The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 92 —

The gates of the repair bay unfolded. "At last," WarAvocat murmured. On the track of the villains at last.

He thought of the artifact. She haunted him even now. First stop, M. Shrilica. Should have been something more from Haget. Long since.

A Guardship broke off the Web. "WarAvocat. Signals from XXVIII Fretensis."

"Here it comes," he murmured. The end of a quiet passage. Before it began.

The air behind his shoulder whispered. Rogue. VI Adjutrix. IV Trajana and XII Fulminata—again!—accepting destruction in order to take out the rogue and ensure XXVIII Fretensis's escape into Canon space. VI Adjutrix's final contrite act.

OpsAvocat asked if there would be a change in plans.

Of course. "After M. Shrilica, we're headed Outside. There were riders that couldn't be recovered." He began reviewing the data in detail.

M. Shrilica's outworks had been destroyed. Only gutted shells of stations remained, and an old capsule from Haget's Traveler that was useless. And, near breakaway point, there was the hulk of a ship unlike anything seen before.

It took four days to extract a coherent story from survivors in Tregesser Xylag.

Five ships had come. They had lain in wait for months. Someone had come, finally, had blown one of them away, and had fled before the others could close in. The survivors had destroyed the stations and gone in pursuit.

"Haget," WarAvocat told the Deified. "Who else would they be gunning for? He left no message capsule. Or it was destroyed. I have no idea why he didn't run to the Barbican."

The Deified Thaygos Mundt suggested, "Maybe they didn't let him."

"Perhaps. His first capsule is useless, too."

"And the hulk?"

They knew. But they wanted to make him tell it. "The type hasn't been seen before. The design is strictly combat. It contained no technical surprises except a geometric inertial system the equal of ours."

"And the creatures who operated it?"

They did want him to state the impossible before the crew. "They appear to be of human stock. With differences science staff say can be explained by isolation from the main gene pool for fourteen to twenty thousand years."

They wanted crew to know, but they did not make him remind them that known history predated Canon's founding only a few thousand years.

The Deified Ansehl Ronygos asked, "Explain your plan of campaign."

"First, D. Zimplica to inform Presidency General Secretariat. Then Outside."

WarAvocat ran the Web hard, twice forcing commercial carriers off into starspace. The pause at the Presidency capital system, D. Zimplica, lasted ten minutes. Then on to the Outside system where three Guardships had died.

He broke away in a magnum launch, into a swarm of ships trying to mine the wreckage. There were no surviving riderships.

It took eighteen hours to cleanse the system. Nothing escaped. He gave the Twist Masters ten hours to obliterate the remains of three Guardships. Then he proceeded to the next system in the empire of the methane breathers.

WarAvocat foresaw a six-year campaign softening defenses for Guardships to follow.

Tawn was seen twice after the fighting. He went but she was not there when he arrived.