The Omega Solution

by Peter J Evans

  "Well, if you do know, then you know I've got to try." She spread her hands. "I'm sorry guys, I really am. All I can ask is that you head for Irutrea and try to stop Xandos cooking the Conclave. If he gets away with that it's all been for nothing. The Iconoclasts will come down on mutants like a tonne of bricks."

  Harrow stepped close. "Don't be long," he said quietly. "You'll miss the party."

  "Nah. I wouldn't miss any party of yours, Jude." She grinned at him. "Besides, I hear there's going to be fireworks. I just love fireworks."

  17. THE LAST DANCE

  Antonia's rendezvous point was Rephidim, an uncolonised world on the eastern fringe of Accord space. After Shalem had fallen, it took a day and a half for the fleet to assemble.

  The fleet, thought Antonia despairingly. Could four vessels be called a fleet? Even if one of them was the Voice of Pain. To be honest, what she had left barely made up a squadron.

  The two fast corvettes, Asagiri and Yamazaki, had made it through the battle with barely a scratch on them. Their sheer speed and manoeuvrability had saved them from the pounding received by the frigates, all of which had been destroyed. Indeed, it was the Asagiri which had saved Voice of Pain from being carved apart by the quantum razers, after having flown so far and so fast that its captain could see them for herself.

  In addition to the corvettes, Antonia had the killship Angelus. There had been one other, the Chorazin, but that had entered jumpspace and never come out again. Reviewing the battle later on, Tech-Prime Omri was forced to admit that a burn-through seemed the most likely explanation. Chorazin had suffered multiple hits during the battle. Any one of them could have unbalanced the drives.

  Four vessels, and less than one hundred and fifty daggerships. It wasn't a fleet, it was a joke.

  "And I don't know what to do," she told Trophimus. "Saulus has won, and there's not a damned thing I can do about it. Your gift came too late, father."

  She was with him in the flagship's huge central chapel; an airy, cavernous place as large as any ground-based cathedral. When it was full, the chapel could have held five thousand Iconoclasts with ease. Now it held Huldah Antonia, her father, and a lot of echoes.

  Helots had placed his body on a pallet in the centre of the aisle. After the infirmary had completed their tests, they had infused his corpse with chemicals of preservation. Clad in full uniform armour, his lined face striped with war-paint, he looked more asleep than dead, although Antonia was careful not to give in to that illusion. Despair can do strange things to a mind, she knew. If it was just her that she had to worry about, perhaps it would have been a blessed relief, an escape from the utter horror of reality. But there were almost six thousand men and women relying on her now; the battered crews of her ships, the stunned personnel from her temple-station.

  It suddenly occurred to her that every one of them could fit within this single chapel.

  That was all Saulus had left her. Enough people to fit into a church, and nowhere for them to go.

  Her message to Major Ketta had been sent through a series of coded needle-beams, but there was no way she could know if it had been received. She had told the agent all she could about the tactician, and what she knew of his plans. There had to be more to his Omega Solution than just the creation of his nightmare class of warriors, but Antonia was too far out of the picture to find out more. With the tactician's fleet hunting her at this very moment, it seemed that she would die without ever finding out just what was going on.

  That was a thought that gave her considerable pain. At this moment, she would quite happily have jumped feet first into the very fires of Hell, as long as she had Lord Tactician Saulus's throat in her grip when she did it.

  There was a sudden chiming above her, echoing out among the pillars and pews. Antonia took the linker from her belt. "Have they found us?"

  "No, Het Admiral. There is an incoming transmission, coded for you only. All it reads is that you have a call from an old friend."

  Antonia blinked. How many friends did she have? And how was a call of any kind coming through, when the comms web was still in tatters? The message was almost certainly from Saulus, and although Antonia had no intention of discussing terms with the man, there might be a chance she could gain enough information from him to formulate a strategy.

  The chapel had a holo-projector, just behind the altar, for the display of instructional media. She went over to it. "Patch the call through to me here. The chapel is still sealed?"

  "It is, Het."

  The flat disc of the projector began to light up as the call was fed in, lume-panels glowing under its filigreed surface. A column of glowing haze sprang up and contracted into the shape of her caller.

  When she saw who it was, all Antonia could do was throw back her head and laugh.

  The Vampyr assault ship came in slow, weapons unpowered, flanked by two wings of daggerships. Voice of Pain's traffic control was given strict instructions, from the admiral herself, that a bay be cleared and sealed: no guards, no deck-crew, and no surveillance. This meeting was to be unrecorded. To all intents and purposes, it would never have taken place.

  The only person on the deck when the Vampyr came in was Huldah Antonia herself.

  She watched the mutant vessel come in through the landing lock, spilling jets of vapour from its thruster arrays. It unfolded a pair of insectile landing-legs and settled itself on the deck. Antonia felt a shiver in the air as its grav-lifters shut down.

  She had never been so close to the enemy.

  The Vampyr let down a ramp. A few seconds later, Saint Scarlet of Durham trotted down it. "Hey," she said.

  "Blasphemy. Well, of all the people I expected to have call me, I can honestly say you were the last."

  "I'd have brought a bottle, but the shops were shut." The monster drew close. "I thought you'd have a gun, or something."

  "Why? I have seen you fight, monster. I know what you are capable of. I have no illusions that, gun or no gun, if you sought my throat you'd take it."

  "Lucky for you I'm not hungry," grinned Durham Red.

  She looked very much as she had when Antonia had last seen her, racing away down a mag-car track in the Lavannos drive complex. Her hair was perhaps a little longer, her attire a variation on the same theme. Otherwise, she was the same insolent, infuriating and utterly deadly creature that she had been all those months ago.

  Antonia wondered how much her own appearance had changed in that time. Quite a lot, she suspected.

  "We both know this is not a social call, Blasphemy. Trust me, it is only because of two words that you are here at all."

  The monster nodded. "Omega Solution. Something tells me that those two words have caused us both a whole world of trouble. How about telling me what they mean?"

  "How about telling me where you heard them."

  Durham Red raised an arm, checked a chrono display built into the back of her glove. "Crap," she muttered to herself. "Time's getting on... Okay, 'Omega Solution' was the last thing a mutant spymaster said to Matteus Godolkin before she died. Except that she wasn't a mutant, she was a human deep-cover agent."

  "Godolkin told you this?"

  "Yup. He can't lie to me, you know that. Plus he's got a nose for secret agents."

  Antonia felt as though huge, shadowy things were moving into place around her, locking whenever they met in strange and terrible configurations. "Blasphemy, this agent is the key to both our woes. I believe, against all better judgement, you and I have much to discuss."

  By the time both stories were done, Antonia had almost the whole picture. And it wasn't a pleasant one.

  Saulus hadn't just been working on a plan to make super-Iconoclast warriors. He'd had an agent inside a dangerous mutant organisation, dictating the strategies of its insane leader from afar. Somehow he'd managed to make the selection wargames for his Omega plan coincide with the preparations for the Conclave, in order to leave the summit wide open. He'd even fed the new location of the Conclave directly int
o the Hermes Alpha comms hub, probably by needle beam, just before the place was assaulted. He was doing everything he could to make sure the Umbrae Nova had access to it.

  For his part, Xandos Dathan was never going to invade the Conclave. He was going to irradiate it from orbit, slaughter every man, woman and child on the planet. At the same time he was sending mutants in stolen Iconoclast killships to devastate Broteus, and as many other worlds as he could before the dreadnoughts were stopped. War, once communications came back on, would be inevitable.

  Dathan wanted a war because of his insane hatred of humanity. Did Saulus want the same thing?

  "Saulus," she spat, finally. "He's been behind this all. His Omega Solution goes far beyond any remit given to him by High Command. He's been sitting there on that giant eye of his, plotting and scheming and pushing us around like chess pieces. For years."

  "Admiral, we've got to stop this." The monster was pacing about, back and forth, more like a feral beast than a woman. "If Dathan fries the Conclave, the Iconoclasts will launch punitive strikes against mutants all over the Accord. I know you probably like the sound of that, but you're not in a position for it now. Thanks to Saulus, mutants could take this sector from you, and then who knows?"

  "And if Broteus falls, the mutants will rise anyway. But my hands are tied, monster! You've seen the broken excuse for a fleet Saulus has left me - I cannot stop Dathan with that!"

  "I've got some people already on Dathan's tail. They might be able to slow him up, maybe long enough for your people to send some reinforcements. Is there no chance of the comms web coming back up?"

  "No sign of it so far."

  "Maybe you could get to Broteus in time."

  The name of the place sent a shard of ice through Antonia. She'd lost a fleet at Broteus once already, during the Second Bloodshed. The mutants living there had passed the location of her ships to the Tenebrae, and they'd fallen on her from jumpspace, flayer missiles already in flight. The idea of going back there, to save the very creatures that had betrayed her...

  There was a part of Antonia, a very significant part, that would have liked nothing better than to watch Broteus burn.

  In addition, there was an Iconoclast punisher fleet on her tail. At present Antonia's ships were stationed on the edges of the Accord. The jurisdiction of the Patriarch didn't extend outside the boundaries, not for an insignificance like a rogue admiral and a handful of damaged warships. If she took her people and ran, she might be able to make it into the Vermin Stars, maybe the Balrog Cusp. Places where they could hide, maybe even scatter and lose themselves among the colonies.

  They would no longer be Iconoclasts, but they would be alive.

  And yet, if she ran, she would see the Accord tearing itself apart whenever she turned her head.

  "Blasphemy, return to Irutrea. Do what you can to slow Dathan and his planet-cannon. I would also recommend contacting certain Iconoclast admirals in the same way you contacted me. If you taunt them enough, they will arrive all the sooner."

  "And you?"

  "I will not take my whole fleet to Broteus. My crews have fought as well and as hard as anyone in the history of the Accord. They deserve a chance of survival, and an engagement with five killships around Broteus offers them none."

  "But-"

  "Go, Durham Red. Broteus will not fall. You have my word as an Iconoclast."

  "What's that worth?"

  "More than you can ever know."

  The fires of Hell yawned before Antonia. In truth, she welcomed their heat. And, while she might not have Saulus around the throat, she could at least help take his Omega Solution into the pit with her.

  As the Blasphemy's vessel sped away, she made a general announcement to the fleet. There would, she told them at the start, be no disobeying of these orders, no outcry, no questions. To do so would be seen as a dereliction of duty.

  Honour was at stake. Honour, in the face of those like Lord Tactician Saulus, was a greater weapon than antimat fire, and more important than life.

  She split the fleet. The killship Angelus and the corvette Yamazaki were loaded with as many crew as could fit into them, and sent away past the fringe. Antonia was confident they would not be pursued. She, and the Voice of Pain, were the targets now.

  The flagship and the remaining corvette set course for Broteus.

  Asagiri was almost empty, with little more than the bridge crew and the helots working the drive halls aboard. The ship would not be able to fight, or even defend itself past the raising of its forcewalls, but that wasn't Antonia's intention. Voice of Pain was down to a quarter strength, but even that number was enough to have the mighty ship battle-ready. The flagship might, if luck favoured Antonia, be a match for five killships filled with fanatical mutants. If not, she had a backup plan.

  Which, in part, relied on Antonia's announcement to the fleet being made on the strongest unencrypted radio signal she could muster.

  With Asagiri alongside, she set course for Broteus at maximum speed.

  She spent the last hours in her chambers, making final preparations. The body of Fleet Admiral Trophimus had already been loaded onto the Asagiri with all due ceremony. "You'll take care of him, Gordia? He needs to be buried with all honours, even if it is in some backwater of the Balrog Cusp."

  "Thy will be done, Het Admiral."

  Antonia stared down at the polished surface of her desk. Her own face looked back at her, white warpaint making her features into a mask. She stared down, and a fearless warrior stared back.

  It was like seeing someone else.

  "Gordia..." She put her hands to her face. So little time. "Be with me on the bridge. I need strength, right now, and I don't know anyone stronger than you."

  "My place is at your side, admiral. It always has been." The shocktrooper was in her customary full armour, only her eyes visible over the breath mask.

  "Admiral," she said suddenly. Antonia looked up.

  "Hm?"

  "Are we doing the right thing?"

  "I don't know, Gordia. I don't know." She stood up. "But what I do know is that we will, in part, be dealing the plans of Lord Tactician Saulus a serious blow. And anything that hurts him is good enough for me."

  There is a fallacy among those who have not flown aboard starships that the smaller a ship is, the faster it will be. This might be true of manoeuvrability, in realspace at least, but in terms of sheer thrust a larger vessel will always have an edge. It might have more mass to throw around, but it also has a lot more power with which to do the throwing.

  Voice of Pain, massing at least as much as the five killships it was hunting, arrived at Broteus just before they did.

  Antonia was on the bridge, in a command station next to Captain Teresh, when the flagship emerged from jumpspace. Gordia took up position at her side. Antonia, in these last dark hours, would not have considered having her anywhere else.

  It was impossible to know, she reflected, what the mutant population of Broteus felt when the giant flagship appeared without warning over their world. Terror, in all probability. Well, if that was a small revenge for their betrayal during the Second Bloodshed, then Antonia was all for it.

  "Raise forcewalls." Teresh had been as fully briefed on the battleplan as time would allow. "Charge all weapons, and orientate antimat batteries for ship-to-ship. Phalanx turrets on standby - they might have taken some daggerships when they stole the dreadnoughts."

  "Launch daggership shoals Alpha and Beta," said Antonia in counterpoint. "Keep Gamma shoal drives hot and ready. We might need them in a hurry."

  "Thy will be done."

  "Warp echoes!" shouted a sense-engine tech. "Hard returns, bearing oh-three-seven, range two thousand."

  "Bring us about, captain," smiled Antonia. "Time for the last dance."

  The holofield was up at the far end of the bridge, set to maximum forward resolution. Broteus was already at her back - she could see it in a couple of secondary holos - and ahead of her was empty space.

/>   Orange fire spilled out into the blackness, five holes ripped in the fabric of spacetime.

  "Open fire. All weapons."

  Rivers of light poured out towards the jump-points. Antonia saw one killship impaled on the beam of Voice of Pain's starboard fusion lance, the blinding beam ripping in through the prow cut-out and carving straight through to the drives. Fireballs sprang out from the dreadnought's flanks, sending clouds of fractured hull-plating whirling through space. Every viewport, from the centre decks outwards, flooded with white light. The killship had turned to fire from the inside, before it had even left its jumpspace tunnel.

  The port beam had struck another killship, torn a great track of metal from its side. Antonia watched it begin to tilt out of true as its dampers failed. "Daggerships. Concentrate fire on that dreadnought. Take it before they can get the forcewalls up again."

  The other three ships had taken damage, but now they were spreading out, hammering sheets of antimat fire back towards Voice of Pain. The deck shuddered under Antonia's boots. "Are the forcewalls holding?"

  "For now, Het, but we're taking a pounding."

  "Concentrate fire on the centre dreadnought. Keep it in your sights until the fusion lances can recharge."

  In response, the sprays of light from Voice of Pain's forward batteries began to swing inwards, converging on the closest killship. Green sparks glittered around its prow as the forcewalls began to give way.

  Light flared from one side of the holofield. The daggerships had torn the stricken dreadnought open, the fusion cores flashing apart one by one. None of them went nova, but the ferocity of each core failure was sending hails of metal and raw energy out into the structure of the ship. It was tearing itself apart from the inside.

  The centre killship suddenly began to flare and shudder. Its forcewalls had failed, allowing the hunger-guns a free line of fire into its prow. For a moment, Antonia felt something akin to hope.