The Crucible of Empire (30 page)

"Spines B, D, F, and H, stand down," Dannet's voice said over the P.A. "We have reentered the photosphere. Spines A, C, E, and G, fire when you have acquired targets."

Mallu put his headgear back on and Tully followed suit. The gun teams resumed their positions. Lieutenant Miller was trotting down the line, overseeing the work.

The great cannons started firing again. By then, Tully had returned to his supervisory station, wishing he were down in one of the magazines, loading and loading, doing something physical and useful. He felt like a blasted fifth wheel up here, keeping an eye on the process when everyone else was doing all the work. And, face it, he longed to have an active hand in blowing those Ekhat bastards into atoms. He flat wanted to kill something!

He dropped into his seat, refastened the harness, and studied the screen. The two Ekhat ships were still closing. Fire control on all weapons decks that could be brought to bear was concentrating now on the closest. The awkward looking vessel took hit after hit, and he saw explosions around the periphery. Shapes were blown out of the ship by venting gas. Some of them looked like bodies, though the carcasses were much smaller than the Ekhat he remembered from that harrowing expedition two years ago. But it was hard to tell, because they were incinerated so quickly. They'd reentered the photosphere and nothing material was going to survive outside of a ship's shielding for more than a few seconds. Soon enough, as they plunged deeper into the star, that would become milliseconds.

Not only were the great guns doing their job, but the Ekhat were obviously having trouble realizing their effectiveness and adjusting tactics to compensate. Then the targeted ship suddenly disintegrated. Its structural integrity had become too compromised by the accumulated effect of the sabot rounds. Hundreds of them would have smashed into the vessel by now.

Once a ship started to give way inside a star's photosphere, the end was astonishingly quick. The star's own nuclear fury completed the destruction in what seemed like no more than an eyeblink.

Cheers went up all along the firing line. Human cheers, not Jao. The Jao weren't given to useless demonstrations of emotion.

"Stay focused, people!" Tully called at them. "Target that second ship! We're not done yet by a long shot!"

The second ship rushed toward them.

This was supposed to be a diplomatic mission, Caitlin kept telling herself over and over as the
Lexington's
bridge seethed with action. And, if things had gone according to Ronz's plan, she would have known what to do. She, who had never even fired a Terran handgun, had no place in this harried battle. No doubt, Terra-Captain Dannet would prefer her to leave, thereby eliminating a potential distraction. But Caitlin could not bring herself to bury her head in her snug cabin while the ship's crew fought to survive.

That would seem cowardly, she thought, and she was not only her father's daughter, but Ed's wife. She could not behave like a scared little mouse during this crisis and then expect to maintain the crew's respect afterward, not to mention her own.

A human male called for Dannet and the Terra-captain moved rapidly to his station. Unlike a human commander, who'd most likely have remained in his own seat during the action, Dannet had been moving around the bridge constantly. But then, human officers had to pay a lot more attention to the needs of morale than Jao did. They needed to project the appearance of stolid unconcern for their own safety, where the Jao simply took that for granted.

The boldly striped Narvo face studied the screen, then Dannet keyed on her mike, broadcasting to the entire ship. "The lead vessel has been destroyed," she said, as casually as if she were discussing the balance of salts in a pool. "Focus fire now on the next-in-line."

The human members of the bridge crew cheered and Dannet's body lines went to pure
annoyance
. She was still relatively new to Terra, and not very familiar with the habits of humans.

For different reasons, Caitlin also thought that exuberance was out of place. Certainly premature. There were still at least four more Ekhat ships out there, just waiting for
Lexington
to make a mistake. And this was an untried ship, she thought, blood pounding in her ears, and, for the most part, a green crew. They were bound to make mistakes. That was part of the learning process.

She realized with a start that her own lines and angles had gone to
repressed-dread
, which any Jao on the bridge could read. With an effort, she composed herself and assumed a credible, if shaky, version of
determined-confidence
. And, as she had found down through the years, her feelings shifted somewhat toward what her body was trying to say. She felt less frightened, more able to cope.

The Ekhat ship charging after them was no longer firing. That was good, she told herself, wasn't it? None of the Jao crewmen watching the viewscreen seemed to think so, though. Their lines had gone mostly to
alarm
.

It was rushing toward them very fast, the image growing and growing. If it didn't look out, it was going to—

With a shock, Caitlin understood. "My God. It's going to ram us," she said under her breath.

"All decks, lock down!" Dannet ordered over the P.A. Her ears had gone to
concern
, an indication of her abstraction.

The nearest Jao bridge officer glanced up at Caitlin. "Find a seat and strap in," he said, his eyes ablaze with green. "That location is not optimum for your safety."

Her face heated. She was just standing there, waiting for instruction, for someone else to save the day, like a two-year-old who'd escaped from the nursery and was wandering in traffic. All around the multilevel bridge, voices rose and fell, relaying readings, recommending adjustments, and she understood none of it. She felt so damned useless!

Spotting an empty station, she moved into the seat, which was oversized for human dimensions in order to accommodate Jao members of the crew. Her hands shook a little as she buckled the safety harness around her waist and across her shoulders. In the viewscreen, the image of the Ekhat ship grew until all she could see was the infamous characteristic inverted tetrahedron. Her heart raced and she felt the sickening zing of adrenaline in her veins. If the Ekhat ship was trying to ram them, then
Lexington
should retreat, shouldn't it?

The rest of the bridge crew had taken similar precautions. "Gun mounts retracted and locked on all spines," a human woman said off to Caitlin's left.

"Prepare for ramming," Dannet said.

"Maneuvering," a Jao said on the far side of the bridge. Amber lights played across his muzzle.

Dannet watched the central viewscreen and the on-coming Ekhat vessel with a hint of
gleeful-anticipation
in the line of her spine and the cant of her whiskers. Was the former Narvo insane? Caitlin wondered suddenly. Her predecessor, Oppuk, certainly had been. Or had Narvo sent her to the new taif with secret instructions to scuttle the
Lexington
at the first opportunity? The ship would never return and all across the galaxy Jao would say it was the human crew's fault.

"In position," the Jao said. "All decks confirmed locked down."

"Then reverse course and accelerate," Dannet said.

Accelerate? Startled, Caitlin craned her head. The Ekhat ship was growing nearer, according to the viewscreen. Shouldn't the image be shrinking if they were trying to avoid a collision? Surely Dannet wouldn't—

A human officer was counting down the seconds to impact, though the words meant nothing to the Jao. They already knew when it would take place, feeling it in some way that a human never would experience.

She wanted to look away, but couldn't. The Ekhat ship with its bizarre configuration, as though it were constructed from a child's Tinker Toys, didn't look that dangerous compared to the massive
Lexington
, but—

The Ekhat swept closer and closer.

There was a hideous crash that wrenched her neck and rattled her bones so that it seemed her brain was ricocheting off her skull. She was thrown against the harness with bruising force. The camera feed went black and it took several seconds for someone to switch to an alternate view.

The Ekhat ship was disintegrating in an almost leisurely manner, gantries separating from one another, crushed tetrahedron spinning, gas venting, small explosions here and there. Then the flotsam burned, winking out with a flash so bright, it hurt her eyes. They had lost their shields in that moment, Caitlin realized with a jolt, then wondered how stable their own were after the crash.

"Damage reports coming in," a human male said from across the bridge, his voice hoarse. "So far, shields have retained ninety percent integrity."

So far? Caitlin didn't like the sound of that.

"Point of greatest impact?" Dannet asked, rising from her command chair, not a whisker out of place.

There was a moment of silence as the bridge crew recovered their composure enough to punch in queries on their screens. "Spine C," someone reported.

Tully heard a klaxon wailing in his ears. He tasted the coppery bitterness of blood in his mouth.

Hands reached down, removed his harness, and hauled him to his feet as though he weighed nothing. Jao hands, he realized, trying to clear his head. His vision was fuzzy as though someone had just clouted him in the head.

"Y-Yaut?" But that made no sense, he thought, trying to get his bearings. He was on the
Lexington
, not back in Pascagoula.

"—must command your troops!" the Jao was saying. Tully finally got his eyes to focus. The Krant-captain, Mallu, was peering into his face. The Jao's eyes crawled with green. "This deck is venting atmosphere. If we lose hull integrity, the ship will be vulnerable to the star's plasma.
Lexington
will be lost!"

"Damage control!" Tully husked, then looked about. Dazed soldiers, both human and Jao, were struggling out of their safety harnesses. At least one of the guns had something wrong with it, judging from the haste with which its crew was emerging. From the distance, Tully couldn't determine the exact nature of the damage. A fire had probably started in the turret. Such a fire didn't pose a threat to the whole area the way it would have if they'd been using old-style powder instead of liquid propellant. The moment the fire was detected, the propellant would have automatically been diverted from the area. But it could still kill any crewman trapped inside.

"Lock those vents down!" he called. "There must be some fractures!" He stumbled to help, pulling the less injured to their feet, shoving them toward emergency lockers that held the needed sealant. Mallu was doing the same, though he could see now that the big Jao was also hunched in pain. The collision had done his healing ribs no good.

Tully tried to make his dazed brain think. If Spine C lost hull integrity, Dannet would have to jettison it to save the ship. The fact that it was manned mostly by humans would make her decision easier, probably—it was obvious that Dannet had no liking for humans—but she'd do it just as quickly if the crew had been entirely her own people. The Jao did not select ship-captains for their sentimentality and tenderness.

"Weapons Spine C, report!" a voice was saying over the clamor of the alarm.

Tully grabbed Lieutenant Miller's arm as she moved past him, headed for the emergency lockers. She had a cut above one eye and blood was trickling down her pale cheek. "Shut that klaxon off!" he said into her ear, having to shout.

"Weapons Spine C, report!" the voice repeated. Tully thought it might be Dannet, but it was hard to be sure with all the racket. Was the rest of the ship any better off? By whatever gods were out there, he hoped so.

He dropped into his seat, letting Mallu and the other gun captains supervise damage control for the moment. Baker Company had drilled repeatedly on safety procedures over the last few days, along with loading and firing the great guns. They would handle the situation, especially with Miller overseeing them. Bloody-faced or not, the young lieutenant was conducting herself in a calm and controlled manner.

Abruptly the klaxon shut off and he felt limp with relief. Now maybe he could string two thoughts together.

He turned his mike on. "Weapons Spine C, reporting," he said. "We have—" He turned and surveyed the long narrow deck. "—fairly severe damage. Gun C-12 is out of commission, for sure, and the same is probably true of one or two others. There are no visible hull ruptures"—that was a stupidly unnecessary things to say, since if the hull was visibly breached inside the photosphere they'd all be crisped bacon by now—"but there are certainly microruptures. We are working to find and contain the leaks now."

Before him, the screen seemed to shrink and swell. He put a hand to his forehead and found a painful lump and the warm stickiness of blood. Great, he had probably knocked out what little brains he possessed. Yaut would—

He sighed. Yaut would say to get over himself. He would say:
Make yourself of use. Take care of your crew.

"Secure damage, then report," a Jao voice, not Dannet, said. "We have dispatched additional crew to assist."