Orphans of Earth (43 page)

Safety?
she thought. Such a concept didn’t currently exist in Beid system. The Yuhl were fighting a losing battle.

It was only then, as the possibility of her own death began to look dismayingly real, that she thought to send a message to Gou Mang.
they’ve arrived, the starfish are here! if i don’t make it, you’re in charge.

Barely had she sent the message when something strange happened: clear spaces began to form in the map of the system as energy levels ebbed. Fierce pockets of conflict still burned around the Starfish vessels, but in other places, where the fighting had previously been just as intense, there was now a relative calm and stillness.

A new tactic?
she wondered nervously. Perhaps the Starfish were about to employ a weapon that had the potential to wipe out everything in a volume of space in a single, horrible flash.

Then it occurred to her: this had nothing to do with any new weapon, or even a change in strategy. The Yuhl were still in those spaces. She could see single hole ships and tetrads re-forming and jumping elsewhere, battered, perhaps, but definitely willing to fight on. No, this was something else altogether.

“We have confirmation of withdrawal,” said the Praxis, voicing her own realizations. “We have a seventy percent reduction in aggressor presence. It looks like they’re heading elsewhere.”

A cold feeling of joy swept through her. The plan had worked! The number of ftl transmissions blaring through surveyed space had distracted the Starfish. They had split their forces in order to deal with them, and that left—

Her joy was short-lived.

Oh, shit,
she thought. That still left 30 percent of the initial strike force.

A total of nine giant Starfish ships remained in the system. The Yuhl forces had been reduced to barely half, and they had yet to make a significant dent in the Starfish. For every blue lance damaged, ten more took its place. And what made it worse was the fact that the missing Starfish had to be heading
somewhere...

HEADS UP, GOU MANG. IT LOOKS LIKE OUR PLAN WORKED. A NUMBER OF THE STARFISH COULD BE COMING YOUR WAY. IF PEOPLE WANT TO STOP BROADCASTING
NOW, I’LL UNDERSTAND, THEY’VE HAD THE EFFECT WE
WERE LOOKING FOR.

Ueh relocated
Quadrille
to a position closer to the nearest battle. Hundreds of singles and tetrads appeared all around them, some of them shifting into a loose formation, others blinking out of existence to go elsewhere.

“We
are regrouping our forces/were spread out too thinly before
,”
said Ueh. Clearly distracted by the ensuing battle around him, he spoke hurriedly, lapsing into his species’ normal double-streamed speech.

“You think a more focused response will make a difference?” asked Alander. Hatzis was about to warn the alien that having such an obvious concentration for too long might not be advisable when suddenly the Starfish were among them, breaking the loose formation apart with a flurry of energy.
Quadrille
bucked beneath her, and she clutched the arms of her flight couch. Its cushioned arms and seat automatically wrapped around her, keeping her safe, as Ueh ducked and wove through the wild energy storm around them. Sheets of light flashed and vanished. Soundless explosions rocked them from side to side. She didn’t know if they were fighting back in any way, but she found herself grateful for every second she remained alive.

Then something yellow loomed large in the screen: one of the spiky balls the blue lances fired. Instinctively she pulled back into the seat with a cry of panic.

Quadrille
relocated into absolute silence just in time. Ueh sagged at the cockpit stalk, his wing sheaths limp.

“We do not know how to hurt them,” he admitted solemnly. “The Ambivalence will surely destroy us if we continue to fight.”

Alander took a deep, shuddering breath. “I hope Axford can see this,” he said. “I hope he can see what his stupidity has done.”

“He should be
here
,” Hatzis snarled. “He should be the cannon fodder, not us.”

They reemerged into real space at a relatively safe distance from the battle. From their new position they could see the numerous battlefields at some remove. The perspective was illuminating. It looked like several small asteroids were exploding, and taking a long time about it. Apart from that, all resemblance to an asteroid belt had vanished. The
Mantissa
was in pieces.

“I’ve been watching the weapons they’re using,” Alander said, rising from the flight couch. “They seem to travel through unspace a lot more than we do. Whenever we get too close to them, they disappear and reappear somewhere else.”

“Astute observation,” Hatzis said sarcastically. “But it doesn’t really make our job any easier. We’re not designed to think in terms of three-dimensional conflicts—let alone
more
than that!”

“The
Yuhl/Goel
are accustomed to three dimensions,” said Ueh. “But even for us this is too much.”

Alander brought his attention back to the battle in the distance. “Have you noticed those little yellow bombs?” he said. “I think they’re using unspace as well, blinking in and out until they hit a target.”

“Wait a second,” said Hatzis, herself standing now. “What would happen if we materialized inside something?”

“The hole ships are designed to push matter aside,” said Ueh. “They start off small and grow large.”

“Exactly. They reenter the universe as a point smaller than the Planck length and expand from there.”

Alander shrugged, confused. “So?”

“So what would happen if we were to lob some dead matter into the heart of one of those big ships?” she asked.

Alander nodded his understanding. “That might be how the yellow bombs work.”

“It is a technique we could not emulate,” said Ueh. He straightened at his post and seemed to regain some of his lost vitality. “The Praxis calls. We must return.”

“Couldn’t we attack that way?” Alander refused to let go of the idea. “Jump into the big ships, drop some explosives or whatever, and get the hell out of there before they blow?”

“I shall convey your thoughts to the Praxis when we return,” he said.

“But what happens if we can’t think of anything else?” Hatzis asked. “Do we just fight until we die?”

“We will retreat and rebuild the
Mantissa
elsewhere,” said Ueh, as though the answer was an obvious one. “Then our journey will resume.”

“Much reduced, obviously,” said Alander.

“There was no warning,” the alien said, his wing sheaths snapping slightly in what might have been the equivalent of a human facial twitch. “Losses could be as high as fifty percent.”

“I suppose that rules out the Species Dream for a while,” Alander said.

Ueh turned to look at Alander, then Hatzis. “Tell me,” he said. “Did you really not know about Axford’s plan?”

“I swear, Ueh,” Alander said soberly, “we didn’t know.” He returned to his seat, then, settling wearily into it with a tired sigh.

Hatzis couldn’t blame the Yuhl for doubting their word, but she was at a loss to know how she could prove their innocence in the face of Axford’s treachery. In the end she simply nodded at the Yuhl and said, “It’s true. We honestly had no idea what Axford had in mind,”

It was difficult to read the alien’s expression as he looked at both her and Alander in turn. Possibly satisfied, he turned again to the ship’s screen.

They relocated on the edge of the main battle. The activity was furious, and Ueh was hard-pressed to dodge a shower of strange new missiles fired their way. They looked similar to ones that had attacked
Arachne
in Sol, but these flew with less coordination, as though so many targets overloaded whatever guided them. For a dizzying moment, she felt as though she was scuba diving in a brilliant sea, swimming through the midst of a shoal of darting, silver fish that exploded at the slightest touch.

The fear of dying was still great in her, but a new one was quickly rising. Gou Mang was silent. She hadn’t replied to any of Hatzis’s transmissions since setting their plan in action. Either she had been ousted from power on Sothis or...

That was an
or
she didn’t want to think about right then.

“We are disengaging to attempt your maneuver,” Ueh said after sending
Quadrille
back into unspace for a short distance. “The Praxis will give us a target when we are ready.”

Hatzis had seen the alien’s larger vessel briefly during the last skirmish. It had been in the process of evading crossfire laid down by three of the blue lances.

“It’s still alive, then?”

“Yes. It will join us shortly.”

They emerged in a pocket of empty space above the system’s ecliptic. They were alone, but only for a second as more than fifty singles and tetrads blossomed around them, painting the starscape a brilliant white. A few of them, she noted with pride, were from Juno, but she didn’t have a chance to find out if Kingsley Oborn was in any of them.

“We won’t have long before the Starfish notice us,” Alander said.

“The Praxis is aware of this,” said Ueh.

Hatzis felt
Quadrille
shudder beneath her. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I have volunteered to take part in the attack,” Ueh said. On the screen, the numerous hole ships surrounding them began to divide. But they weren’t dividing into singles. The white circles blossoming out of the void didn’t become as large as that. They were much smaller, some of them barely three meters across.

“I don’t understand,” Alander began, staring dumbly.

“You have discovered that hole ships can join,” Ueh went on, “but you may not have guessed that they can divide, as well. A single hole ship can split itself into three parts, and each part can support life. Some of their capacities are reduced, but they should have more than enough for what we intend to do.”

“Which means they can be armed, I’m guessing?” said Alander. “Or at least fitted with automatic mines?”

The Yuhl hesitated for a moment, almost as if concentrating, then moved its head slowly up and down in a manner that approximated a nod—a human affectation the alien was consciously trying to emulate. “All we have to do is hold out long enough for them to get in place.”

“Inside one of the Spinner ships, you mean?” Hatzis said.

Ueh nodded again. “The weapons have been programmed to arrive in different sections of the vessel. They will explode on arrival.”

Hatzis flinched as something painfully bright burst at her out of the screens.
Quadrille
jolted beneath them. Ueh tugged at the controls and urged the vessel into a desperate spiral, away from whatever had attacked them. The space they were moving through was suddenly boiling with energy. Through it, visible only in glimpses, was the razor-edged hull of a Starfish disk. It blocked out half the universe, its surface blurred by rotation. The distortion in space-time it dragged around with it seemed to impart a vibration on everything nearby. Even through the inertia-dampening fields of the hole ship, she felt its presence as much as saw it.

Single hole ships and tetrads exploded when struck by the powerful weapons of the Starfish. Among them, she noted, were the smaller spheres they’d intended to attack this mighty ship with. They hadn’t even left yet.

“Where the hell is the Praxis?” Alander asked anxiously, his voice raised. “Has it called the attack?”

“It hasn’t arrived yet,” said Ueh, clearly fighting to remain calm.

“Has it been destroyed?” Hatzis asked.

“I do not know.”

Hatzis’s stomach sank at the thought that the Praxis, the only creature capable of coordinating the Yuhl’s attack, may have been blown out of the sky.

“Then hadn’t you better launch the attack anyway?” she said. “This could be our last chance!”

Ueh stiffened at the controls.

She didn’t hear him say anything, but a second later, the hundred or more smaller spheres vanished from the space around them. There was no way to monitor their progress. All she could do was cross her fingers and hope for the best.

Then her attention was taken by a new assault from the blue lances. Dozens of the things appeared from nowhere to attack the formation Ueh was flying within. The formation broke apart, and flash after flash of furious energy followed them as they raced away from a concentration of enemy fire, Ueh doing everything he could to dodge in three directions at once. Hatzis clutched the sides of her flight couch and wished there was something she could do other than just watch. She felt impotent, useless.

They evaded the lances only to fall foul of the red darts. One of them came so close that the screens went entirely red for a moment. A second came closer still. Hatzis only had enough time to think that a third might finish them off when it very nearly happened. A yellow bomb blinked into life directly in front of their tetrad and exploded with such force that Hatzis blacked out for a moment. She fought the blackness, fearing it was death, and dragged herself back into full consciousness.
I will not die here,
she told herself.
I will
not
die!

When her eyes had recovered, she saw that the cockpit was filled with a white, powdery mist.

“I have sustained damage,” she heard the voice of
Quadrille
announce quietly.

Ueh emitted a grating, close-pitched whistle as he fought controls that didn’t respond as they were meant to. A close-hatched weave of red darts seemed to wrap itself around them as three of the blue lances closed in.

Something struck
Quadrille
a hammer blow, wrenching her seat onto its side and throwing Ueh across the room. Atmosphere boiled around her as one whole side of the cockpit disappeared in a single chunk. In the vacuum, she couldn’t hear Alander shouting, but she could see him gripping his flight couch as it hung over the yawning void, exposed to the furious energy fire filling the space around them. She wanted to help him, to take his outstretched arm and pull him back to safety, but her couch wouldn’t let her. It wrapped itself around her like an ameba, trying to keep her safe but in effect pinning her down. But for their I-suits, both of them would have been killed instantly. That was simply delaying the inevitable, though. They were exposed to the battle around them. There was no hole ship to protect them, no Ueh to fly them to safety. It wouldn’t take a red dart or yellow bomb to finish them off; a single piece of shrapnel or a radiation flash would be enough, no matter how much she willed it to be otherwise.