Spheres of Influence-eARC (29 page)

Chapter 35.

“Time to even the odds,” Orphan said, even as streaks of light flashed past
Zounin-Ginjou
.

The great ship groaned audibly and the safety harnesses creaked as Orphan rammed the nose of
Zounin-Ginjou
downward. DuQuesne felt his body nearly flung towards the ceiling.
Holy mother of…the acceleration this thing can manage is
impressive
, I’ll say that.

At the same time, DuQuesne keyed in the commands he’d been shown and grasped the twin curved controllers. The display enhanced what could be seen, and he squeezed tight on the lefthand control.

A blare of pure white incandescence speared outward, slashing straight through the midsection of one of the approaching vessels—which staggered and then vanished in an eye-searingly bright explosion. The detonation sent shrapnel hurtling through the sky in all directions, battering another of the attackers. “Ha!
That
’s what you get for trying to ambush
us
!”

Sapphire-and-pearl clouds rose up, obscuring vision, while defensive proximity cannon whined, spewing hypervelocity rounds into an oncoming missile, chewing it to splinters before the warhead let go with a blast that jolted
Zounin-Ginjou
.

“I see,” said Simon, his voice shaky but his hands working on the control panel steadily. “In the clouds combat must be even closer—and harder for everyone to concentrate on us.”

“Precisely, my friends,” Orphan said, and triggered a volley of cannon towards another shadow in the mist. “We are going to die; make no mistake on that, for all it will take is a single lucky strike, as with your first shot, Doctor.”

“I thought that was skill,” he said, scanning the indicators for any clear targets.

“Oh, undoubtedly there was skill,” Orphan agreed, turning sharply to port and continuing to head downward. “But the armor on their vessels—or
Zounin-Ginjou
—is more than capable of taking several hits from most weapons. I would venture a guess you happened to hit one of the weapon ports just as it opened, thus getting your shot past most of the armor and into the storage coils.”

“Remember to be careful when firing, Marc, Orphan,” Simon reminded them. “We can’t just unload on
Thilomon
.”

“Yeah, I know. But thanks for the reminder.”
Still nothing.

“Couldn’t they just continue on, leaving their reinforcements to mop up?” Simon asked.

“Oh, they
could
,” Orphan agreed, “but consider what they have
done
. They have kidnapped the Leader of a Faction. They cannot afford to have
that
tale told by witnesses such as we—
hold on!
”

Out of the indigo gloom suddenly loomed an immense shape, not even a
kilometer
away, and the hull of
Zounin-Ginjou
rang like a tin roof in hail as a firestorm of hypersonic cannon slammed into the flagship of the Liberated, while Orphan took them into a steep climb.

But at that range,
I
can’t miss
you
either!
DuQuesne’s hands danced across the controls and he pulled back on the joystick. “Orphan, come back, back down, quarter circle towards him!”

“But that—”

“
DO IT!”

Zounin-Ginjou
slewed around, nose now pointing directly at the oncoming Blessed warship—and DuQuesne released the trigger, firing the synchronized weaponry from all forward batteries in a single shot. Energy weapons and missiles and hypersonic rounds clawed at near-invincible armor, ripped it apart piece by stubbornly-protesting piece, and suddenly another flare of unbearable incandescence told them one more adversary was gone.

Orphan laughed unsteadily. “Ahh, well done, yet you confuse me, Doctor! How did you manage to slave all the forward weapons to a single control?”

That
made him pause for a moment.
How
did
I..?

“Hey,
you
showed me the controls—and I’ve been on your ships for weeks now!”

“Then you learn swiftly and well.”

He saw Simon looking at him with an analytical eye that also bothered him.
Wasn’t he near panic a second ago?

But there was no time to think about things; radar signals were closing on both sides.
Neither of them’s
Thilomon
; wrong radar encoding. Well, I’m sure as hell not waiting to see what’s coming or find out if they know we’re here—

Even as he fired salvos in both directions, the displays showed multiple missile launches. He saw Simon already launching flares and chaff, Orphan readjusting the point-defense cannon, and heard himself laughing, realized…he felt
good
, and knew why, when he saw another flare of light and realized yet another enemy was damaged or destroyed. “This is just like the old days!” he said, thinking back to the life he’d had as a Hyperion. “And if Rich Seaton were here, somehow we
would
beat these bastards, I tell you that. As it is, they’ll by
God
know they’ve been in a fight!”

Zounin-Ginjou
breached from cloud again, and
Thilomon
cast a tiny shadow over them.
Close enough to try,
DuQuesne thought, and took careful aim, ignoring for the moment other pursuers.
Now!

But just as he fired,
Thilomon
swerved, almost as though the other ship had
sensed
his focus. The concentrated column of destructive energy ripped through nothing but air. “Damnation!”

Alarms bleeped out even as small concussions vibrated through
Zounin-Ginjou
, and Orphan gave a buzzing curse, trying to turn back towards the cloudbank. But other dark shapes were materializing from the fog, and DuQuesne realized there was now nowhere to run.

“Damage control underway,” Simon reported, directing the repairs by the semi-automatics. “But we can’t keep getting hit!”

“I shall most certainly inform the Blessed of that when I have the opportunity,” Orphan said dryly, sending their vessel charging towards the nearest adversary.

Beams and bullets were exchanged, hammering and blazing against intractable yet not-quite-invincible armor, and the two vessels passed within a few hundred meters of each other, so close that almost DuQuesne thought he could see the panic on the faces of the Blessed as he got a perfect shot lined up on the opposing ship’s bridge and squeezed the trigger.

The detonation
shoved
Zounin-Ginjou
sideways, so quickly that DuQuesne grunted at the acceleration and Simon went pale. “We’re not finished yet! Four down!”

“Five,” he heard Simon say with satisfaction, and realized that the white-haired scientist had been accessing the secondary batteries while DuQuesne was using the primaries. “It seems I managed to put a shot through one of the engine housings on the one diving on us.”

DuQuesne grinned tightly. “That leaves just fourteen more.”

Orphan shook his head and flicked his hands out for a moment, wingcases tight as vault doors. “I admire your courage, Doctor DuQuesne—and your resourcefulness, Doctor Sandrisson, for I was unsure how easily weapons could be controlled from that station.” His tail suddenly arched in attack position. “
By the—hold on!
”

DuQuesne saw it on his display—a tight grouping of missiles, fired in a coordinated wave by the three closest ships, streaking in at
Zounin-Ginjou
. “Dammit! No way to make it to the cloud!”

The missiles screamed inward, separating and weaving slightly but tracking the Liberated flagship implacably. Simon fired chaff and flares; a few veered off, confused, but others bored on, closing in. The point defense cannons shrieked fury at the sky, slashing oncoming missiles to flinders and shards of junk, and
still
some bored in, DuQuesne swung the main batteries around, opened fire with everything, sweeping the sky with fire and explosives, there were fewer, six missiles, four, three, one—

Zounin-Ginjou
staggered in the sky like a fighter caught with a perfect right cross on the chin, slewing sideways and rolling; inside, DuQuesne felt like he was inside a dice cup being shaken.
And if we weren’t strapped down, it’d be
worse
!

Orphan got the motion under control, but DuQuesne could feel—and hear—that the great ship was no longer moving with such assured, smooth power and grace. “Serious damage to control linkages and relays!” Orphan said.

There was a sound of releasing catches, and Simon stood up. “On my way.”

“What? Simon, you don’t—”

But the tall, slender Doctor Sandrisson was already running through the doors, closing the transport tube.
Dammit, what the hell does he think he’s doing? He doesn’t know how a tenth of this stuff is designed!

Neither do you,
the cynical voice of his original self said.
Funny how you still seem to know how to run it, isn’t it?

“Let us hope Doctor Sandrisson knows what he is doing, Doctor DuQuesne,” Orphan said. “For they are…”

DuQuesne saw the wings tighten and then droop, fall flat as they had only once before in DuQuesne’s memory—when Orphan had despaired of confronting Amas-Garao and left.

On the screen the radar was suddenly showing
more
contacts.

Dozens. Maybe hundreds. All heading straight for us.

Hope, before only a faint gleam, faded away.

“Fine!” he said, gritting his teeth. “You’ve got more reinforcements? Let’s see how many more we can take
with
us! Orphan, snap out of it! If we’re going to die, let’s die
well
, dammit!”

Orphan was still a moment, and then gave a convulsive yank on the controls.
Zounin-Ginjou
turned, heading directly for
Thilomon
. “As you say.” A faint touch of his good humor returned. “As you say, Doctor DuQuesne.

“Let us die
very
well.”

Zounin-Ginjou
drove straight towards the Blessed flagship, other ships’ fire rebounding harmlessly for the moment from its obdurate hull; but it was clear that
Thilomon
had no intention of allowing so direct a confrontation; it was retreating, and while
Zounin-Ginjou
was faster, DuQuesne knew they could not long ignore the other ships which were quickly moving to intercept and destroy.

The new contacts were closing in now, from the direction of a great white cloud, and there were
lots
of them, so many that as they approached, the cloud began to
darken
.

DuQuesne stared. “Sweet spirits of niter…what the…”

Orphan, too, was momentarily stunned. “This…could make things
very
messy. Very messy indeed.”

Chapter 36.

Ariane stared helplessly as the Blessed fleet swung with lethal precision and dove towards
Zounin-Ginjou
. Her hands found a railing nearby and gripped, holding her against the jolts of sharp maneuvers that, though lessened, were still felt onboard
Thilomon
.

The displays split, showing feeds from different ships in the attacking force. At distances of a thousand miles or less, strong transmitters could bridge that distance, weld the nineteen vessels into a coordinated, unstoppable force. Orphan took his ship into a steep dive, initial salvoes failing to find their mark, and disappeared into the cloud from whence he’d come—but not before a blast of energy seared through the atmosphere of the Arena and shattered one of the newcomers to dust and smoke.

Vantak buzzed something insulting, but did not move. The vessels mantained their pattern, many of the Blessed vessels following into the clouds while
Thilomon
and the rest remained above, in the clear, watching and waiting, poised to rain destruction upon the enemy vessel when she dared emerge from the clouds.

Bluish mist and murkiness on the monitors, different vessels driving through the cloud in a deadly search. Suddenly a darker shadow, not where the other vessels should be, and blazing fire being exchanged. She saw faint flashes, sparks of impact from weapons hammering at the hull of
Zounin-Ginjou
even as the Liberated battleship tried to swing clear—and then wrenched around, coming about without warning.

“What in the Minds is he
doing?
” muttered Vantak. “He’s charging
into
the attack—”

The screen went blank, and Ariane gave a tense cheer. “That’s two, Vantak. Two in three minutes. That gives your whole fleet what, just about half an hour before it’s all wiped out?”

Sethrik stood near her, wingcases tight, and she knew that despite her taunt, her hands were even tighter, white-knuckled on the rail.

More flickers, half-seen exchanges of weapons against a phantom opponent, and another sector of screen went blank. Then
Zounin-Ginjou
lunged from the cloudbank, streaming mist like water, and its main batteries were traversing—

“Full evasive turn
now!
” bellowed Vantak. The sudden yanking acceleration nearly knocked Ariane down. “No solo maneuvers, triples only! Battle groups, form and destroy!”

Six groups of three began to form up, preparing to coordinate in the destruction of the last of the Liberated. The shining sculpture of
Zounin-Ginjou
was marred now, and even as she tried desperately to escape, more fire washed across the Liberated flagship.

This is
my
fault.

A part of her wanted to evade those words, as her friends were trying to evade the battle group, but both were doomed attempts.

Two more ships of the Blessed erupted in blinding light and were gone, and Vantak gave an inarticulate screech of disbelief and fury. “They are but three on
one
ship! Why are they not
dust
by now?”

She wanted to cheer, but she could see the damage, the shining armor dulled, chipped, scarred, scorched, and she knew the truth. Yes, Orphan and DuQuesne and Simon would do a lot of damage—but the constant hammering would get
Zounin-Ginjou
eventually, whether in the next few minutes or after they got four, five, perhaps six more enemy vessels. Even with luck, even with the skill of Marc C. DuQuesne and the power of Orphan’s finest vessel and Simon’s quick wit, they could not evade that many bent on their own destruction, not forever.

And she couldn’t evade the truth.

This
is
my fault. I didn’t really
want
to be Leader of the Faction of Humanity, so I
didn’t
lead. I didn’t accept that I had to be
ready
to lead, had to be ready to
confront
people like Naraj and Ni Deng, and
keep
confronting them until they accepted that I was the Leader and was going to
stay
the Leader until
I
decided otherwise. I
let
them run the show because, honestly, I didn’t believe I had what it takes. That
no one
has what it takes to do that job. Naraj read me like a book, and I think he honestly spoke his mind—most of the time. He
knew
I really wanted to have someone else do the work—and so he did the work, him and Ni Deng.

And because of that, I got caught, Sethrik’s been stabbed in the back, Wu’s gone, and Simon and DuQuesne and Orphan are about to get killed.

A missile took
Zounin-Ginjou
amidships. Somehow Orphan’s ship shrugged off the impact, but it seemed to be flying just a hair less smoothly, and black smoke was trailing from the wound in the vessel’s side.

“Sethrik,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

He glanced at her in surprise. “Sorry? What in the Minds’ Names do you have to apologize for?”

“This is my fault, and I should never have let it happen. I promise you this much: if we somehow get through this, I won’t let it happen again.”

“I…do not quite understand,” Sethrik said, head tilted, even as Vantak was shouting clear, precise orders to complete
Zounin-Ginjou’s
destruction, “but how do you think you could have prevented this?”

“By doing what I should have done all along,” Ariane said, grimly certain. “By
being
the Leader of the Faction instead of
playing
at it. Dammit, I said enough times this wasn’t a simgame, but I
was
playing it like it was one—like I could step out whenever I got tired of the game.

“This isn’t a game, and I screwed up
big
time. I didn’t step up and take the load, and I let other people
think
I was, or
hope
I was. And all while I was telling people I wouldn’t let just anyone take it, either.”

Zounin-Ginjou
swung around and up and began a charge straight after
Thilomon;
Vantak simply ordered a retreat and began closing the pattern in on Orphan’s vessel.

Alarms suddenly buzzed. “Guidemaster! More contacts!
Many
more contacts! Closing fast!”

Vantak stiffened, and for the first time he looked actually confused, rather than merely nettled that
Zounin-Ginjou
was refusing to die exactly on schedule. “Contacts? What are they? Any transponders?”

“No transponders. Unknown profiles in the threat databases. Different profiles…
many
profiles!”

Vantak looked at the scans, then tilted his head; his wings scissored a moment in indecision. “Shift our vector to allow more space. Second and third triads, diverge to screen.”

As six ships spread in a defensive pattern between
Thilomon
and a huge white cloud about two hundred kilometers away, the cloud began to darken. Even Ariane stopped watching the duel between
Zounin-Ginjou
and the other Blessed ships; the whole battle, in fact, paused, as though everyone aboard all the vessels were holding their breaths.

And the cloud suddenly
exploded
outward, dozens, no,
hundreds
of black and gray and green and blue forms shooting out, directly for the Blessed fleet. In the center, a monstrous thing, white and black and blue rippling across its surface, blending it with the background so it seemed some hideous ghost, gargantuan, with a gleam of crystal teeth the size of houses, a sharklike profile in double symmetry, unmistakably alive, unmistakably predatory, impossibly cruising directly at them.

“
Morfalzeen!”
Hancray gasped, and the entire fleet shifted, even
Zounin-Ginjou
apparently uncertain whether to continue firing at the Blessed or at this titanic monstrosity—a hunting creature five kilometers long, Ariane realized incredulously as she saw the scale at the bottom of one display.
But of course there
would
be such things—what else would prey on something like the
vanthume
?

“That’s bad, I take it?” she murmured to Sethrik.

“
Morfalzeen
have been known to attack and destroy battleships, yes. Though they are not invincible and almost certainly die in the same attack. I am utterly at a loss, however, as to why the
rest
of these creatures,” he gestured at the motley assortment of Arenaspace life, ranging from
tzchina
to
virrin
and at least three or four others that she’d never seen, “are apparently
with
the
morfalzeen
.”

The cloud
bulged
outward and something else came through, something that drew incoherent shouts and curses from the Blessed and even from Sethrik.
It…looks like a Skyfall
. She remembered threading
that
desperate needle and nearly getting killed.
But it’s coming so fast, almost as though—

A
vanthume
emerged, shoving the mass of stone and earth ahead of it, into the approaching mob of creatures. The aerial avalanche curled around the
morfalzeen
, apparently almost unfelt, and the smaller creatures ducked and dodged amid the rocks. A fast-moving contingent of
zikki
streaked past
Thilomon
, closing to less than two hundred meters before veering off.

“What? What
is
this? Have the heavens gone insane?” Vantak cursed again. “Concentrate fire on the
mor
—”

Alarms did not buzz, but shrieked this time, and a machine-gun rattle of impacts echoed through
Thilomon
; the screens showed the other vessels in even more trouble—even as the
morfalzeen
accelerated forward, literally
shoving
one Blessed warship aside like a linebacker tossing a toddler out of his way. The immense creature jerked as explosive and energy salvoes struck it, but continued forward, undeviating, undeterred.

A missile struck and shattered directly on the main viewport in front of Ariane, and she realized it was…“Rock? Are those
zikki
throwing
rocks
at us?”

“What?” Sethrik stared, hands twitching in the instinctive “no” gesture. “Impossible. Ludicrous. The
zikki
cannot use tools, they haven’t the intelligence to think of such a tactic, and they have no reason to even
approach
something of this size!”

Now another wave of creatures wove in, ducking and weaving, evading energy weapons and futile cannon. The
tzchina
hurled their cargo, and more stone—and what looked like bones—rebounded from the viewport.

But…are those
scratches
?
“Sethrik—”

“I see…yes, the stone of the Arena is often made of the bones and such of dead creatures…and such often still has ring-carbon composite within. This battering will have an effect!”

The swarm wove through the Blessed ranks, sowing chaos.
Zounin-Ginjou
seemed oddly untouched, and suddenly swung about, firing on one of the nearer vessels; instantly the firefight began anew, but now a
three
-cornered battle, and one where one set of participants was a total mystery.

The Brobdingnagian
morfalzeen
bored onward, shrugging off missiles and cannon and stabbing energy weapons. To Ariane’s simultaneous amusement and horror, it seemed to have targeted
Thilomon
, for as the Blessed flagship tried to dodge out of the way, the
morfalzeen
turned with it.

“Reverse engines! Slow!”
shouted Vantak. “
Brace for impact!
”

The monstrous predator turned at the last second, but something huge and dark continued on, blotting out the sky, a gigantic stone that
smashed
into the bridge viewport;
Thilomon
staggered; and even as the darkness began to lighten, something else flickered, slammed into the viewport—

And the viewport
shattered
, exploding inward, scattering dust and stone and jagged-edged pieces of transparent ring-carbon composite everywhere. Kendret gave a buzzing shriek and collapsed as one glittering shard impaled him; Hancray, next to him, was knocked from his seat and lay still, unconscious.

Dust filled the air, blanking out sight. She squinted, trying to see through drifting grayness.
There. Someone…a figure…

The wind from outside whipped in a breath of clearer air and she gasped as she suddenly saw…

…Robes of ruby and gold, sparkling of jade and sapphire and twilight purple; red-black hair flowing in the wind, bound by a golden circlet with a diamond sparkling like a star; and a crimson-and-gold staff gripped in a clawed hand…

Head held high, green-gold eyes coldly furious, Sun Wu Kung stood before them.

For a moment no one moved; even Vantak seemed utterly stunned, without words or understanding before the impossible.

The Monkey King cast his gaze around at the tableau, and then without warning took three swift strides and fell to his knees in front of Ariane. “I…failed you,” he said, and his voice was soft and sad. “I failed you and DuQuesne. I was supposed to protect you and I did not. I was tricked, drawn away by a childish deception, and even when I realized that…even then, I was not good enough, not fast enough. I failed you, and I am
ashamed
.”

Ariane was still staring, hardly able to grasp what she was seeing. “Wu…?” she whispered.

He looked up, and the emerald-auric eyes shimmered with tears of shame and remorse.

She suddenly felt her heart beating, hammering from shock and excitement—and finally she smiled. “Wu…Wu Kung, there is nothing to forgive, you…you…impossible, chaos-sowing…Wu, the only thing that matters to me is that you’re
alive
when I thought you were
dead.
”

His eyes widened and for a moment, as a slow, unbelieving smile dawned on his face, he looked both like a child whose mother had suddenly appeared to lift him up, and a man seeing a revelation. “R…really?”

“Really.”

The smile sharpened, even as she saw movement around them. “Then…” he stood, and whipped the staff around in a theatrical whirling motion that made everyone else leap back, “I think it’s time to
play!
”