by Ryk E. Spoor
Sethrik chuckled. “The Survivor uses those, I have no doubt, because he needs to be as many people as possible. But in general, no, because our tails are not nearly so dextrous and are more used for combat and support than for controlling things.”
I dunno, they seemed awfully dextrous when they were trying to sting me. But I’m not looking a gift equine in the dentition, so to speak. “What about armament?”
“I can control much of that from here. No telling how long that control will last, of course, so let us cross as many trees with this leap as we can.”
“Make the most of it, as we say. Yep. Hold on!”
Thilomon turned quickly, a little raggedly as she came to understand how the turn mechanisms worked, but quickly, and she saw Blessed ships coming around in front of them, trying to regroup after the attack by Arenaspace lifeforms and press the attack on Zounin-Ginjou.
Even as the Liberated battleship swam into view, a spear of intolerable brilliance erupted from its upper turret, a bolt of energy so intense that it seemed to make the entire Arena around them dimmer; the beam ripped straight through one of the Blessed ships as though its armor were nonexistent and the ship immediately and vehemently exploded.
“Great Minds!” Sethrik muttered. “What sort of a weapon is that, and why wasn’t the Survivor using it earlier?”
“I dunno,” she said cheerfully, feeling her confidence rising, “but let’s focus on our own problems. Like our own targets.”
Sethrik’s overlay displays came up, showing armament targeting displays; she couldn’t quite read some of the symbols but could tell he was disabling something—safety interlocks, I’ll bet, to keep you from accidentally shooting your friends by mistake.
The targeting symbols locked on a nearby vessel.
She waited, but nothing happened. She looked over her shoulder. “Sethrik?”
The Leader of the Blessed was sitting with his hand over a control; the hand trembled.
Damn.
“I…do not wish to do this,” Sethrik said sadly. “Ariane Austin, can you understand how hard this is? I am of the Blessed. We are near to one, in many ways, and now I will turn our own weapons upon them. I am meant to protect them, not destroy.”
“I know, Sethrik. Dammit, I know exactly what you mean. But if you don’t fire—”
“Yes. I know. They will kill us. Or worse, far worse, for both you and I, even though I will not think it so when they have finished with me.”
He inhaled deeply and buzzed something that sounded like a prayer. “Minds forgive me, but I do what I believe. I do what I think is right. I do what I must.”
His hand came down.
Instantly the forward batteries of Thilomon cut loose, firing energy and explosive shells into her sister ship barely twenty kilometers distant. The ship shuddered and then detonated in a flare that blanked the screens for a moment.
“Thank you, Sethrik. And I’m sorry, but…”
“But there is more work to be done. Let us finish it, then.”
The other Blessed ships were thrown into disarray a second time now, as they tried to respond to an attack by their own flagship. The hesitation will work in our favor too; attacking one of their own ships will be hard.
Another eye-searing bolt of energy impaled a Blessed ship and it, too, disappeared in vapor before the power of Zounin-Ginjou. She cheered, came about even as the first tentative counterfire began. “Pick your target, Sethrik!”
“Hmm,” Sethrik said. His hands were still shaking, and the involuntary occasional buzz showed how badly the stress was affecting him, even as he spoke in an artificially light and casual tone. “That’s Lahthindosan. I admit to never liking its commander much at all.”
On the edge of a breakdown or not, Sethrik’s aim was deadly. Thilomon’s assault shattered the aft section of his target, and while it did not explode, the ship immediately began drifting aimlessly, out of control.
For a third time that impossible beam of light turned the atmosphere of the Arena to plasma, and another Blessed vessel vanished. That’s…ten! More than half! We just might win this one!
They came about, fired again, missed; the other Blessed vessels had now accepted that their flagship had become their enemy, and they were divided now into two-ship groups. At the same time she realized that Zounin-Ginjou was severely battered. The screen showed multiple gaping wounds on the ship. Though it was still clearly functioning—and functioning quite well—it was clear that there was not much left for Orphan’s vessel to give.
And the mysterious weapon atop Zounin-Ginjou had stopped.
She could hear hammering on the access panels now, but tried to ignore it. Have to do as much damage as we can!
Sethrik found another target, tried to fire—but the forward turret failed to respond. “Roll hard to port!” he shouted.
And the Arena translates that as “port” rather than left. I don’t think we’ll EVER know how it makes its decisions. Even as she thought that she was rolling the ship, turning—
And the topside port cannon fired, crippling the target. “They shut down the forward batteries,” Sethrik said. “I have no doubt they are doing the same to the others. We do not have much time left.”
Thilomon rang like a bell, the impact so hard that Sethrik would have been thrown from the command perch if he had not been strapped in; Ariane felt her own harness creak. The lights flickered and then shifted to a dimmer light in a slightly different shade.
“Ah. No more time at all,” said Sethrik. “A perfect shot, straight through the main power distribution core. I suspect the crew has deliberately sabotaged the backups.” A faint glow showed on one of the panels now. Cutting torches.
“Don’t suppose you have a self-destruct or scuttling command?”
Sethrik flicked his hands out. “Except for very experimental ships such would be…unheard of.”
She grabbed up one of the pistols from the unconscious guards, and Sethrik took up a rifle. “Then I guess we just have to go for suicide by military.”
“Indeed.” Sethrik gave her a deep pushup-bow. “It has been a true honor fighting alongside you, Ariane Austin of Humanity.”
“And you, Sethrik of the—”
Light came that turned the clouds dark, paled the mighty lightning within them to insignificance, and another Blessed warship was gone. Zounin-Ginjou plowed through a wavering mist of smoke and wreckage, turning, seeking, and that intolerable, irresistable spear of energy impaled another, flaring up, gone. That’s five left against us!
The other ships banked about, desperately aiming, trying to mass their fire upon Orphan’s flagship, Zounin-Ginjou boring onwards, directly towards them, as though utterly uncaring of any hazard. The forward batteries of the Liberated battleship fired again, hammering into the armor of the Blessed to Serve, and another ship was done, gone, drifting and powerless. Again that coruscating, dazzling sword tore through Arenaspace, and one more was finished, a drifting memory in smoke and flame.
Sethrik stared at something on the command chair, reached up and activated it.
“Thilomon, this is Doctor Marc C. DuQuesne of Humanity, calling from Zounin-Ginjou,” came a deep, savagely triumphant voice. “You are drifting crippled, and if you’ll look your last three ships are trying to flee. Surrender and prepare to be boarded.”
Sethrik buzzed with amusement, and clicked the control again. “This is Sethrik, Leader of the Faction of the Blessed—for now, and only temporarily, I am afraid. But I am glad to hear this. Do not allow them to escape. No mercy. No quarter. Is this understood?”
Orphan’s voice replied, and held an odd mixture of satisfaction and regret. “Completely, Sethrik. Is Ariane Austin—”
“I’m here!” she called. “But do we have to…”
She stopped herself and thought. If any of them escape, the Minds will know exactly what happened here. Maybe they’ll even figure out what’s going on with Wu Kung. They can’t know. They cannot ever know exactly how close
they came to success, or how much luck played a part in this. “…sorry. Do what you have to.”
She turned to where the panel lock was now glowing near white. “We’re about to have company anyway.”
She and Sethrik checked to make sure there wasn’t anything coming through the other panel—it was cool and dark—and took shelter behind the command perch. On the screen they could see Zounin-Ginjou in pursuit of the final three Blessed vessels. Good luck, she thought. Then she steadied her arm and took careful aim.
The panel dropped with a heavy clang, and she saw two Blessed, rifles dropping into line just behind the panel. Her first shot struck, but the Blessed were wearing armor and it did no damage. Sethrik’s shot was more effective—not surprising; I should have taken a rifle, but I’m better with handguns. Wish I could’ve gotten to my own weapons.
The two leapt into the command center; the one wounded by Sethrik ducked behind one of the control perches, while the other laid down a barrage of fire which ensured both Ariane and Sethrik kept their heads down. More movement told her that there were reinforcements coming.
She popped up, snapped off a shot, dropped back down. Got to get in the right mindframe. Outnumbered, but they still have to come in through a choke point. Shame there weren’t any grenades.
Sethrik fired twice, scoring a hit that took down the wounded one for good, then dropping back with a curse; there was a nasty-looking burn along his left arm.
She stuck her head around on the other side and fired; this time she caught the unwounded one just as he stuck his head out. If that didn’t kill him, he’s sure hurt.
More shapes were coming up…but then they stopped.
What’s happening?
She heard some kind of commotion, shouts, buzzing cries, gunshots, and the sound of impacts so fast they seemed almost like machine-gun fire.
Without warning, two bodies hurtled from the opening, tumbling limply to a halt. A single shadowy figure moved forward. She sighted, daring to hope that she wouldn’t want to fire…
The Monkey King stepped into the command center and waved. “I see you kept busy until I came back!”
Chapter 41.
“How is Simon?”
DuQuesne grimaced; after the battle, he’d found Simon unconscious in the third turret. “Alive. He’ll heal, we just need to get him home so he can have some proper care and support or it will take his medical nanos ages. What he did was insane, except like the rest of us he didn’t have much choice.”
“What was wrong with him?” Ariane was, somewhat to his surprise (and considerable gratification), mostly keeping a professional tone to her questions. She must have gone through a lot, but there’s something a little…changed about her. I hope in a good way.
“Honestly? I haven’t got one goddamn clue as to why he didn’t collapse long before we finished. That idea of his was damned brilliant—and went through I have no idea how many vals’ worth of Orphan’s equipment in that time—but I don’t think he understood just how deadly it was going to be in that turret. Even with the best designs in the universe—and Orphan’s got some of the best, believe you me—the overpressure, heat, light…he might as well have been detonating shock grenades next to himself. And he somehow took on Vantak by himself.”
“Wait, what? Vantak? He was here?” Wu Kung laughed. “I am glad! A poetic symmetry!”
Orphan came into the control room, hearing the last lines. “Most certainly,” Orphan said. “You took his ship, he decided to take mine if he could.”
“Next time, Wu, remember that the Blessed have wings. Sure, he couldn’t directly match our speed, but apparently he was able to guide himself in the right direction and catch us as we went by.”
Ariane transferred her gaze to Sethrik, who was seated before an auxiliary panel of Zounin-Ginjou. “Are we recharged?”
The Leader of the Blessed did not answer immediately; he seemed sunk in gloom, and DuQuesne remembered that for the first hour after rescue he had practically curled up in a corner, unresponsive. After a moment, however, Sethrik managed a small bob of assent. “I…yes, Captain Austin. We have transferred virtually all power from the remains of Thilomon to Zounin-Ginjou. The Blessed survivors have also been locked into specific areas of the vessel.”
“Are we able to return home now?”
Orphan’s bow was more emphatic. “Beyond any doubt. Thilomon had participated relatively little in the battle directly, and thus retained a quite considerable charge. We have in fact nearly fully recharged Zounin-Ginjou.” He strode to the main console and seated himself. “Now we shall cast off and complete the final stage.” Sethrik’s hands twitched, and his wingcases tightened as he turned away.
“What final stage?”
Orphan’s head tilted, even as she heard the cables linking Zounin-Ginjou and Thilomon beginning to release. “The destruction of Thilomon, of course. All the other ships have been completely destroyed, and there are no survivors. These are the last, and—”
“Absolutely not.”
DuQuesne wasn’t surprised. The idea of shooting an unarmed, depowered sitting duck of a target containing a few hundred people stuck in his craw too—and he had no doubt Simon would never agree to it if he was conscious. Orphan had already done that—in the mop-up of the battle—and it had taken a lot of his self-control to keep from saying anything, even though it was Orphan’s ship and Orphan’s choice. Wu Kung looked conflicted.
To his surprise, though, it was Sethrik who rose slowly to face Ariane. “You agreed with—or did not contradict—my order to destroy the other vessels, Captain. I thought you understood.” His voice was unsteady, and DuQuesne guessed that the conflict within the Blessed Leader was even greater than he had thought. How hard must it be to have a sort of near-hive mind, and the unity the Minds give you, and then turn on that unity?
But Sethrik continued. “You had told me that you felt you had failed, that this was your fault. Are you going to now continue the mistakes that you have made?”
Ariane folded her arms over her chest. “I did say that. And it was true, then. We were still in a battle, you had to stop the others from fleeing, and there wasn’t anything I could have done about it one way or the other. But this…I’m sorry. I can’t just stand here and allow hundreds of people to be killed just for the sake of political convenience and safety. We have to at least try to find another solution.”
She turned to DuQuesne. “Marc, why can’t we just leave them here? They won’t starve or suffocate, not drifting here in the Arena, but without power they’re going nowhere. There’s no one to tell.”
He shook his head, even as Orphan’s hands flicked outward. “You’re forgetting, Ariane; this is one of the major routes—most direct routes—from the Blessed’s homeworld to Nexus Arena. There’s probably Blessed vessels coming through here every couple of days. If Thilomon and her escorts don’t show up on time, they’ll just send out a party to search the area. They won’t get much out of the rest of the wreckage, but you can bet your bottom dollar they’d find Thilomon if we left it here.”
Ariane’s jaw tightened, then she sighed. “Yes, I guess they would. But there has to be an alternative.”
“Why does there have to be one, Captain Austin?” Sethrik asked quietly. “Often the universe does not give us choices.”
DuQuesne’s mind agreed with Sethrik…but not his gut. And he knew which one he had to go with. “Because that’s not the way she works. Maybe when the guns are shooting and you’re under that kind of pressure, yeah, maybe then you have to make the choice of the greater evil versus the lesser one. But when you’ve got time, you haven’t got the excuse of desperation. That’s when you find a new choice…or make one.”
Sethrik and Orphan clearly did not entirely agree, but they did look thoughtful.
For several minutes no one said anything. Then Ariane looked out the viewport and pointed. “Well, we were—partly still are—connected to her. Can’t we tow her somewhere far enough that they wo
n’t find her?”
“Alas, Captain Austin, to do that in this region—which as you might expect is mapped fairly extensively by the Blessed—would require us to travel a very long distance through Arenaspace. Not only would that potentially lead to us getting lost, but also it would take a considerable time and portion of our energy reserves, and to leave we would have to come back to the known Sky Gates…and with Blessed traffic there would be an excellent chance we would find ourselves once more in a battle before escaping.”
Wu Kung spoke up. “Couldn’t we just drag Thilomon along with us through the Sky Gates somehow? No, wait…we’d just end up bringing them to Nexus Arena, and we don’t want that, do we?”
“It would not work in any case, Sun Wu Kung,” Orphan said. “Remember that the use of the Sky Gates is through the Sandrisson Drive, which must be specifically configured for the vessel, which must have active Sandrisson coils surrounding it. To jump with Thilomon in tow would most likely simply sever our connection with Thilomon and might have other less…entertaining effects.”
Another silence.
“How many survivors are there, exactly?” asked Ariane.
“Three hundred eleven,” Sethrik answered promptly. “Wu Kung…was surprisingly nonlethal. I appreciate the effort you went to in sparing their lives, and I must express my gratitude to you, Captain Austin, that you are attempting to find some solution which will not throw their lives away again.”
“Could you fit that many in your cargo bays, Orphan?”
Orphan went rigid for a moment. “I…in theory…yes, I suppose. Zounin-Ginjou is intended to carry a great deal of cargo on occasion. But you cannot be seriously thinking of bringing over three hundred Blessed and trying to keep them imprisoned?”
DuQuesne saw that Ariane was still wrestling with the next step, but he had a sudden inspiration. “Not imprison. Transfer. You’ve been around a long time, Orphan. You’ve got to have found other Spheres on occasion, ones that aren’t active—no native race. Maybe even marked ’em down for colonization if you ever got more members of the Liberated.”