Extremis (71 page)

Ankaht sent (accord, regret). “I have it on good authority that Urkhot’s final
exhortations to genocide have now evolved into an ideological fashion among his most ardent followers. They wear the concept of that atrocity like a badge of honor, a way to memorialize their fallen leaders.”

“Yes.” Tefnut ha sheri signaled (rue) “One of whom lost his life against the humans. And the other lost his life at the hands of a race-traitor—while a Council full of other race-traitors looked on.” The old priest closed all three eyes slowly. “These are dark times, full of dark tidings.”

* * *

Mretlak leaned back from the security feed coming from the multisensor he had had installed in the Council’s gathering chamber—at their behest—and let his eyelids droop for a moment. It had been a long day—and it promised to get longer. With his group recently expanded to a cluster, and being the only collective that possessed the means of reliably keeping a surreptitious eye on the
Destoshaz’ai
-as-
sulhaji
zealots, once-insignificant Mretlak had become arguably the most important Arduan whose position was known to virtually no one outside the Council itself. He had also become arguably the busiest.

A familiar tendril of
selnarm
brushed across his own: it was Lentsul. “Yes, Lentsul. Enter.”

The small
Ixturshaz
, who had risen quickly to become the Intelligence Second, shuffled into Mretlak’s office—who knew all too well what that gait signified: disappointment. “Very well, Lentsul. What has gone amiss?”

(Annoyance, frustration.) “Nothing amiss—just another defeat in locating the Resistance base.”

“What now? The potential site you identified did not prove to be accurate?”

“Well, yes and no. We kept the site—an old warehouse complex in Upper Thessalaborea—under distant surveillance for four weeks before we decided to go in and search it.”

“Prudent. What did you find?”

“Absolutely nothing of use. Oh, there was ample evidence that it must have been one of their training bases in the early days of the war. Close inspection indicated soil samples from all over the continent: dirt kicked loose from many boots, I suppose. But we estimate it was last used over two months ago.”

“Do you have any reason to suspect the Resistance abandoned it because they learned of your surveillance and investigation?”

“No, there’s no indication of that. My hypothesis is that they simply processed as many new recruits as they were able to handle and then closed up their base.”

“So they didn’t dodge us.”

“No. We were just too late.”

“Which is why we needed a military-intelligence section from the very start of this war.”

(Accord, weariness.) “So, with that lead cold, how do we locate them?”

Mretlak sent a coy (reassurance). “Oh, I’ve seen to that, Lentsul.”

“You?”

“Yes, me. Do you think I just sit behind this desk all day?”

“Well, I—”

Mretlak could feel that Lentsul did indeed suspect that, but he pressed on. “Do you recall what I said several months ago, that we only needed to give the Resistance something that they would covet and that their own actions would lead us to them?”

“Yes.”

“Well, about four weeks ago, I determined what objects we could thusly put out as bait and could also easily track.”

Lentsul was (amazed, intrigued). “What?”

“Batteries. Power cells.”

Lentsul was (perplexed, doubtful). “But, Commander, everyone uses batteries. With so many of their power plants shut down or on reduced operation, the humans are
all
desperate for them.”

“Yes, everyone needs them. And everyone is running out of them. But the Resistance cannot afford to. They are a military unit, and they rely on batteries in all their portable communications, their sensors, computers, targeting devices. More unusual still, many of the batteries used by the human militaries must be EMP resistant, so the Resistance will also require a disproportionately large supply of the more advanced and expensive power cells.
Using this strategem, we shall not catch them with a single decisive trap, Lentsul, but with a thousand statistical snares which will stick to them and their logistics flow like
zifrik
-pupae in molting season.”

“And how soon can we expect the first results, Mretlak?”

“Any day now, Lentsul. Any day now.”

29

Vae Victus

“Woe to the vanquished.”
—Latin proverb

Tangri SD
Styr’car’hsux
, Reconquest Fleet of the Consolidated Hordes, Tisiphone System

Atylycx rounded furiously on his intelligence chief.

“What do you mean they’re not the Baldies?”

They stood in the mingled light of Tisiphone’s binary suns that streamed in from the flag bridge’s large, curving view screen. The Tangri fleet that Atylycx had elected to personally lead, while entrusting the simultaneous attack on BR-07 to subordinates, had emerged from the warp point and set a course for the planet they were charged with rendering uninhabitable. Of course the occupying Baldies would have to be dealt with first, but Atylycx was confident that his reinforced fleet was up to it, given the tactical lessons he had absorbed and analyzed from his previous unpleasant encounter with them.

But now…

“They’re not Baldies, Fleet Leader! The energy signatures admit of only one interpretation. These are ship classes of the human polities known as the Rim Federation and the Terran Republic. The majority of the monitors belong to the former, but—”

Atylycx’s self-control, worn thin by the stress he had lived under since his visit to the homeworld, suddenly gave way. He reared on his hind legs and brought his arm down in a blow to his subordinate’s head. The intelligence officer staggered, then immediately assumed a submission-posture. Everyone on the flag bridge pretended not to notice.

“Idiot! Cretin! They
can’t
be humans. There are no human naval forces in the Arm except scattered pickets and other light units left stranded by the Baldies’ conquest of Bellerophon.” He waved an arm at the display screen, where new readouts were appearing with staccato rapidity. “Where could all these monitors and assault carriers and the rest have come from? Answer me that, imbecile!”

“I have no explanation, Fleet Leader.”

“It’s obvious. The Baldies must be using electronic countermeasures to disguise their ships as human ones.”
For what purpose?
came the whispered query at the back of his mind. He could tell the intelligence chief wanted to ask exactly the same thing but didn’t dare. “To confuse and disorient us,” he answered the unspoken question. “Yes. That’s it. And they’ve succeeded completely in your case, fool!” He turned away contemptuously, now able to think clearly, and studied the readouts.

Unless the Baldies—they
must
be Baldies!—had ECM capabilities beyond everyone else’s, they couldn’t be simultaneously falsifying both their identity
and
their tonnage classes. So they had outsmarted themselves: he knew what he was up against. He didn’t relish facing that array of monitors with the characteristically lighter Tangri ships. But he outnumbered the force he was facing by a margin sufficient to make him willing to trust that his ships’ equally characteristic superior maneuverability would offset the monitors’ bone-crunching firepower.

Of course he would take some losses before getting in among them: he first had to pass through the missile storm they could put out. But at the same time, his fighters might prove an equalizer. Judging from the number of assault carriers he was seeing in the emerging enemy order of battle, they should have a substantial numerical advantage. And intelligence analysis indicated that Baldy fighters (unlike the humans ones, which of course couldn’t be here) had no qualitative advantage over his.

“Ah…Fleet Leader?” The tentative voice was that of his intelligence chief. “I mention this only to remind you of the full scope of your tactical options. But our ships
are
faster than theirs, and we are currently—though only for a limited time—in a position to return to the warp point before—”

Atylycx rounded on him, and he instinctively flinched back. “You’re a coward as well as a fool! Baldies or humans, these are
prey animals.
Get out of my sight, you…you…
female!
”

Atylycx turned away, not bothering to watch the effect of the ultimate insult he had delivered in the hearing of the entire flag bridge. What he had said was true, of course. And besides…after the directive the Dominant One had given him, retreat was not an option. Better to die here.

TRNS
Lancelot
, Allied Fleet, Tisiphone System

Li Magda was still getting used to being, for the second time, alone on
Lancelot
’s flag bridge.

When the recon drones had given warning of an impending attack on Tisiphone, Trevayne had brought in a few more monitors (the largest ships that could reach it through the warp lines) and carriers. But judging it likely that the Tangri would also hit the BR-07 starless warp nexus, he had gone there himself, along with as many of his heavier units as he felt he could spare from confronting the Baldies at Demeter.

Now she watched as the datagroups of her monitors—mostly missile-heavy RFN ones—sent one smashing salvo after another into the advancing Tangri ships. Already the fighters from her assault carriers were entangled in a snarling series of dogfights with their more numerous but less effective Tangri analogs.

And now, she decided, it was time to play another card: her lighter fleet carriers, which included some Orion-crewed ones from the PSUN contingent, and which were now in the position she had wanted, behind the unsuspecting invaders.

She turned to her chief of staff, who had remained in that billet long after promotion. “Captain De Chaleins, send word to Small Claw Khzhotan. Tell him to drop cloaking ECM and launch his fighters.”

“At once, Admiral. That should be a welcome order, given how he and his personnel feel about the Tangri.”

“Yes. I seem to recall hearing the term
‘chofaki
-spoor.’ ”

Tangri SD
Styr’car’hsux
, Reconquest Fleet of the Consolidated Hordes, Tisiphone System

There was no longer any possible doubt. There hadn’t been since the initial fighter engagements. These were not Baldies. The now-unambiguous energy signatures merely confirmed that.

And some of the fighters from the now-decloaked lighter carriers that danced maddeningly in Atylycx’s rear weren’t even human ones. They were Orion. Which was not good news.

It was impossible. But there it was. And with his ships exploding all over the sky, there was only one thing to do. And surely the Dominant One would understand. He gave the order to retire on the warp point.

But it was easier said than done, with the datalinked missile-storms still breaking over his collapsing fleet—another concussion shook the flagship’s bones, sending Atylycx staggering—and the Orion fighters corkscrewing through what could no longer be described as a formation, mercilessly seeking his ships’ blind zones.

Another hit, and another…

Just before the reactor went, Atylycx glimpsed something in the dim emergency lighting. It was the expression on the face of one of the
zemlixi
orderlies. The two of them both lay on the deck, and for just an instant their eyes met.

I’ve never seen a look like that on one of their faces
, Atylycx thought.
I don’t think I like it.

It was his last thought.

TRNS
Imperious
, Task Force One, Allied Fleet, BR-07 System

BR-07 had no local sun to relieve its stygian interstellar darkness. But now its spaces were illuminated by another kind of flame.

Ian Trevayne had once read what the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald had written about the futile waste of his own British ancestors’ offensive at the Somme in the First World War: “A whole empire walking very slowly, dying in front and pushing forward behind.” Now he was reminded of that as the Tangri emerged from the warp point into the concentrated fire of his devastators and supermonitors. The leading elements simply disintegrated in that inferno, which consumed them as fast as they could appear and rush into it.

Trevayne harrumphed to get the attention of Andreas Hagen, who had been staring awestruck at the massacre. “Andreas, I think we can anticipate a chance to have a staff meeting shortly. But first I want courier drones prepared, to be dispatched to Demeter via Mercury and also to Admiral Li at Tisiphone.”

“Ah…yes, Admiral,” said Hagen, pulling himself together. “And the messages?”

“To Admiral Li, a request for confirmation that the Tangri advance against Tisiphone has been stopped.” Trevayne’s confidence that this was indeed the case was palpable. “And a further request that she send us as many monitors and carriers as she feels she can spare. Beyond that, we’ll need overall logistical support for our advance beyond this system.”

“Uh…our
advance
, Admiral?” This was the first Hagen had heard of it.

“Precisely. We’re following the Tangri remnants through this warp point as soon as practical. That’s why we need some of Admiral Li’s monitors. We don’t know how far we’ll get before we reach warp points that our devastators and supermonitors can’t transit. And we don’t want to let that slow us down, any more than we want to outrun our supplies.” He strode off abruptly, and Hagen could only scurry to catch up. “And, oh, yes,” he said over his shoulder, “we’ll need additional courier drones, to be dispatched to the home governments.”

“All of them?” asked Hagen faintly.

“Yes—the Republic and the PSU as well as the Rim. They need to know that now is the time to begin putting pressure on the Tangri wherever our warp networks abut theirs. This is a unique moment—we can’t let it slip away.”

Headquarters, Confederation Fleet Command, Luzarix, Hyx’Tangri System

The air of the Confederation Fleet Command headquarters was heavy with repressed panic.

Ultraz had felt it as he had passed though the shadowy corridors where little knots of staffers conversed in hushed tones or moved about in frenetic futility. Over everything hung a sense that the course of events had passed beyond control.