Spheres of Influence-eARC

by Ryk E. Spoor

  Another Blessed spoke. “Question, Guidemaster.”

  “You may ask, Hancray.”

  “Why allow them to get into position? If they close distance—”

  “There is only one good reason for a vessel to be following us; they wish to rescue Ariane Austin. Because of that, they will have to close a great deal of distance—as much as they possibly believe they can, to allow themselves a good chance of disabling Thilomon and permitting a boarding action. Obviously they will thus be careful and restrained, while we have no such limitations. Thus they will not attack any time soon, and I have very good reason to want to wait a little longer.”

  But the same logic would apply to starting the fight now; in fact, anyone trying to rescue us would have to be even more cautious at long range, when they can’t target specific parts of Thilomon. Vantak’s “explanation” doesn’t explain much, and I can tell Hancray thinks so too, but it’s obviously as much as Vantak intends to say.

  Vantak had them put on new binders, but allowed them to stay where they were; perhaps he had other tests the Minds had planned, or he simply felt there was no particular reason for them not to be there, as long as they were under guard.

  Tense hours passed, and Ariane began to feel not merely bored but thirsty. “Vantak, can we have something to drink, if we’re going to stay here?”

  The Blessed looked up. “Perhaps I could have you escorted back down; you can wait there as well as anywhere, and there you can—”

  “Guidemaster! Signals ahead of us!”

  At nearly the same moment, Kandret said, excitement in his voice, “Guidemaster! Our pursuer begins to rise!”

  Vantak’s wingcases relaxed. “Hancray, transmit forward to approaching signals: Flanking pattern Hana, inclined one-fiftieth of a circle below Thilomon’s central axis.”

  Ariane felt as though her heart had dropped through her boots. Reinforcements.

  “They acknowledge the order, Guidemaster.”

  “Range to pursuer?”

  “Three hundred kilometers, Guidemaster.”

  “Turn to confront in three…two…one.”

  Thilomon began a slow, graceful turn, as the forward port shimmered to show a view of a blue-tinted cloud bank.

  The blue suddenly darkened, bulged, and bursting from within the depths of the cloud, like a mighty whale breaching from the sea, came a golden and mahogany and crystal vision, curves and alien Victorian beauty with the ponderous grace of a battleship.

  Despite the reinforcements coming, despite being surrounded by Blessed, Ariane’s heart leapt back where it belonged, and she gave a jubilant cry. “Orphan! DUQUESNE! SIMON!”

  Vantak gave a buzzing cry that was translated as a curse. “The Survivor! It is Zounin-Ginjou! All weapon stations, unlock and fire as ready! Defensive emplacements, all free! Tell the fleet, fire to destroy—no surrender, only destruction, in the name of the Minds!”

  Sethrik buzzed his own laughter. She looked at him. “Do you think—”

  He was momentarily sober. “No, Ariane Austin. I laugh for their consternation and fear, not for our hope. Zounin-Ginjou is powerful, but it is a single vessel with one—or, if I take your words right, three—people aboard. It will be destroyed in this battle, make no mistake.”

  From the mist around them emerged ship after ship—none quite the size of Thilomon, but all large, powerful, and well armed, and all driving towards Zounin-Ginjou.

  “Twenty of our vessels against his…Orphan shall not be the Survivor much longer.”

  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?”