They seem to be totally unprepared for an attack from outside their formation.”
“That’s a roger, Cap’n Glen,” Becker said. The scan scope on the Ifrit showed a long view of the Khieevi formation.
“Au contraire, ma capitaine,” broke in Andina Dimitri of Domestic Goddess Intergalactic Cleansing Corporation, manufacturers of a multitude of cleaning products and providers of the most comprehensive housekeeping and interior design services in the Federation. “We’ve been compiling statistics here and according to our figures, the ships hit with sap shells hit three times as many of their companion vessels as the ships hit with conventional ammo. The sap shells are demonstrably superior.”
“This is the Condor calling the Ifrit. Come in, Ifrit,” the remote link crackled.
“Aan! Acorna, we’re kicking butt here. Wish you were here.”
“Joh,” Aari’s face on the corn screen -was both serious and hopeful. “Khornya and I are taking the Condor to find the AcaDeckt. My sister just sent us the coordinates.”
“Oh, good, I’m glad they’re okay,” Becker said.
“They’re not okay, Captain,” Acorna said. “They’re held in a Khieevi tractor beam. Maati is afraid they’re being taken to the Khieevi homeworld. But the Khieevi haven’t touched them yet.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Harakamian?” Nadhari asked. “How are they?”
“Fine, except Maati says Karina has a lousy singing voice. Calum was teaching the kids Gill’s drinking songs, Maati said.”
“I’ll pass it on,” Nadhari said. “Keep us posted on the coordinates of the Khieevi vessels.”
Acorna’s voice was unsteady when she asked, “Do we-know how the people on the surface are doing? Any idea what happened to Grandam?”
“Something happened to Grandam?” Becker asked.
“I forgot you wouldn’t know,” Acorna said. “All of us felt it. I think maybe she-she’s gone.”
“We’ll check it out as soon as possible, honey,” Becker said. “Nadhari wants to shoot something so we gotta go now. Give me those coordinates again,” he said. She did and they signed off just in time to hear a very staticky call from Hudson IT Bananas.
“What the devil!” Captain Glen called. “Wing command, we’ve been hit!”
“Fall back!” Nadhari cried, as a missile exploded to the port bow of the Ifrit.
“They finally shooting at us instead of the Linyaari?” Gil asked.
“Cloak and shield, people” Becker said. “Do it now.”
The mosquito fleet obeyed the command, leaving the space surrounding narhiiVhiliinyar to the Khieevi, but still the firing continued. The spiral of ships, formerly as tidy and symmetrical as a water ballet, already had gaping holes torn in its pristine formation from the crashes. All pretense of order vanished as the ships on the lower layer fired upward, the ships on the upper layer fired downward, and both hit the ships in the intermediate layers, which crashed. Fire blossomed and ships disintegrated into thousands of pieces, buffeting the shielded ships of the makeshift MOO fleet like a meteor shower.
“Holy smokes,” Ryk O’Shay said. “Would you lookit the fireworks.”
“Fireworks hell,” Becker said, his voice thick with longing. “RK, wouldja look at that salvage, and us without the ConSorV
Nadhari snorted, “The Khieevi apparently decided what we threw at them was friendly fire-no longer so friendly. I don’t know how they could have figured the crashes were deliberate as well but it looks as if they did, and good riddance. They’re saving us the trouble of killing them by turning on themselves.”
“I like that,” Adina said. “It’s economical.”
“Banaruu, how bad are you hit?”
“I think we’ve contained it for now, Ifrit, but we’ll need a tow back to base.”
“Hang on. This will be over soon from the look of it.”
It was. In a matter of less than an hour, hundreds of Khieevi ships destroyed each other. A few managed to flee the scene.
With the ships gone, however. Decker could see what was left of narhiiVhiliinyar. The planet’s surface, once a study in blue-green landscape and charmingly colored cities, was now a smoking black, cratered wasteland.
The Condor’s computers found every shortcut between itself and the Acaoecki. Mac, no longer troubled by the cacophony from the fleet, easily picked up the signals from Fourteen Klacfu an<) Two Kticfu and its cohorts.“They have injured aboard, Acorna,” Mac said. “And they are returning to the homeworld-the captain of the limb, as the six ships are referred to, is attempting to precede the remainder of the fleet to the homeworld to appease those he calls “the Young” with the sacrifice of the AcaSecki’s personnel.”