by David Weber
He turned to the com screens holding the faces of those task force commanders with whom he could converse via lightspeed radio waves.
"Warmaster Rikka is, as far as we know, nearly in position," he stated. Neither he nor any of his listeners voiced the platitude that no one could be sure, when the latest signal from Rikka's command was over sixteen minutes old. "We will therefore proceed to the outer envelope of Planet I's defenses as planned."
There was no discussion to speak of. Eighth Fleet's main battle-line moved into position and began to probe Planet I's defenses with long-range missile fire that those defenses were quite capable of shrugging off. Ynaathar had expected nothing else. His purpose was not to seriously harm the planet or its orbital works, but merely to be in position to take advantage of what he expected to happen when Rikka's fighters struck Planet II.
* * *
Robalii Rikka was equally unable to be certain of where Ynaathar was-and equally confident that he was where he was supposed to be-as he watched his fighters streak away towards Planet II.
Planet II shone a brighter but paler blue than Planet I, as it was a relatively chilly world and the arrangement of its continents allowed much of its water to be locked into polar caps. Actually, they'd determined that Planet I was no prize either-a hot, humid world rather like pre-space Humans had sometimes visualized their neighbor Venus. Not that conditions on either had stopped the Bugs from filling both with populations of fairly respectable size even on their standards, meaning of obscene size on anyone else's.
Aileen Sommers moved to his side. There'd been a time when he'd felt uncomfortable about Humans standing too close to him. They were so big-even Sommers, who was of only average height for a female though exceptionally sturdy. It no longer bothered him, especially in her case.
"That space station and those fortresses may have expended their gunboats, but they can still put out a lot of beams and anti-fighter missiles," she muttered.
"True," Rikka agreed. "But our entire ordnance mix has the sole purpose of allowing enough of the fighters to get through the defensive envelopes."
Sommers nodded reluctantly. An unprecedented percentage of the fighters carried ECM packs, and the use of decoy missiles was equally lavish.
"It should be enough," she admitted, still sounding less than happy.
"And," Rikka continued, "if your people's experience in other home hive systems is any guide, getting a sufficient number of the fighters through to the planet itself should be enough."
Sommers met his eyes-large, dark, altogether unhuman. She'd thought she knew him. But something in him had changed-or, perhaps, only intensified-since he'd learned of the "Shiva Option." And at this moment, with that planet's Bug-choked surface beckoning, he was clearly uninterested in casualties . . . uninterested to a degree that made her wonder if she'd ever really known him at all.
* * *
Fourth Nestmate Rozatii Navva flexed his feet convulsively as he wrenched his fighter away from yet another missile. It was a habitual Crucian reaction to danger. Their feet, with opposable "thumbs" like their hands, were capable of manipulation but were really better adapted for crushing. The race had been using those feet as weapons for its entire evolutionary lifetime, and Navva instinctively sought to grasp the Demons who'd already claimed the lives of two of his squadron's pilots.
But he suppressed his instincts, consciously relaxing his feet. His orders were clear. The titanic space station-clearly visible, especially to the remarkably acute Crucian eyesight which counterbalanced a sense of smell even worse than that of Humans-was not the target. Neither were the twenty-seven more-than-monitor-sized fortresses that wove a tracery of orbits mathematically calculated to cover all approaches to Planet II with overlapping fields of fire.
No, his was one of the FRAM-armed squadrons whose role was simply to dash between those fortresses, trusting to the ECM-bearing escorts and the decoy missiles to keep them alive long enough to get within range of the planet. It hadn't worked for the leading elements of the fighter strike, few of which still flew. But the escorts had soaked up more and more of the defensive fire, and now the planet was looming up ahead in Navva's view-forward, close enough for its icy, arid bleakness to be visible.
It was, Navva thought, about to get even bleaker.
He didn't devote much of his mind to the thought, of course. He was a thoroughgoing professional and a seasoned veteran, one of the first to train with the fighter technology the Humans had brought to the Star Union . . . and one of the few of those first to still remain alive. As such, he kept his consciousness focused on checklists, instrument readouts, threat indicators, and the disposition of the other three fighters that remained under his command. But he was still a Crucian, and the planet ahead meant something more to him than it did to his Human and Orion and Ophiuchi comrades. It was as much a place of dark myth as of dry astrophysics, the very Hell from which Iierschtga, evil twin of Kkrullott the god of light, had sent his Demons to torment his brother's children.
Then they were through, and Navva's reduced squadron took its place in the comber of death that began to roll across the surface of Planet II.
The rationalistic high-tech warrior who was Rozatii Navva was now functioning like an automaton, leading his squadron across the terminator into darkness as it swooped toward the planetary defense center that was its target. His innermost self stood apart, and watched with a kind of dreamy exaltation as the uninterceptable FRAMs flashed planetward to burn a reeking foulness out of the universe.
He had time for an instant's fiery elation when the warheads released their tiny specks of antimatter on the surface and the darkness erupted in blue-white hellfire. Then his two selves came crashing together and fell into oblivion as a point-defense missile already launched from the surface found his fighter.
He never knew that missile was one of the last effective defensive actions taken by the Bugs in Home Hive Four.
* * *
"Yes! It's happened!"
First Fang Ynaathar ignored Kevin Sanders' youthful enthusiasm as he calmly studied the computer analysis of the Bugs' reaction to his long-range probing of Planet I's defenses. It told him what he wouldn't learn from Robalii Rikka's report for another sixteen minutes: that the fighter strike on Planet II had gone in as scheduled, and that billions of Bugs had abruptly died.
"So it appears," he acknowledged quietly. He turned to his assembled core staff. "The observations of Fangs Presssssscottt and Zhaarnak in two other home hives stand confirmed. The same kind of stunned confusion has clearly overtaken the Bugs here, and done so simultaneously throughout at least the inner system. We will not allow it time to wear off. We will proceed with our primary contingency plan and move our battle-line into Planet I's defensive envelope for close-range bombardment in a single firing pass."
"Ignoring the orbital works, First Fang?" someone queried.
"That is the plan," Ynaathar stated firmly. "Our primary targets are the planetary defense centers."
His orders were carried out. Eighth Fleet's "firing pass," employing strategic bombardment missiles, capital missiles and standard missiles in succession as it approached closer and closer, eventually brought Ynaathar's battle-line within CAM2 range before it broke free of the planet's gravity and receded outward.
By the time Ynaathar received Rikka's report that only a few million Bugs remained alive on Planet II, none of them at all were alive on Planet I.
* * *
Kevin Sanders was seriously behind on his sleep.
The wildly varying rotational periods of planets tended to have that effect on interstellar voyagers, far beyond the "jet lag" Terrans had begun to experience in the late twentieth century. And Ynaathar had exercised the worst possible timing in dispatching him to Alpha Centauri with a personal report to the Grand Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But he forced himself to remain alert as he stood in the light of Alpha Centauri A, streaming through the wide window of Kthaara'zarthan's office a
t a time every weary fiber of his body said-no, screamed-was three in the morning after a couple of sleepless nights. It wouldn't do to fall on one's face in this company.
"So," Fleet Speaker Noraku rumbled, "the First Fang took no further action against the orbital constructs?"
"No, Fleet Speaker. He felt they weren't worth the expenditure of any additional ordnance, orbiting depopulated planets incapable of supplying them."
"It's possible that the space stations have fully self-sustaining lifesystems which will keep their personnel fed," MacGregor objected.
"True, Sky Marshal . . . though it's highly unlikely that the fortresses do. But in both cases, lack of basic maintenance will eventually render them incapable of even what the Bugs consider minimal life support."
"That could take some time," Kthaara commented.
"First Fang Ynaathar's position," Sanders said in measured tones, "was that the same lack of maintenance will reduce their defensive capabilities to total impotence before it results in their starvation. So if we grow impatient, we can simply wait until that eventuality and eliminate them with great economy. Either way . . . Well, Admiral Macomb quoted an old Terran proverb and said they can be left to die on the vine."
Kthaara's tooth-hidden smile showed his Standard English was up to that one.
"So be it. I agree with the First Fang." He shifted his body-stiffly, Sanders, noted; when old age caught up with Tabbies, it tended to catch up abruptly-and turned to look at the holo display that now filled a full end of the spacious office.
It was no wonder the display had grown like ivy, for it depicted all the war fronts, incorporating all the new astrographic information that Prescott, Zhaarnak, and Murakuma-the "Three Musketeers" of the Grand Alliance, as wits had begun calling them-had won. In all that labyrinthine complexity, Sanders instantly recognized one particular icon: the dull reddish-black one, like a burnt ember, that represented a now-lifeless home hive. There were two of them.
Kthaara spoke a command to the computer, and a third one appeared.
Ellen MacGregor spoke grimly into the silence. "And then there were two. . . ."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: "We're going back."
As they walked along the curving passageway just inside Li Chien-lu's outer skin, they passed a viewport. Beyond it, the light of Orpheus 1 glinted off ships which, to their practiced eyes, were clearly too small to have any business in this brutal new era's battle fleets.
The sight was enough to set Marcus LeBlanc fuming.
"Goddamn all politicians to hell! But no; as usual, it isn't really them who belong there, it's their cretinous constituents. Not even Bettina Wister could do any harm if the voters weren't such goddamn silly sheep! When I think of all the heavy ships that are tied down when they're needed at the front-!"
Vanessa Murakuma smiled. She was still buoyant with the recorded message that had finally gotten to her through the long and tortuous communication line from deep in the Star Union of Crucis.
"Well, you can't really blame people for worrying about home defense. If the Bugs can find a closed warp point into Alpha Centauri, they can appear anywhere. Even civilians understand that much."
"That's exactly the point-and exactly what even Heart World civilians ought to be able to grasp . . . if certain politicians and their pet so-called admirals weren't so busy feeding them sound bytes instead of accurate analysis! To provide total security for everybody, we'd have to keep forces equal to the combined Bug fleets in every inhabited system in the Alliance at all times!"
"Shhhh! Don't say that so loudly." Before LeBlanc could reach critical mass, Murakuma turned serious. "Just be thankful that all these light carriers were available. You might also," she continued in a subtly different tone, "be thankful that you finally got permission to come this far forward."
"Hmmm . . . There is that." LeBlanc was still forbidden to accompany Sixth Fleet when it set out into Bug space, but he'd managed to wheedle GFGHQ into letting him come as far as Orpheus 1. He pondered that accomplishment with a certain undeniable complacency, and he was in a visibly better mood when they reached the briefing room. Murakuma's staff and task force commanders stood as they entered.
"As you were," Murakuma said crisply. "As some of you already know, we're fortunate to have Admiral LeBlanc here from Zephrain. He's been studying the data from our incursion into Home Hive Two five months ago. Admiral LeBlanc, you have the floor."
"Thank you, Admiral Murakuma," LeBlanc replied formally. (Everyone refrained from cracking a smile over the exchange of formalities.) He activated a holo of the Home Hive Two binary system, with the two star-icons a little over a meter and a half apart.
"Fortunately," he began, "one of the last waves of Bug kamikazes appeared on Sixth Fleet's scanners just before you completed your withdrawal from the system. I say fortunately, because it provided fuller data on the vectors involved. Your own intelligence people's studies of those data have been invaluable."
He inclined his head in the direction of a smiling Marina Abernathy. The pat on the head was intentional. Abernathy had been flagellating herself for the past five months over inaccurate threat estimates.
"Our analysis leaves no room for doubt: that wave-and, unquestionably, others-came from Home Hive Two B. So we may infer that Component B has one or more inhabited planets of its own."
"Besides the three around Component Alpha." Leroy McKenna looked and sounded faintly ill.
"Indeed, Commodore," LeBlanc nodded, still in formal mode. "This system is as heavily developed as any of the other home hives we've observed-probably more so."
Ernesto Cruciero stared at the hologram, his eyes dark.
"I wonder which of these systems their species actually evolved in?" he half-murmured.
"Do you suppose they even remember?" Marina Abernathy asked very softly. Eyes moved towards other eyes, then slipped away uneasily. A silence fell, and hovered there, until LeBlanc cleared his throat to banish it.
"Well, at any rate," he went on a bit more briskly, "this helps explain why Home Hive Two was able to produce gunboats and small craft in such enormous numbers. The good news is that we believe your previous incursion left their starship strength crippled-at least in the heaviest classes, which can't be replaced in five months or anything close to it."
He raised a hand as if to ward off skepticism.
"Yes, I know: we're getting into speculative territory here. And we can't ignore the possibility that they can bring in reinforcements through some warp point we know nothing about. But I've already gone on record with the opinion that another shot at Home Hive Two is worth the risk if an answer to the kamikaze threat can be found."
"And we believe we have such an answer," Murakuma said, leaning forward in her chair, "in the form of the Mohrdenhau-class light carriers which have become available." She inclined her head in the direction of Eighty-Seventh Small Fang Meearnow'raalphaa, who'd previously commanded TF 63, Sixth Fleet's heavy carrier task force. Now he'd turned that command over to Thirteenth Small Fang Iaashmaahr'freaalkit-ahn, one of the highest ranking female officers in the entire KON, and taken over the newly formed TF 64: eighty Mohrdenhau-class CVLs, escorted by sixty cruisers of various sizes.
A prewar class, the Mohrdenhaus were rather low-tech, and hence apt to be underappreciated by the cutting-edge-happy TFN. It was also a quintessential Orion design: an uncompromisingly pure carrier with twenty-four fighter bays crammed into a hull no larger than a heavy cruiser's, which left very little room for anything else . . . including the ability to absorb punishment. Its life expectancy was measured in minutes after it came within weapons range of enemy capital ships. But it was never intended to be there. Instead, the Khanate had used it as a frontier picket . . . which was why its designers had somehow made room for a cloaking ECM suite. More recently, it had been used to secure the Allied fleets' lines of communication. Now, with those lines secure enough and the Bugs sufficiently on the defensive (apparently) to justify a little less caution . .
.
And the Khan released them, not having to appease the kind of popular hysteria that scum like Agamemnon Waldeck and Wister promote so they can exploit it, Murakuma thought with a subversive bitterness she hadn't allowed Marcus to see. Then she shook off the mood and chided herself sternly. Of course we ought to have a whole flotilla of the big Terran carriers that're sitting around in the nodal systems, neutralized by our own politicians as surely as the Bugs could hope for. And of course we shouldn't have to rely on fragile Tabby designs that're out of date where everything but their ECM and their crews' guts are concerned, instead. But instead of crying into your beer about it, you ought to be giving thanks to whatever gods you worship that you've got those eighty fragile ships and their nineteen hundred-plus fighters.
"So," she said aloud, "even though we all know the Mohrdenhaus are far too light for a warp point assault, they can provide anti-kamikaze cover once we're in Home Hive Two-where, based on Admiral LeBlanc's findings, we have some new ideas on how to proceed. Those ideas will be detailed in the staff briefings."
She paused for a moment, and then spoke in a voice whose quietness left no question about her assumption of undivided responsibility for the decision.
"We're going back in."
* * *
The buoys with which the Fleet had seeded the space surrounding the warp point were set continuously on deception mode. Naturally, the enemy would be awake to the possibility that this was the source of the readings being picked up by his robotic probes. But he would be hesitant to rely on that possibility, assuming-as was only natural-that the Fleet would have summoned all available forces to the defense of such a manifestly crucial system.