David Weber - Armageddon Inheritance

by Armageddon Inheritance [lit]

  There had been a few more of them about, he noted. There were a third-twelve of new ships to replace the one they had lost in the first clash. Well, that was scarcely enough to affect the outcome.

  His scanners gave no clear idea what was happening on the innermost planet, but something was producing a massive energy signature there, though why the nest-killers had ignored the more hospitable worlds further out puzzled him. Perhaps they were simply poorer strategists than they were ship-builders. And perhaps they had some other reason he knew not of? But whatever their logic, it was about to become a deathtrap for them.

  Of course, they were infernally fast even in n-space.... If they made a break for it, none of his nestlings could stay with them, but he knew an answer for that.

  "They are deploying an outer sphere, Colin."

  "I see it. Want to bet they leave it ten or twelve light-minutes out to catch us between two fires if we run?"

  "I have nothing to wager."

  "Chicken! What a cop out!"

  "Enemy entering specified attack range." Dahak's mellow voice was suddenly deeper.

  "Engage as previously instructed," Colin said formally.

  "Engaging, Your Majesty."

  Great Lord Sorkar flinched as the first of his ships exploded in eye-clawing fury. Nest Lord! He had known they out-ranged him, but by that much?

  More ships exploded, and now those strange, terrible warheads were striking home, crumpling his mighty starships in upon themselves, but still the nest-killers made no effort to flee. Clearly they meant to cover the planet to the end. What in the name of Tarhish could make it so important to them?! No matter. They were standing, waiting for him to kill them.

  "Open the formation," he told his lords. "Maintain closure rate."

  More ships died like small, dreadful suns, and Sorkar watched coldly. He must endure this for another quarter segment, but then it would be his turn.

  Jiltanith bit her lower lip as searing flashes ripped the Achuultani formation. The Empire's anti-matter warhead yields were measured in gigatons, and fifteen planetoids pumped their dreadful missiles into the oncoming Achuultani, yet still the enemy closed. Something inside her tried to admire their courage, but that was her husband, her Colin, alone with his electronic henchman, who stood against them, and she gripped her dagger hilt, black eyes hungry, and rejoiced as the spalls of destruction pocked Two's display.

  "They are entering their range of us, Colin," Dahak said coolly, and Colin nodded silently, awed by the waves of fire sweeping the Achuultani formation. The flames leapt high as each salvo struck, then died, only to bloom afresh, like embers fanned by a bellows, as the next salvo crashed home.

  "Their losses?" he asked sharply.

  "Estimate one hundred six thousand, plus or minus point-six percent."

  Jesus. We've killed close to nine percent of them and they're still coming. They've got guts, but Lord God are they dumb! If we could do this to them another ten or fifteen times...

  But maybe they're not so dumb, because we can't do it to them that many times. Of course, they can't know we don't have thousands of planetoids-

  "Enemy has opened fire," Dahak said, and Colin tensed.

  Sorkar managed not to cheer as the first greater thunder burst among the enemy. Now, Nest-Killers! Now comes your turn to face the Furnace!

  More and more of his ships entered range, hurling their hyper missiles into the enemy, and his direct-vision panel polarized as a cauldron of unholy Fire boiled against the nest-killers' shields.

  Jiltanith tasted blood, and her knuckles whitened on her dagger as a second star blazed in the Zeta Trianguli System. It grew in fury, hotter and brighter, born of millions of anti-matter warheads, and Colin was at its heart.

  The enemy continued to close, dying as he came, trailing broken starships like a disemboweled monster's entrails. But still he came on, and the weight of his fire was inconceivable. She knew the plan, knew Colin fought for information as well as victory, but this was too much.

  "Now, my love," she whispered. "Fly now, my Colin! Fly now!"

  "Trosan has been destroyed. Heavy damage to Mairsuk. We have-"

  Dahak's voice broke off as his stupendous mass heaved. The display blanked, and Colin paled at the terrible reports in his neural feed.

  "Three direct hits," Dahak reported. "Heavy damage to Quadrants Rho-Two and Four. Seven percent combat capability lost."

  Colin swore hoarsely. Dahak's shield had been heavily overhauled at Bia. It was just as good as his automated minions', but his other defenses were not. He was simply slower and far less capable, than they. If the enemy noticed and decided to concentrate on him....

  "Gohar destroyed. Shinhar heavily damaged; combat capability thirty-four percent. Enemy entering energy weapon range."

  "Then let's see how tough these bastards really are!" Colin grated. "Execute Plan Volley Fire."

  Sorkar blinked as the nest-killers moved. All this time they had held their positions, soaking up his thunder, killing his ships. Now, when they had finally begun to die, they moved... but to advance, not to flee!

  Then their energy weapons fired at last, and he gasped in disbelief.

  "Yes! Yes!" Colin shouted. Dahak's energy weapons were blasts of fury that rent the molecular bindings of their targets; those of the Empire were worse. They shattered atomic bindings, inducing instant fission.

  Now those dreadful weapons stabbed out from the beam-heavy Trosans, and Colin's missiles suddenly became a side show. No Achuultani shield could stop those furious beams, and their kiss was death.

  Sorkar's desperate pleas for advice hammered at Battle Comp. Were these nest-killers the very Spawn of Tarhish?! What deviltry transformed his very ships into warheads of the lesser thunder?!

  Unaccustomed panic pounded him. With those beams, they might yet cut their way through his entire fleet, and the closer he came to them, the more easily they could kill his Protectors!

  But Battle Comp did not know what panic was, and its dispassionate analysis calmed his visceral terror. Yes, the cost would be terrible, but the nest-killers were also dying. They would wound the Great Visit more deeply than Sorkar had believed possible, but they would die, Tarhish take them!

  "We are down to seven units," Dahak reported. "Approximately two hundred ninety-one thousand Achuultani ships have been destroyed."

  "Execute Plan Shiva," Colin rasped.

  "Executing, Your Majesty," Dahak said once more, and the Enchanach Drives of eight Imperial planetoids roared to life. In one terrible, perfectly synchronized instant, eight gravity wells, each more massive than Zeta Trianguli's own, erupted barely six light-minutes from the star.

  A twelve of greater twelves of Sorkar's ships disappeared, torn apart and scattered over the universe, as the impossible happened. For an instant, his mind was totally blank, and then he realized.

  He was dead, and every one of his nestlings with him.

  Had it been intended from the outset that the nest-killers should suicide? Destroy themselves with some inconceivably powerful version of the warheads which had ravaged his ships?

  He heard Battle Comp using his voice, ordering his fleet to turn and flee, but he paid it no heed. They were too deep into the gravity well; at their best speed, even the outer sphere would need a quarter day segment to reach the hyper threshold.

  His FTL scanners watched the tidal wave of gravitonic stress reach Zeta Trianguli Australis, watched the star bulge and blossom hideously.

  He bowed his head and switched off his vision panel.

  The sun went nova.

  Dahak and his surviving companions fled its death throes at seven hundred times the speed of light, and Colin watched through fold-space scanners in sick fascination. Dahak had filtered the display's fury, but even so it hurt his eyes. Yet he could not look away as a terrible wave of radiation lashed the Achuultani... and upon its heels came the physical front of destruction. But those ships were already lifeless, shields less than useless against th
e ferocity of a sun's death.

  The nova spewed them forth as a few more atoms of finely-divided matter on the fire of its breath.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Brashieel rose carefully and inclined his head as the old nest-killer called Hohrass entered his nest place. It was not the full salute of a Protector, for he did not cover his eyes, but Brashieel knew this Hohrass was a Great Lord of his own... people.

  It had taken many twelve-days to decide to apply that term to these nest-killers, yet he had little choice. He had come to know them-some of them, at least-and that, he now knew, was the worst thing which could happen to a Protector.

  He should have ended in honor. Should have spent himself, made them kill him, before this horror could be inflicted upon him. But they were cruel, these nest-killers, cruel in their kindness, for they had not let him end. For just a moment, he considered attacking Hohrass, but the old nest-killer was far stronger. He would simply overpower him, and it would be shameful to neither kill his foe nor make his foe kill him.

  "I greet you, Brashieel." The voice came from a speaker on the wall, rendering Hohrass's words into the tongue of Aku'Ultan.

  "I greet you, Hohrass," he returned, and heard the same speaker make meaningless sounds to his-visitor? Gaoler?

  "I bring you sad tidings," Hohrass said, speaking slowly to let whatever wonder translated do its work. "Our Protectors have met yours in combat. Five higher twelves of your ships have perished."

  Brashieel gaped at him. He had seen the power of their warships, but this-! His shock shamed him, yet he could not hide it, and his eyes were dark with pain. His crest drooped, and his fine, dark muzzle scales stood out against his suddenly pallid skin.

  "I am sorry to tell you this," Hohrass continued after a twelfth-segment, "but it is important that we speak of it."

  "How?" Brashieel asked finally. "Have your Protectors gathered in such numbers so quickly?"

  "No," Hohrass softly. "We used scarcely a double twelve of ships."

  "Impossible! You lie to me, Hohrass! Not even a double twelve of your demon ships could do so much!"

  "I speak truth," Hohrass returned. "I have records to prove my words, records sent to us over three twelves of your light-years."

  Brashieel's legs folded under him, despite every effort to stand, and his eyes were blind with horror. If Hohrass spoke the truth, if a mere double twelve of their ships could destroy a full half of the Great Visit and report it over such distances so quickly, the Nest was doomed. Fire would consume the great Nest Place, devour the Creche of the People. The Aku'Ultan would perish, for they had waked a demon more terrible even than the Great Nest-Killers.

  They had awakened Tarhish Himself, and His Furnace would take them all.

  "Brashieel. Brashieel!" The quiet voice intruded into his horror, and the old nest-killer touched his shoulder. "Brashieel, I must speak with you. It is important-to my Nest and to your own."

  "Why?" Brashieel moaned. "End me now, Hohrass. Show me that mercy."

  "No." Hohrass knelt on his two legs to bring their eyes level. "I cannot do that, Brashieel. You must live. We must speak not as nest-killers, but as one Protector to another."

  "What is there to speak of?" Brashieel asked dully. "You will do as you must in the service of your Nest, and mine will end."

  "No, Brashieel. It need not be that way."

  "It must," Brashieel groaned. "It is the Way. You are mightier than we, and the Aku'Ultan will end at last."

  "We do not wish to end the Aku'Ultan," Hohrass said, and Brashieel stared at him in stark disbelief.

  "That cannot be true," he said flatly.

  "Then pretend. Pretend for just a twelfth-segment that we do not wish your ending if our own Nest can live. If we prove we can destroy your greatest Great Visit yet tell your Nest Lord we do not wish to end the Aku'Ultan, will he leave our Nest in peace? Can there not be an end to the nest-killing?"

  "I... do not think I can pretend that."

  "Try, Brashieel. Try hard."

  "I-" Brashieel's head spun with the strangeness of the thought.

  "I do not know if I can pretend that," he said finally, "and it would not matter if I could. I have tried to think upon the things your Nynnhuursag has said to me, and almost I can understand them. But I am no longer a Protector, Hohrass. I have failed to end, which cannot be, yet it is. I have spoken with nest-killers, and that, too, cannot be. Because these things have been, I no longer know what I am, but I am no longer as others of the Nest. It does not matter what such as I pretend; what matters is what the Lord of the Nest knows, and he knows the Great Fear, the Purpose, and the Way. He will not stop what he is. If he could, he would not be the Nest Lord."

  "I am sorry, Brashieel," Hohrass said, and Brashieel believed him. "I am sorry this has happened to you, yet perhaps you are wrong. If other Protectors join you as our prisoners, if you speak together and with us, if you learn that what I tell you is truth-that we do not wish to end the Aku'Ultan-would you be prepared to tell others of the Nest what you have learned?"

  "We would never have the chance. We would be ended by the Nest, and rightly ended. We would be nest-killers to our own if we did your will."

  "Perhaps," Hohrass said, "and perhaps not." He sighed and rose. "Again, I am sorry-truly sorry-to torment you with such questions, yet I must. I ask you to think painful things, to consider that there may be truths beyond even the Great Fear, and I know these thoughts hurt you. But you must think them, Brashieel of the Aku'Ultan, for if you cannot-if, indeed, the Nest cannot leave us in peace-then we will have no choice. For untold higher twelves of years, your Protectors have ravaged our suns, killed our planets, slain our Nests. This cannot continue. Understand that we share that much of the Great Fear with the Protectors of the Nest of Aku'Ultan. We truly do not wish to end the Aku'Ultan, but there has been enough ending of others. We will not allow it to continue. It may take us great twelves of years, but we will stop it."

  Brashieel stared up at him, too sick with horror even to feel hate, and Hohrass's mouth moved in one of his people's incomprehensible expressions.

  "We would have you and your people live, Brashieel. Not because we love you, for we have cause to hate you, and many of us do. Yes, and fear you. But we would not have your ending upon our hands, and that is why we hurt you with such thoughts. We must learn whether or not we can allow your Nest to live. Forgive us, if you can, but whether you can forgive or not, we have no choice."

  And with that, Hohrass left the nest place, and Brashieel was alone with the agony of his thoughts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "You think it's really as grim as Brashieel seems to think?"

  Colin looked up as Horus's recorded message ended. Even for an Imperial hypercom, forty-odd light-years was a bit much for two-way conversations.

  "I know not," Jiltanith mused. Unlike his other guests, she was present in the flesh. Very present, he thought, hiding a smile as he remembered their reunion. Now she flipped a mental command into the holo unit and replayed the final portion of Horus's interview with Brashieel.

  "I know not," she repeated. "Certes Brashieel believes it so, but look thou, my Colin, though he saith such things, yet hath he held converse with 'Hursag and Father. Moreover, 'twould seem he hath understood what they have said unto him. His pain seemeth real enow, but 'tis understanding-of a sort, at the least-which wakes it."

  "You're saying what he thinks and says are two different things?" Hector MacMahan spoke through his holo image from Sevrid's command deck. He looked uncomfortable as a planetoid's CO, for he still regarded himself as a ground-pounder. But, then, Sevrid was a ground-pounder's dream, and she had the largest crew of any unit in the fleet, after Fabricator, for reasons which made sense to most. They made sense to Colin and Jiltanith, anyway, which was what mattered, and this conversation was very pertinent to them.

  "Nay, Hector. Say rather that divergence hath begun 'twixt what he doth think and what he doth believe, but that he hath n
ot seen it so."

  "You may be right, 'Tanni," Ninhursag said slowly. Her image sat beside Hector's as her body sat next to his. And, come to think of it, Colin thought, they seemed to be found together a lot these days.

  "When Brashieel and I talked," Ninhursag continued, choosing her words with care, "the impression I got of him was... well, innocence, if that's not too silly-sounding. I don't mean goody-goody innocence; maybe the word should really be naivete. He's very, very bright, by human standards. Very quick and very well-educated, but only in his speciality. As for the rest, well, it's more like an indoctrination than an education, as if someone cordoned off certain aspects of his worldview, labeled them 'off-limits' so firmly he's not even curious about them. It's just the way things are; the very possibility of questioning them, much less changing them, doesn't exist."