The Dragon Never Sleeps

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WarAvocat tried to think like Kez Maefele. Starbase was vulnerable, obviously. Else the Ku would not have engineered an all-out assault... Or would he? Or would he?

Breath of a suspicion.

"Alert! Red One! Prepare for magnum launch!"

Now. He would see if he could think like the Ku.

VII Gemina broke away at T. Rogolica.

"Damn me! I was right!" The system swarmed with the weakest and oldest units of the Outsider fleet.

In minutes he knew. The fleet had attacked, drawn off the Guardship covering the Barbican, and had fled just before that Guardship arrived. And had come back after the Guardship departed.

The Outsiders had no pickets watching for trouble from deeper inside Canon.

Only a few Outsiders escaped the Guardship's fury. Afterward, WarAvocat said, "Aleas, the Ku isn't quite the monster I supposed. Unless he's something worse."

"What?"

"I was gloating because I'd screwed up his schemes. But what if I am his scheme?"

"He sent those ships here hoping you'd destroy them?"

"I'm beginning to think so."

The Barbican was scrap and gas. Outsiders had not destroyed it.

They had captured it somehow. The Guardship returning from T. Rogolica had destroyed it—and it had destroyed the Guardship. Local space was empty. No defenders. No attackers. No watchers. No Horigawas. Nothing but silence.

WarAvocat told Aleas, "I'm not sure I want to see what comes next."

"We have to go. VII Gemina needs repairs."

Not just because Gemina had spoken. Seventy percent of the secondaries were gone. The Guardship's skin was an encyclopedia of battle damage. VII Gemina ought not to risk another engagement before undergoing repairs.

There was life at Gateway. Of a sort. Gateway's orbitals had been destroyed. Gateway was beyond recognition. But its Core had survived.

It did not know the fate of Starbase. Nothing friendly had come out. Very little unfriendly had.

Tight-lipped, WarAvocat ordered the Guardship onward.