reached her ponderous, wallowing target: she struck
Devourer
just aft of amidships.

The two vessels were suddenly gone, and in their place, a miniature analog of a blue-white sub-dwarf star flashed into sudden, blinding existence and sent out a glimmering wave-front halo of energies that ran the gamut of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Then the mini-star guttered, winked once, and died back into the blackness of space.

* * *

Torrero-Suizas rested his forehead in his hand and noticed, peripherally, that his ship’s abrupt, arrhythmic bumps and jolts—near misses and partial hits—had dropped off sharply. He looked up: Lewis was staring down at him, pale but—finally—composed. “Sir, sensors confirm that
Devourer
was lost with all hands. All three enemy SDHs were destroyed. The remaining Baldy forces are attempting to regroup. Should we change course to—?”

“Negative, Tactics. Monitors and devastators are to hold their headings. We are going to keep Admiral Li’s flank secure. Cruisers and carrier squadrons are to screen us, but also try to maneuver to the rear of the Baldies’ remaining forces. If the bastards have to keep turning around to protect their asses, they won’t be coming after ours.”

“What if they turn to reinforce the elements slipping back toward the Treadway warp point?”

“We let them go. The pursuit force Admiral Trevayne left behind will, I’m sure, happily add them to its many-toothed meatgrinder.”

“Yes, sir. Any other orders, sir?”

“Yes. Once we secure from general quarters, pipe this down to all decks: ten seconds of silence for the crew of the
Devourer
.”

* * *

The Baldy reinforcements had been emerging from the Athena warp point for about fifteen minutes when Li Han’s main body drew into range. That force didn’t concern her particularly, as she scanned the readout showing the ship classes involved. She crisply issued firing orders and settled back. Over patient, steepled fingers, she watched a wave of change sweep across the icons of the hapless Baldy SDHs. One after the other, they transformed into enemy omega symbols.

In the end, slightly less than half of the Baldy force from Athena had made it back to that system. Li Han’s scout ships and drones began to pick over the wreckage, gathering data for the post-engagement briefing.

* * *

Li Han turned toward her holograph-convened staff after her ops officer had finished reeling off the post-action statistics. “So, Commander Rijksdottir,
am I correct in concluding that this system can be declared secure?”

“You are, Admiral.”

“Then we can start launching recon drones into Athena.”

“They’ll be launched immediately, Admiral.”

“Make it a little sooner than that. I intend to commence the assault in twelve hours.”

Many of the more junior, flesh-and-blood staffers looked taken aback, but the two holo images of Trevayne and Li Magda showed nothing but predatory eagerness. “Bloody right!” the Trevayne-image exclaimed. “They’re still reeling—not just physically, but from the shock our devastators must have been, to say nothing of our expanding the warp point. Hit them while they’re still off balance, before they have time to recover and reorganize.”

“Then let’s get busy, ladies and gentlemen,” said Li Han in meeting-adjourning tones. Before the holo images of her two senior admirals winked out, she noticed them glancing at each other. She ordered herself not to draw any conclusions from their expressions.

22

Nothing Half So Melancholy

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
—Wellington

Arduan SDH
Shem’pter’ai
, Main Van, Expeditionary Fleet of the
Anaht’doh Kainat
, Achilles System

Narrok closed his eyes slowly and stole a moment of complete solitude…just as one of his staffers—Communications—approached,
selnarm
primed but withheld.