The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 48 —

Lupo Provik cursed, exasperated. "Simon, I guarantee you I can't pull it off against three Guardships. They're eating us up. Will you get yourself into your damned Voyager and get out?"

Tregesser wanted to find hope where there was none.

"If it suddenly goes our way, you can turn back."

"What about you?"

"I'm covering you, dammit! I'll leave as soon as you're clear. Will you go? Do I have to drag you? You want to guess what it's going to be like here when these things realize they're all going to die?"

"All right. All right." Tregesser started moving. "At least we gave it a try."

"It'll help when we shop around Outside again. Go." Lupo scanned his data. Half his fighters gone. Half of everything suffering at least some damage. And that damned third Guardship just cruising in, doing execution duty, blocking the escape route. No point sending the signal that would free the troops to try for the tag end. He muttered, "But we weren't supposed to draw the whole damned fleet."

He watched the Guardships till he received word that Tregesser's Voyager was clear and running into the void, headed out the end space's back door.

"Mr. Provik!" The tone jarred. It was one of total disbelief.

"What?"

"The lead Guardship has dropped its screen."

"We broke through?"

"No sir. They shut it down. On purpose."

"That's insane." He scanned the incoming data, looked for the error. It was not there. The Guardship was spewing more fire than it was taking. Its output was not falling off as it should. He checked the visual display.

Pieces flew off XII Fulminata in all directions.... He caught something, adjusted scale. "I'll be damned."

XII Fulminata was peeling itself like an onion, sloughing layers a hundred meters thick in chunks and sections as they were destroyed. The layers beneath were as heavily armed as those blown away.

It was depressing. They always had something more to show you.

More and more, his gun platforms were forced to waste time shielding themselves. That made it more difficult to fend off the pinpoint attacks of enemy fighters.

"Damn them. They're as crazy as Simon's suiciders. They just keep coming. How do you whip somebody who doesn't care if he gets killed?"

Be interesting to find out why they valued their lives so lightly.

No time to worry about it now. He tapped his wrist. "Ready? It's time."

He drifted away when no one was watching. He joined his family on the operating bridge of his personal Voyager. As Lupo One backed it from its docking bay, he said, "VII Fulminata blew up a minute ago. Want to screen it?"

"Might as well."

Lupo felt tired beyond any weariness justified by exertion. It was the tiredness that comes after great stress, great failure. It was a weariness brought on by a certainty that half a life's work had gone for naught.

He had expected it, but that did not soften the impact of reality.

Behind the Voyager, fire and death clawed the face of the night and ripped the fabric of space.