by Eric Flint
Aguilera couldn't think of a worse way to die. Apparently, the sub's pilot had reached the same conclusion. He might not have been as good a pilot as Aille, but he was damn good—and with all a Jao's stoicism in the face of death. A moment later, the pilot had the wounded sub straight on a course toward the second Ekhat vessel.
He's going to ram.
"Interesting," said Aille. "We will see if it works. Watch, fraghta—you too, Aguilera. I will be too busy."
Too busy, indeed. Aille was now trying to bring his own sub to as much of a dead halt as possible, in order to give his gunners maximum time on target. In their first encounter, Aguilera had been fascinated to watch the young Pluthrak's skill. But now, he was almost oblivious to it, his eyes riveted on the sub speeding toward its collision with the other Ekhat ship.
The collision came just seconds later. It was a perfect ram, too, the sub impacting bow-on against the side of the central pyramid. It was a former boomer, almost six hundred feet long and weighing in the vicinity of twenty thousand tons. Aguilera could only estimate the velocity. It wasn't high, by aerospace standards, since maneuvering inside the sun's photosphere was more akin to traveling in a fluid than empty space or even an atmosphere. Probably less than two hundred miles an hour, at a guess.
But it hardly mattered. The sub punched through the relatively thin hull of the Ekhat pyramid almost as easily as an awl penetrates thin leather. For a moment, Aguilera expected to see it punching out the other side.
But that was impossible, of course. At the last, the forcefields would probably have kept the crew from being killed by the sudden deceleration caused by the impact—most of them anyway, although certainly not the men in the surviving turrets. Still, the energies involved would have been enough to bring the sub to a stop somewhere inside that great central chamber.
Aguilera could envision it in his mind, from the nightmare scene Tully had described to him when he'd visited the Interdict ship. The dying submarine, nestled inside the huge enemy ship as if it had been swallowed.
But the relationship between predator and prey was reversed here. If the crew had survived, especially the men in the missile rooms . . .
They hadn't converted all the missile launchers to position tanks as jury-rigged gun turrets. They'd decided to leave four intact, just in case this very eventuality came to pass.
Rafe began softly reciting the Lord's Prayer. Yaut glanced at him, curiously, but said nothing.
Suddenly, a great bursting flare erupted from the wound in the side of the Ekhat ship caused by the sub's ramming. Within a second, the opening was torn wider still.
"That seems too mild for a nuclear explosion," said Yaut, his ears and whiskers indicating obvious puzzlement even to Aguilera's unpracticed eye.
"It's not one," Rafe replied. "That's the effects of the rocket fuel we're seeing. They must have fired at least one of the missiles. Those are three-stage rockets with graphite-epoxy hulls, loaded with propellant. The missiles probably would have impacted something even before the rockets ignited, just from the force of the compressed air launch. That would have been enough to rupture or shatter the hulls and spill burning fuel everywhere—and judging from the stink when I was aboard one, those ships are full of flammable compounds."
He added, sadly, "They did all they could, and that ship's probably dead anyway even if the warhead doesn't go off. Those warheads don't get armed immediately. They're on timed fuses for safety. If the fuses survived the impact, though—"
A sudden thought came to him. Even in the middle of the sun's photosphere, a thermonuclear explosion was nothing you wanted to be anywhere near. He started to turn toward Aille, to warn him, but saw that the young Pluthrak had already adjusted course. With another dazzling display of pilotry, he was positioning his sub to leave the one Ekhat ship as a shield against the other—and, Aguilera could now see, was going to be bringing them almost to a dead halt in the process. A slow walk, anyway.
Just as the rammed Ekhat ship had almost disappeared from view behind the first ship, the granular cells were roiled still further—not much, of course. But the blaze of light was nothing to sneer at, not even here. The fuses had survived—one of them, at least—and several hundred kilotons was enough to completely destroy even an Ekhat behemoth.
"Deliver us from evil," Rafe whispered. "Amen."
Standing at his side, Yaut's look of puzzlement vanished, replaced by a posture which Aguilera recognized. Gratified-respect, the same posture he had bestowed upon Kralik, when Kralik had predicted there would be more than enough volunteers for the ships. Honoring the courage of the men and Jao who had just destroyed an Ekhat vessel at the cost of their own lives—but not surprised that they had done so.
Aille was now bringing them alongside the surviving Ekhat ship. The enemy vessel had been set slowly spinning by the collision that had doomed the sub. So, Aille was staying perhaps half a mile outside the sweep of those outer lattice-beams, lest one of them smash into his sub. Instead of threading his way through the lattice as he'd done before, to bring them into point blank range, this engagement would have to take place at a considerably greater distance. On the other hand, he'd almost brought the sub to a standstill relative to the enemy—and, spinning the way it was, the guns would be able to riddle it on every side.
"It's all yours, General," Rafe said into the throat mike. "Tear that bastard apart for us, would you please?"
* * *
Kralik and his gunners did, even though the heat in the turrets was now so intense that they'd stripped to the waist and were trying to see and work through pouring sweat. The environmental conditions in the turrets were now so bad that they'd have to be evacuated after this engagement. Fortunately, Turret Six was on the opposite side and thus out of action, so Aguilera was able to persuade the crew to abandon it before they died. It took him exactly fifty-eight seconds to do so.
But, sweat aside, it was a turkey shoot. Even at three mile range, the DU penetrators didn't ablate enough to lose any significant impact. The turrets' auto-loaders were working at full speed now, since there was no need to track the target, slamming the rounds into the chamber and igniting the liquid propellant. Ten rounds a minute, from each of four turrets, and Aille was able to keep them on target for almost two minutes.
Rafe estimated that something over sixty rounds had hit the Ekhat ship, before the already collision-damaged enemy vessel simply began coming apart. The heat and shock of the DU penetrators was igniting everything flammable aboard it, and he was sure the intensifying heat was spreading on its own throughout the vessel. A chain reaction of explosions, in temperature ranges where almost anything would burn.
Suddenly, in at least a dozen places, the central pyramid ruptured. As it did, the outer lattice began separating and disintegrating. It was like watching a gigantic and grotesque flower slowly unfolding—until the structural damage finally caused the ship's forcefields to collapse. Thereafter, the photosphere's own heat and pressure and turbulence completed the destruction within seconds.
"And that's that," Rafe murmured. More forcefully, into the throat mike: "Ed, you've done all you can. Get yourself and all your men out of those turrets. Now."
Kralik didn't argue the point. Courage was meaningless, under these circumstances. The turret crews were willing enough to die fighting, but the environmental conditions were now so bad that they'd simply die pointlessly if they stayed much longer. As it was, Aguilera was sure that at least half of them would need immediate medical attention.
For that matter, the sub's own environment was now starting to degrade badly. Aguilera hadn't noticed before, he'd been so engrossed in watching the enemy's destruction, but he himself was drenched in sweat and having a hard time breathing.
Jeri Swanson was her usual charming self. "Hey, Rafe, if we're going to parboil can I start peeling yams to go with the long pig? Too bad we don't have any pineapple."
I'd 've divorced her in two weeks, myself. But he kept the thought to himself,
turning instead to address the back of Aille's head. Even the two Jao in the control center seemed to be wilting a little.
"Ah, sir, if I might recommend—"
"No need," interrupted Aille. "I am taking us out of the photosphere. We have done what we can."
Done plenty, Rafe thought, with considerable pride and satisfaction. Two dead 'uns, and . . . we'll call it one assist. No, two—we riddled that second ship some too, even if we don't know what happened to it afterward. If the rest of the subs did as well as we did, this Ekhat task force is toast.
* * *
The others hadn't done as well, they discovered once they emerged far enough from the chromosphere to regain communication. Several of the subs, in fact, had never managed to get close enough to the Ekhat to fire off a single shot.
Aguilera was not really surprised. Now that he had experienced it, he understood the kind of superlative skill it took to maneuver a converted submarine in those hellish conditions. Only Aille and one other pilot had really been good enough—one of the old retirees that Wrot had dug up, by the name of Udra krinnu Ptok vau Binnat. Between the two of them, they'd accounted for four of the six Ekhat ships destroyed.
Six destroyed—out of eight. In the holo tank, Aguilera could see the two surviving Ekhat ships hurtling toward Terra like comets.
Damn. I was hoping we could get them all.
Still . . . He leaned closer, peering at one of the images in the tank.
"There is something wrong with one of those ships," Yaut stated firmly. "Look. The plasma ball is fluctuating and uneven."
The fraghta had put into words Aguilera's own half-formed thoughts. "We must have damaged it some. Do you think?"
Some part of him was amused to see Yaut shrug. Yet another piece of crude human body language which the fraghta had unconsciously acquired.
At least, he thought it was unconscious. But, maybe not. Rafe now understood enough about the role of a fraghta to realize that anyone who occupied that position for one of the great kochan would be expert at many things. One of them being what the Jao called "association." Was this part of it?
Suddenly, the fluctuating plasma ball in the holo tank began unraveling completely. It reminded Aguilera, a bit, of the sight of the Interdict ship shedding its plasma. But this was a much bigger ball, and it was obviously not being shed in a controlled manner.
This time, it was Aille who verbalized his thoughts. "Yes, they must have been badly damaged in the battle. But still, with typical Ekhat mania, attempted to carry out their mission. Now they are losing control—and their own plasma ball will destroy them for it."
Within seconds, it was obvious that he was right. The Ekhat had tried to control a literal piece of a star—and now the star took its revenge. There was more than enough energy in that plasma ball to rip the Ekhat ship to pieces as it came apart.
One left, then. There was no way to stop it until it had unleashed its plasma ball in the Earth's atmosphere. After that, it would be up to Oppuk and his flotilla to destroy the Ekhat ship before it could return to the sun to gather up another.
Would he do so? Rafe wondered. Or would the Governor's now obvious hatred for Terra lead him to simply stand aside and let the Ekhat ship return again and again?
There would be little the subs could do to stop it. Only eight of the subs had survived, and they'd all suffered so much damage that to attempt another return would be sure destruction to no purpose. And, outside the sun, they would be no match even for a single Ekhat warship. Not with the huge lasers that ship would carry. In the photosphere, the advantage had been all with the subs. But in the vacuum of open space, it would be suicidal for them to attack the gigantic enemy ship. Only specially designed warships could manage that feat—and, even for them, it was risky.
He must have muttered his thoughts aloud, because Yaut spoke in response.
"Oppuk will not fail. True, he is not sane. But he is a not-sane Jao. He will retain enough vithrik. And, did he not, his own crews would demand his life."
He was probably right, Rafe suspected. He'd listened, a couple of times, to Dr. Kinsey's ruminations about the parallels between the Jao and the ancient Romans—as well as the ancient Mongols. And while Aguilera was not sure how closely those parallels held, of one thing he was quite certain. The Jao could be brutal, but they were not brutes. If they had the vices of conquerors, they also had the virtues. They would no more tolerate cowardice in the face of the enemy from one of their own that would any ancient Roman centurion or Mongol cavalryman.
He felt a moment of sheer camaraderie toward Yaut, then. Fortunately, he remembered in time to restrain himself from clapping the fraghta on the back. He'd also chatted with Tully once, and, like Tully, Rafe had seen a number of Toshirô Mifune movies.
The intelligent man does not take personal liberties with Yojimbo. Even in a good mood, on a good day.
Zzzt. Plop goes the offending hand.
Chapter 38
When Kralik emerged from the converted submarine after it landed at Pascagoula, the fierce afternoon light made him squint. The heat, on the other hand, even for Mississippi in late summer, didn't seem bad at all. The air was not nearly as hot as that within the sub and felt almost cool against his face. The stench of scorched hull washed over him, combined with the miasma of unwashed bodies and sweat that the sub's air scrubbers had not been able to suppress.
Blue-green ocean glittered just a quarter of a mile away, but closer in, a restless tide of humans and Jao waited at the edge of the tarmac. A few hopeful souls held up signs of welcome, but most were silent, radiating dread.
Then he spotted Caitlin, lovely and straight, watching as he forced his rubbery legs to climb down the portable staircase the base workers had brought onto the tarmac. Numb with fatigue, he had to cling to the handrails.
A murmur went up from the crowd as the rest of the dazed crew appeared one by one behind him, their faces tight with strain. There wasn't a man or woman among them, he thought, who wasn't running on pure nerve at this point.
Overhead, the golden light streamed down with only a hint of the same devil's fire that fueled this entire solar system. He realized it would take some time before he could stand out in the sun without remembering those hellish currents.
"Ed!" Caitlin dashed forward, bursting through a temporary cordon erected to keep onlookers back.
A jinau soldier caught her around the waist, but Kralik waved him off. "It's okay," he called. "The lady's with me. My fiancée, in fact."
His voice was hoarse with weariness, but the last sentence picked up his spirits immensely. Kralik had led a lonely life, the past two decades. There had been girlfriends here and there—two of them fairly serious—but the peculiarities of his position as a top jinau officer had always seemed to get in the way of any really serious romance. Though Caitlin was much younger than he was, with her that wouldn't be a problem. She understood the Jao and the realities of dealing with them up close even better than he did.
What was even more important—for once, he cast aside his normal caution—was that he'd come to adore the woman. It didn't hurt anything, of course, that she was so damn good-looking.
She threw herself into his arms and pressed her lips to his, kissing him hard before she drew back. It was an inexperienced kiss, but you certainly couldn't fault her enthusiasm.
"They said almost half the subs were lost." Her voice cracked. "And they didn't have a survivors' list. I guess—" She straightened. "I guess that sort of thing isn't a priority with the Jao."
He drank in her face. Her blue-gray eyes were wet and darkly luminous, the pupils only pinpoints in the bright light. "How bad is it? I know one of the Ekhat ships got past us. Did—"
"Governor Oppuk's forces destroyed it, but not before the Ekhat unleashed its plasma ball over south China." She turned her head and looked back over her shoulder, as though the devastation were visible, even from here. "The loss of life—it was pretty bad, Ed. Even with everybody taking what shel
ter they could, that's a densely populated area. Whole forests are gone, entire ecosystems obliterated, God only knows how many people dead. At least a million, probably a lot more. The Chinese are being as close-mouthed as they usually are."
His jaw tightened and he could feel a knot behind his eyes. "Damnation."
"No," she said and turned her gaze to the scorched subs. Other men and women were finding those who'd come to meet them, conducting reunions, but, off to the side, many stood silent, their loved ones lost forever in the burning fires of the sun. Her fingers tightened on his arm. "After seeing what's left of the affected areas, everybody knows this world is lucky to be here at all. If their entire force had gotten through—"
He nodded, then buried his face in her clean-smelling hair and held her close. "Well, it's over."
Caitlin shook her head, still pressed against his shoulder. "No, it isn't, Ed. It may get worse. The comm center is now reporting that Oppuk is preparing bolides." She leaned back and stared at him, hollow-eyed. "They think he's going to start bombarding the planet, in the name of crushing a rebellion. It'll be Chicago and New Orleans—and Everest—a hundred times over."
* * *
A groundcar pulled up, with a military driver. As always, rank had its privileges, even in the midst of disaster. Kralik started to open the door for Caitlin, but she did for herself before he could reach it. He smiled ruefully, half at himself and half at the situation in general. Leave it to Ed Kralik to fall in love with a woman who had Jao habits; sometimes, even, Jao attitudes.
He climbed in after her. He was so weary, the black tarmac seemed to shimmer before his eyes like a heat image. He ached to stretch out in some cool, darkened room with Caitlin in his arms, as he had the night before the submarine fleet had lifted off, but such indulgence was out of the question. Since Oppuk's fury was undimmed, the real battle was most likely just beginning.