“These ships. You say they are approximately a hundred kilometers apart?”
“Yes. That’s an average, of course.”
“Too far for a jet pack, then, but power consumption must be minimal or they will be upon us. Lightning is a good ship but we cannot risk burst after burst of even low-level power. We will prepare a fighter with the most basic of drives, more pressure than anything else. We will take our time. Out, then back, to each ship and back to Lightning, which should remain relatively stationary in the midst of the fleet. Very well. Let us get to work on it.”
Raven, too, was working on his end. Since volunteering he seemed almost a changed man, although if anything his cigar consumption had gone up along with rather conspicuous consumption of the fine wines and liquors left behind by Savaphoong. But using Thunder’s maintenance robots, he had slimmed down the shape of Espiritu Luzon, eliminated much weight, reinforced the shields to the maximum that was possible, and added additional armament. Hawks surveyed the work approvingly.
“It doesn’t look like you intend to lose,” he noted. “Try to save a few of them for us.”
Raven chuckled. “Oh, there’ll be plenty left, Chief. No question about that. This is a diversion, though, not a suicide mission. Oh, sure, any fool can see I’m gonna get creamed, but I ain’t makin’ it easy for nobody. If I can buy the time and still get out with my skin, I’m gonna do it. They’re gonna figure it’s a diversion from the start— we’re only hopin’ they’re gonna be lookin’ for the big attack instead of where we’re really workin’, but they won’t take me none too serious. I figure there’s a little tiny chance out of this. If there is, I ain’t gonna get blown to bits ’cause I overlooked something.”
Hawks nodded. “When will you be ready?”
“Never if I had my choice, but as good as I’m gonna be in three, maybe four more days. What about that Makkikor and Lightning!”
“Ready now. The construction of the cores has gone well and they all have been tested. They can run the ships’ systems, follow all offensive and defensive security commands, and will be tied in with our own master battle network. Enough brains and enough basic data to get the job done but no personality. Sort of like Savaphoong’s poor slaves aboard here. You decide what to do about them?”
Raven shrugged. “Ain’t nothin’ to do with ’em. They’re transmuted. They ain’t gonna ever be more than beautiful bodies and empty heads. They got no future and you know it. I figured I’d just take ’em along for the ride. Might as well be decadent while I’m bein’ noble.”
“I feel somewhat—dirty—in allowing that, but they have no capacity for making their own choice or even contemplating their own mortality. I should take them off, but they have no place here, and I refuse to allow anyone here to get used to some people being mindless slaves. Very well. Take them. They will be on my own conscience.”
Raven grinned. “You got too much of that conscience shit, Chief. You can’t carry the guilt of the universe. All you’re gonna give yourself is a damned heart attack that way, and wouldn’t that be ironic? You droppin’ dead before you even saw the rings bein’ used?”
Hawks thought about his conversation with the Makkikor. Were it not for Cloud Dancer and the children, he wondered if a heart attack at such a time might not be a mercy. Instead he said, “Every day another ship or two comes into the system. Every day I feel the pressure of more, perhaps the SPF, as well, closing in on our backs. The window is small and getting smaller, Raven. Four days. Four days from right now.” He paused. “You can still back out, you know.”
The Crow grinned. “Chief, I wouldn’t back out of this for all five rings and Master System, too. I’ll be ready. You just be sure that Lightning gets where it has to and does its job. You decided who’s gonna fly it, by the way?”
“We’ve run trials with Kaotan on just about everyone. It’s clear we need two aboard just in case, and Maria and Midi are the best choice—but I want them on the ground with me if we get through. I don’t want them stuck out there, and I don’t want to deal with Matriyehan orphans. It’s simply too much of a problem to adapt the ship for the Alititians. The same goes for the Chows, and I want experienced people there. I’m going to send Ali ben Suda because he knows the Makkikor as well or better than anyone else alive and is a damned good captain, and I’m also sending Chun Wo Har. That’s two good captains who also want to participate in the end.”
“Good enough for me,” Raven told him. “Let’s go before I die of all this damned luxury.”
The four days passed all too quickly.
Raven had told them he wanted no sendoff, but Hawks and Cloud Dancer both came down to see him as he was preparing to leave. The Crow startled them by his appearance; he wore the loincloth and skin moccasins of a young warrior, and his face was painted with glowing designs, his long hair braided in pigtails.
“You look like someone from a warm climate,” Hawks noted. “Any Crow who dressed like that would freeze to death.”
Raven laughed. “The summers get very hot where my people live,” he told them, “and on the dark summer nights with the fires blazing in the midst of the lodges they perform their rituals. I’ve always been a rationalist, Chief; I always figured that when we go, we go out like a candle. But when you’re there, in the midst of them all, with the chants of the holy ones merging with the songs and supplications of the people—then you get a different feeling. Out there, between the mountains of the north, where you sometimes feel as if you can reach out and grab a star and bring it home with you—then there is something there.”
Cloud Dancer smiled. “If you can feel that, if you have felt it even once, then you know in your heart that there is magic,” she said gently. “We have come a long way, have we not, together?”
Raven was suddenly very serious. “Yes. A long way.”
“The ghosts of not only your ancestors but of all our ancestors going back to the start of time ride with you, Raven,” she told him. “In the past years I have learned much. It is the penalty of being married to a historian. Our people have been conquered, their lands stolen, the buffalo slaughtered, the very skies stained with their blood at each sunrise, yet we survive. We true humans are a small people compared to the others, far smaller in number than even I had ever dreamed, yet we are still here, and now it again falls to us. We who have suffered so much have been guided by destiny to this point. Be brave, Raven, for we will never die.”
And she reached up and kissed him, and he was deeply moved by it. Hawks had feared that Cloud Dancer would break into tears but her eyes were dry. Raven’s, however, were not, and Hawks was suppressing tears himself. He reached out a hand and clasped Raven’s long and hard, and then the Crow turned without a word and made his way back to his ship. They watched him go, until he was but a tiny figure in the vast cargo bay, then they turned and went back inside.
“Do not weep for him, my husband,” she said at last.
“Few of us ever are placed in such a wonderful position where we might do something, contribute to something, truly momentous. He himself has said it. He was born for this, for the next four hours. When you write the history of all this, there will not be a Crow among his people who will not claim lineage to him nor a child among them who will not wish to measure up to him. It is no time for sadness, but rather rejoicing. When we first met him as an enemy, he had lost his soul. Now he has found it again.”
It would still be a near thing, and although Master System might have left this one hole open for them it was, as Star Eagle had said, not a conscious hole. If they did it wrong, if they didn’t pull this off, then the forces being massed by the great computer would eat them alive.
To emerge on virtually a single punch their speed had to be exact, their placement mere meters apart and in a perfectly straight line. Lightning was almost in Espiritu Luzon’s engines and held fixed by four carefully rigged tractor beams. Computers aboard Luzon would manage both ships through a link, keeping engine thrusts absolutely equal and the hold tight, until the very moment of the punch. At that point, mere nanoseconds before Luzon would punch out, the link and the tractors would be severed and Lightning’s own automatic systems would take over. Captain ben Suda would be linked but only observe until after the breakaway at punch in. At that point, it would be his show—and Raven’s.
“Punch in thirty seconds,” Star Eagle reported as everyone on the Thunder held their breaths. Even the very air seemed still. “I am picking up odd sounds from Espiritu Luzon.”
“Put them on,” Hawks ordered.
They came through the speakers, and Hawks smiled and looked at Cloud Dancer, who returned the smile. Neither could understand the Crow language, nor could Star Eagle, which was why he was so puzzled, but the two Hyiakutts knew. “He sings the ancient songs well,” Hawks commented.
“For a Crow,” she responded. “Just pray he does not forget where he is and order a launch of arrows.”
“Punch!” Star Eagle reported. “Perfect! On the nose!”
There would now be no contact possible with the ships for close to twenty minutes. It was ironic that they could communicate through that nether-space from point to point in real time but they could not talk while between the two regions.
Nobody said or did much during the waiting period. Even the youngest children seemed to be silent, as if they, too, were somehow aware that something important was happening. Hawks looked around at the great inner world of Thunder as if seeing it for the first time. It had been his world for so long, and it had been good. The children had known no other. Now, suddenly, it seemed so empty, and so transitory.
“Punch out!” Star Eagle reported. “Perfect separation. My own monitors in the asteroid belt easily detected it but there was no indication of a double punch-in. Lighting made something of a trace as it broke away but nothing inconsistent with the usual anomalous readings you might get on a punch. Raven is still singing, and he has released dozens of drones that are showing up well in scatter-shot fashion. It is impossible even for me to pick up Lightning in all that clutter, and I know it’s there and where it’s going! Uh oh!”
“What is it?” Hawks asked.
“Outer perimeter fighters using short punches. Four of them closing fast on Luzon. Raven sees them. Hmmm… That is odd. He has stopped singing.”
“You chant before a battle, not during one,” Hawks said tensely.
The fighters were in for something of a surprise: Luzon still looked like only a freighter, but was faster and carried more armaments than even Lightning after the modifications. The defensive fighters expected Raven to use short punches and maneuvered to cover, but he just kept on, picking out the weakest area of the field and then letting loose a salvo of torpedoes, turning wide, and bearing right down on two other fighters. The maneuver was absolutely insane and against all logic.
It confused the hell out of the automated fighters, who turned and came at him, locking on as best they could. Raven launched missiles, short punched, then launched more aft. The fighters, confused, swung around and launched their own right into the region where the first fighter was trying to pick off the initial torpedo salvo. There were so many torpedoes in the area from both the three pursuit ships and Raven, all with smart warheads, that they began to go after the ships indiscriminately and even each other. The other fighters, closing, had to veer off to stay out of the mess and found themselves going for a few precious seconds in exactly the wrong direction from Raven. In the meantime, two of the three fighters that initially closed on Luzon were struck hard—by whose torpedoes it was impossible to tell—and the other torpedoes, seeing a target, zeroed in on the ones that were hit.
By remaining inside the full range of the fighters Raven could not avoid taking a few hits himself, but he and the others were so close together that the odds were three to one against it being him that was hit by any given torpedo. He managed to take his lumps and punch further in, leaving the outer perimeter guards damaged and in disarray. Man plus machine had beaten machine alone. Loud shrieks, which everyone but Hawks and Cloud Dancer attributed to pain and wounds, came back to them from Luzon.
Raven had been right all along, Hawks realized. He was having more fun than he’d ever had in his whole life.
He noticed that Cloud Dancer sat silently, doing a rough sketch in charcoal. As time progressed, he saw that it was a drawing of Raven, in loincloth and full war paint, a ferocious, even maniacal expression on his face, at the controls of an idealized spaceship. It wasn’t exactly realistic, but if it became a painting that hung in the lodges of the Crow some time from now it would be a definitive classic.
Star Eagle’s calculations were that Raven would be twenty percent or more disabled by the initial engagement, and very likely not survive any further inbound engagement against heavier forces. Over three hours after the initial engagement, however, Luzon was battered and starting to run low on certain kinds of ammunition, but was still going, using short punches, and had almost reached the orbit of Mars.
“The main body is not engaging him,” Star Eagle reported. “They have guessed it is a feint and are grouping for a main attack. They are still spread a bit thin, and it appears that they have deduced that our most logical line of punch-in and attack will be from behind the main body, possibly under as well. Raven has also played everything exactly right. He has acted with total illogic when they expected logical moves and with computer precision when they allowed for total illogic.”
“What about Lightning!” Hawks asked.
“Inbound, engines down. Good speed and angle. They have already broadcast the security codes and are angling in to the fleet. I would expect that they will be slowing to station within the hour. No sign that they have been detected. I think we got away with it!”
“Tell Raven to get the hell out of here, then!” Hawks ordered. “Tell him to punch out no matter where the hell he winds up and keep punching!”
“He has a possibility of breaking free although he is badly damaged,” Star Eagle replied. “I have sent the recall but to no effect. Perhaps his main engines are out and he is incapable of punching.”
“Main engines out my ass!” Hawks growled. “What the hell has he got in mind?”
“Hard to say. He is currently in an open area, but his recent corrections are taking him on a direct heading for Earth. Hawks—there are Val ships all over there, not to mention about half the task force. He has already survived nine engagements. A stone or spear could probably take him out now, yet he’s heading straight for the main body.”
Hawks sighed and sat down. “Now is he drawn to the very center of Hell, the lost city of Dis, having run the circles of Malebolge. Though he be consumed by the flames or frozen by the cold of demon wings, that idiotic son of a bitch is going to ram himself right down the devil’s throat.” No one heard. No one was meant to.
“He’s going on, screaming like a madman! There’s a huge force now, closing in from all sides! There’s no way they’re going to let any ship reach Earth itself!” Star Eagle sounded as if he were going to short circuit from the tension. “He’s heading right into the center of them! Loosing everything he’s got left! He’s hit! Again! Again! He—”
There was a deadly, unnatural quiet.
“He’s gone,” Star Eagle said flatly.
“Punched?” Hawks asked, hoping against hope.
“No. Nothing could have lived amid what they were throwing at him. He’s just—gone. I have reviewed the sequence. It appeared that at the last moment he made a slight correction and just, well, went to his maximum speed straight into a Val formation. He got two of them.” Cloud Dancer looked up from her sketch. “He is home,” she said softly, and went back to her drawing.
9. The Final Battle
HAWKS SAT WITH WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE COUNCIL in the main control room of Thunder.
“All right, how many ships do we have armed and ready?”
“Twenty-six,” Star Eagle responded. “That was the most possible without using main engines, and they are beginning to get very suspicious ever since Raven attacked and nothing followed. That is five hundred and twenty coordinated fighters plus the on-board guns and torpedoes. The shielding, however, will be poor since it was mostly designed for punches, and the in-system speed will be slow for the same reason. Remember, I had to use Jupiter as a slingshot to gain enough speed for the initial getaway. As soon as I activate them, the whole plan will be clear to Master System.”
That begged the big question. “Can we win with that?”
“It might be close. Since Raven’s escapade they have spread out and are still fairly thin, but these are destroyers we are talking about—one hundred and thirty-one of them to be exact, along with a count of at least twelve Vals in the near-Earth orbit position commanding another ten. In realistic terms, the big ships are going to get the hell blown out of them, but the fighters are too small and fast to be separated from all the other pulses unless you know their codes. That means the fighters will show to an attack computer just like torpedoes, although they are in reality several times that size and faster.”
“Recommendations?”
“Start them all up at once,” Maria Santiago suggested. “As long as we telegraph our battle plan by starting one, let us start all of them. Swing them out and up and around as fast as possible—I know that will take time, and they will need time to organize their response. Your screens show no ships within close range except perhaps a fighter or two on picket, and if need be, Lightning can take them if those captains are as good as they seem to be. There is no evidence that Master System even suspects Lighting is there and even if it deduces it, when the big ships move it won’t be looking for one little ship. Pull the ships out in formation, accelerate, make the full Jupiter arc.”
“But they’re not going to punch,” Hawks pointed out.
“Yes, but does Master System know this? It has the advantage of having to defend a relatively small position, but its disadvantage is that it must always react, always wait for us to move. We have already done something apparently irrational. We sacrificed a ship, and while the task force lost a dozen it was hurt far less by that than we by the loss of one. It will take nothing for granted with us. I would think that it would have to consider the possibility of facing twenty-six Thunders with full command cores and specially outfitted by us. Carrying what? They cannot know. Dozens of ships? Hundreds? They will have to move to prevent the punchout of so many capital ships. The logic will be easy, since all twenty-six will have to come out of Jupiter’s gravity well in a predetermined region in order to punch out at the proper speed. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. But we do not break out for the punch. We continue to come around and head in at maximum speed, then fan out. The initial defensive perimeter would then be left behind and forced to catch up. It would also be forced to split and give chase, which would make them easy prey for the big ships’ fighters. That is the sort of thing they were designed to handle.”
“It sounds good,” Star Eagle told them. “We must force them to split their forces and group them around the big ships. They are unlikely to engage the Vals and the ten fighters they have around Earth. Those are certainly reserves, and in any event they would be there to keep us from sneaking in under cover of the big ships. With a proper set of inbound trajectories, they would be able to take out any big ship they wanted—any three or four, even—if they concentrated all their remaining forces on them. But that would leave a massive force of our ships to get through, all concentrated on the orbital defenses. They could not permit that. But to take on all twenty-six at once would mean a mere five destroyers per big ship. My calculations show that they have a possibility of winning that way, but it is under seventeen percent, comparing weaponry to weaponry, and remembering that I have never fought such a battle before and have no precedent for it.”
“Don’t worry,” Hawks responded. “Neither has Master System. The few times it faced a battle of any magnitude, such as with the Makkikor, it was in our position, attacking. It has never been forced to defend before, even though it was originally designed to do so. Is there any other strategy that you could see—that any of you can see—other than five to a big ship?”
There was dead silence.
“All right, then, it’ll take the odds and hope that whatever is left can be handled by the Vals and orbital ships. I believe Maria’s plan is the best one for us, as well, but I want everyone at their ships and on station, all ships powered up and ready to go. The odds favor us having a number of potent but very damaged survivors to take on the Vals and the rest. When we get to that point we must commit ourselves. Everything we have. Lightning, too —notify them to be ready. Star Eagle, how many fighters do you have in combat configuration?”
“We have been manufacturing them at a good clip. We have forty-two locked on the outer hull now, half with limited punch capability. In addition I have four with transmuter transceiving grids on them and six remaining monitor ships. Those last aren’t much good unless they can ram something but that’s always a possibility.”
Butar Killomen looked shocked. “You’re not going to engage Thunder directly, are you?”
“If I have to. All or nothing, Bute. All or nothing. I’m well aware of what I’m saying and what I’m risking, but I will risk everything rather than lose at this late stage because we failed to commit one gun. This has been understood by those of us who started from here so long ago since the beginning.”
“But the children…”
“If we lose,” he responded, “what sort of future do they have?” He pounded his fist on the table. “No! All or nothing. Any minute, any day, we could wind up with two or more new task forces reporting in from far-flung regions when we have already shot our wad—not to mention four hundred plus divisions of the SPF who could show up at any time if Master System is really scared. The odds barely favor us completing this thing now, seventeen percent or no. I say we go! How say the rest of you?”
Killomen gulped. “Very well. I will take Bahakatan along with Vulture, Min, Chung, and Fatima, of course. We have been modifying Kaotan, since it already had some modifications to account for the old Takya. I feel certain that Takya, Dura, and Han Li can handle it well enough. Chunhoifan has a majority of its original crew still in original form but no experienced pilots left.”
“Then Midi and I will take it,” Maria said. “I want a chance to pay them all back for my own ship. We might need some seat modifications and some change of control helmets, though, to allow for our difference in shape.”
“Easy to do,” Star Eagle told her. “I am ordering what is needed now and will have the maintenance robots install it within two hours. It is merely a matter of replacing two seats. The interface helmets are even easier, since we have many spares now.”
“I will interface with Star Eagle and track this thing,” China said. “I want to be able to see what is going on.”
Hawks sighed. “And that leaves the admiral with the wife and kids, I guess. I suppose I should have taken some time in all these years to learn how to fly one of these things. The problem is, we still have more pilots than ships. One more and the Chows could have a go. They’ve been wanting to have some action.”
“No, they lack the killer instinct,” China replied. “They still see this almost as a game. Let them tend to the children. It is what they do best.”
Hawks looked over at Cloud Dancer, sitting apart from the meeting. “Then I guess it’s just you and me, woman, as usual.”
She smiled. “Do not be so glum, husband. Not everyone is born to be a great warrior. Some are born to other things of equal importance. Look at it this way: they all will leave only to fight, but you, my husband, must tell them how the rings are to be used.”
* * *
Hawks sat in one of the command chairs on the bridge of the Thunder, trying to think, trying to sort it all out, even as the great ships were activated and other ships of the line readied for backup. He would face the climax of all their years of blood and sweat alone. He had wanted it that way. Oh, China’s body sat in a forward command chair, helmet on, but her mind was interfaced with Star Eagle’s and she was no more there in any meaningful sense than was, well, Raven.
There was nothing Hawks could do now, and he knew it. Raven and many of the others were fighters; he was a thinker. There was no particular shame in that distinction, but there was a sense that he was perceived as unequal by the fighters themselves and that hurt a bit. His political skills had in no small measure gotten them this far; now, if the warriors could gain him the last small step, it was entirely in his hands to get them the rest of the way.