Empire from the Ashes

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Thirty-six days after the brief, savage battle, Dahak kept station on Zeta Trianguli Australis-I and Colin stood in Command One, contemplating the planet his crews had dubbed The Cinder.

He and Jiltanith had tried to name The Cinder something else ('Tanni had favored "Cheese"), but perhaps the crews were right, Colin thought sourly. With a mean orbital radius of five-point-eight-nine light-minutes, The Cinder was about as close to Zeta Trianguli Australis as Venus was to Sol, and Colin had always thought Venus, with a surface hotter than molten lead, was close enough to Hell.

The Cinder was worse, for Zeta Trianguli was brighter than Sol—much brighter. But The Cinder had been chosen very carefully. There were other worlds in the system, including a rather nice, if cool, third planet fifteen light-minutes further out. Zeta Trianguli was old for its class, and III had even developed a local flora that was vaguely carboniferous, but Colin was just as happy it had only the most primitive of animal life.

He folded his hands behind him, watching the display, glancing ever and again at the scarlet hyper trace blinking steadily just inside the forty-light-minute orbital shell of Zeta Trianguli-IV.

Fleet Commodore the Empress Jiltanith sat on her command deck and touched the gemmed dagger at her belt. She'd owned that weapon since the Wars of the Roses, and its familiar hilt had soothed her often over the years, but it helped little today. She knew it made excellent sense for her to be where she was, and that, too, was little help.

She wanted to rise and pace, but it would do no good to display her fear, and there were still many hours to go. Indeed, she ought to be in her quarters—her lonely, empty quarters—resting, but here she could at least see Dahak's light code and know how Colin fared.

An even dozen Trosan-class planetoids with their heavy energy batteries floated in the inner system with Dahak, and two Vespa-class assault planetoids orbited The Cinder, tending the heavy armored units doing absolutely nothing worthwhile on its fiery surface... except generating a massive energy signature not even a blind man could have missed.

Jiltanith's eyes moved from the three-dimensional schematic of the Zeta Trianguli System to the emptiness about her own ship. The fourteen surviving crewed units of the Imperial Guard floated more than six light-hours from the furnace of the star, and Vlad Chernikov's titanic repair ship Fabricator had labored mightily upon them. Much of the damage had been too severe to be fully healed—Two, for example, still bore two wounds over sixty kilometers deep—but all were combat ready. Ready, yet carefully stealthed, hidden from every prying scanner, accompanied by sixty loyal, lifeless ships.

Jiltanith did not like to consider why they were not with Dahak, but the reasoning was brutally simple. If Operation Mousetrap failed, the crewed ships would return to Terra to hold as long as they might and evacuate as many additional Terra-born as possible to Birhat when they could hold no more, but the unmanned planetoids would be sent directly to Birhat and Marshal Tsien.

There would be no point retaining them, for they were useless in close combat without Dahak's control, and Dahak—and Colin—would be dead.

Great Lord Sorkar's crest flexed thoughtfully as his portion of the Great Visit neared normal-space once more. This star was suspiciously young to have evolved nest-killers of its own, which reinforced his belief that it could be but a forward base. That was bad, since it gave no hint what star these demons might call home. Unless one of them was obliging enough to flee into hyper and head directly thence, which he doubted any ships as fast as they would do, he could not even guess where their true home world lay.

Except, of course, that it almost certainly had been Lord Furtag's scouts which had roused these nest-killers to fury. They must have followed a courier to find Sorkar, and only a courier from Furtag's force could have reached this rendezvous so soon. And that gave Sorkar a volume of space in which at least one of their important worlds must lie. That might be enough. If it was not, it was at least a start. And this star system was another.

Those monster ships' sheer size impressed him deeply, yet anything that large must take many years to build, so each he slew would hurt the nest-killers badly. He only hoped those who had already clashed with his nestlings would be foolish enough to stand and fight here.

A soft musical tone sounded, and he made himself relax, hoping that Battle Comp noticed his tranquillity. The queasy shudder of hyper translation ran through his flagship, and Defender dropped into phase with reality once more.

"Achuultani units are emerging from hyper," Dahak's mellow voice said.

Colin nodded as the dots of Achuultani ships gleamed in the display. He looked around the empty bridge, wishing for just a moment that he'd let the others stay. But if this worked, he and Dahak could pull it off alone; if it failed, those eight thousand-odd people would be utterly invaluable to 'Tanni and Gerald Hatcher. Besides, this was fitting, somehow. He and Dahak, together and alone once more.

"Keep an eye on 'em," he said. "Let me know if they do anything sneaky."

"I shall." Dahak was silent for a moment, then continued. "I have continued my study of energy-state computer technology, Colin."

"Oh?" If Dahak wanted to distract him, that was fine with Colin.

"Yes. I believe I have isolated the fundamental differences between the energy-state 'software' of the Empire and my own. They were rather more subtle than I originally anticipated, but I now feel confident of my ability to reprogram at will."

"Hey, that's great! You mean you could tinker them into waking up?"

"I did not say that, Colin. I can reprogram them; I still have not determined what within my own programming supports my self-aware state. Without that datum, I cannot recreate that state in another. Nor have I yet discovered a certain technique for simply replicating my current programming in their radically different circuitry."

"Yeah." Colin frowned. "But even if you could, you'd have problems, wouldn't you? They're hardwired for loyalty to Mother—wouldn't that put a crimp into your replication?"

"Not," Dahak said rather surprisingly, "in the case of the Guard. Its units were not part of Battle Fleet and do not contain Battle Fleet loyalty imperatives. I suppose—" the computer sounded gently ironic "—Mother and the Assembly of Nobles calculated that the remaining nine hundred ninety-eight thousand seven hundred and twelve planetoids of Battle Fleet would suffice to deal with them in the event an Emperor proved intractable."

"Guess they might, at that."

"The absence of those constraints, however, makes the replication of my core programming at least a possibility, although not a very high one. While I have made progress, I compute that the probability of success would be no more than eight percent. The probability that an unsuccessful attempt would incapacitate the recipient computer, however, approaches unity."

"Um." Colin tugged on his nose. "Not so good. The last thing we need is to addle one of the others just now."

"My own thought exactly. I thought, however, that you might appreciate a progress report."

"You mean," Colin snorted, "that you thought I was about to get the willies and you'd better distract me from 'em!"

"That is substantially what I said." Dahak made the soft sound he used for a chuckle. "In my own tactful fashion, of course."

"Tactful, shmactful," Colin grinned. "Thanks, I—"

He broke off as the glittering hordes of Achuultani light codes suddenly vanished only to blink back moments later, much closer in-system.

"They are advancing," Dahak said calmly. "A trio of detached ships, however, appear to be micro-jumping to positions on the system periphery."

"Observers, damn it. Well, no one can count on their enemies being idiots."

"True, though that will be of limited utility if we are able to repeat our earlier success and destroy them before they rendezvous with the main body."

"Yeah, but we can't be sure of doing that. It's a lot shorter jump this time, and they can cut their arrival a hell of a lot closer. Tell 'Tanni to lay off. Last thing we need to do is to try sneaking up on 'em and alert them to the fact that there's more of us around."

"Acknowledged," Dahak replied. "Two has acknowledged," he added a moment later.

"Thanks," Colin grunted.

His attention was on the display. The Achuultani had micro-jumped with beautiful precision, spreading out to englobe Zeta Trianguli at a range of twenty-seven light-minutes. Now they were closing in normal space at twenty-four percent light-speed. They'd be into extreme missile range in another ten minutes, but it would take them almost an hour to reach their range of The Cinder, and he and Dahak could hurt them badly in that much time.

But not too badly. They had to keep closing. He needed them deep into the stellar gravity well for this to work, and—

He snorted. There were over a million of the bastards—just how much damage did he think his fifteen ships could inflict in fifty minutes?

"Open up at fifteen light-minutes, Dahak," he said finally. "Timed-rate fire. We don't want to shoot ourselves dry."

"Acknowledged," Dahak said calmly, and they waited.

Great Lord Sorkar fought his exultation. The nest-killers had not even attempted to cloak themselves! They simply sat waiting, and that was fine with Sorkar. Many of his nestlings were about to die, but so were the nest-killers.

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 the 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.