Veera averted her eyes, bypassed the body, and made for the end of the corridor. Her body had been designed for flight rather than speedy travel along the ground, but the Prithian did the best she could and approached the final hatch. There was no reason to think that it would open, and no way that she could force it, but the teen was determined to try. Because ChienChu wanted her too, because he reminded the Prithian of her father, because there was nothing else to do.
The Hoon observed the first soft body’s death with the same dispassionate neutrality that it applied to its own imminent demise. Time had passed, a need had been fulfilled, and programming had been triggered. The AI issued a command. The hatch hissed open. Veera stepped through. Booly entered the Friendship’s bridge, heard someone yell, “Attention on deck!” and waved them off.
“As you were.”
Admiral Chang, Admiral Tyspin, and Captain Boone stood in a tightly clustered group. They waved him over. He nodded to each in turn. “Thanks for the page ... The Turr ambassador had me trapped. What’s up?”
“Something pretty damned big,” Chang answered. “Listen to this.” She nodded to a tech. The rating touched a button, and ChienChu’s voice flooded the bridge. There was static, lots of it, plus some dropouts: “ChienChu here—unintelligible—relay to General Booly, Admiral Chang, or...” The words were buried by an avalanche of static.
Booly raised both of his eyebrows. “He’s alive! That’s wonderful but...”
Tyspin raised a hand. “Hold on, sir. There’s more.”
The static cleared, and the voice reemerged. “What that means is that the Hoon has been deactivated, repeat deactivated, so the rest of its fleet ..”
The voice faded as a trim looking lieutenant approached Admiral Chang. “You were correct, ma’am . . . The entire Sheen fleet appears to have powered down.”
The Hoon was dead! And, without its intelligence to guide them, the less autonomous computers were switching to standby. That changed everything. Booly’s mind started to race. “Get Andragna on the horn—tell him the news. Where’s that transport?”
Nobody asked, “Which transport?” because there was only one that mattered. Boone checked a screen. “The Thraki allowed Henry to pass through their fighter screen—and he’s two or three minutes from touchdown.” His eyes flicked to a digital readout. “And a good thing too—since the nukes are due to detonate in about five minutes.”
Booly nodded. “Send a signal—stop the clock.”
A corn tech stood to get their attention. “Grand Admiral Andragna on corn channel four.”
Booly heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank god, put him on.”
A holo blossomed over the main tank. Andragna looked calm and relaxed. There was an almost unnoticeable delay while his words were translated. “Greetings, General Booly ... how can I be of service?”
Booly looked into alien eyes and tried to force a connection. “The Hoon has been deactivated—and the Sheen have switched to standby. There is no reason to launch the twins.”
Andragna’s ears turned forward. “Don’t be fooled by their tricks. We know the Sheen in a way that no one else can. The machines have pursued us for hundreds of years. Thousands upon thousands of Thraki have died. This is our chance, perhaps our lost chance, to achieve lasting freedom. We have the means to destroy them, and we will do so.”
“But what of our ships?” Booly demanded. “And the Araballazanies? The twins could sterilize the surface of their planet.”
Andragna produced a human-style shrug. “We don’t believe that will occur—but feel there is little choice. There is nothing more to say—may the gods protect us all.”
The holo snapped to black.
Everyone turned to Booly. His face was drawn. “Send the signal... restart the clock.”
In spite of the fact that the seconds were ticking away and that two nuclear warheads were going to detonate within twenty feet of its processor, Henry was a navcomp, and that meant the landing had to be as perfect as the AI could possibly make it, that the power had to be shut down, that... Not far away, within the battleship’s control room, the landing was noted. An officer droned through the list.
‘Transport down ... launch bay sealed ... weapons systems ready.”
Andragna thought of his wife and things never said.
Would he get to say them? Only the gods knew for sure.
He looked up. “Prepare launcher 12 ... fire.”
The nuclear warheads detonated together. The battleship Will of the Gods along with its entire crew, and both “the twins,” ceased to exist. There was no secondary explosion, no outpouring of ravening energy, no wave of cataclysmic destruction.
Thousands of miles away on the Friendship’s bridge, Booly watched a pinprick of light wink on, then off. Here one moment, gone the next. Just like life itself. His voice sounded hoarse. “Send a message to the Thraki fleet: “The Sheen have been neutralized. There is no need for war.’ “
But there was war—though a mercifully short one. Frightened by the sudden destruction of their flagship and certain that the Sheen were responsible, the Thraki attacked. More than fifty of the now passive Sheen warships perished in less than fifteen minutes. Not one of them fired a shot in response. Finally, having realized that what the Confederacy said was true, the Thraki called a halt. The battle, such as it was, had ended.
Many months would be spent dealing with issues related to the Thraki settlements on Zynig47, Hudathan demands for increased autonomy, and the disposition of the Sheen. A rather rich prize that almost everyone thought should belong to them.
But those were concerns for politicians, bureaucrats, and to a lesser extent soldiers to deal with. Not the sort of things that a there navcomp had to concern itself with.
That being the case, it was relatively easy for Henry to give a deposition, petition for its freedom, and find a job.
The decision had been made to backtrack along the route followed by the Sheen. The objective of the mission was to hunt for Sheen scouts, some of which could have survived, and assist any colonies that might have been attacked. President Nankool himself had authorized Henry to ride the first ship out—which was all a navcomp could possibly wish for.
The AI lined up on the outgoing transit point, waited for permission, and sent the appropriate command. The heavily armed survey vesselLivingston seemed to wink from existence. The stars swam in silence.
Chapter 19
For life is a journey, a long winding way, that shall end as the god’s wish. The Thraki Book of Yesterdays
Year unknown
Planet Algeron, the Confederacy of Sentient Beings
The wind came in nasty little gusts, grabbed the snow pellets as they fell, and hurled them into Booly’s face. He looked up into the quickly darkening sky and marveled at his own stupidity. Even generals are allowed to take leave, and, with all the Confederacy’s planets to choose from, he could have been basking in the sun, especially given the amount of back pay he had accumulated. But Algeron called, and with no attachments, he had answered.
The ground sloped upward, the dooth groaned pitifully, and Booly kicked its ribs. Rocks rattled away from the animal’s hooves as it lurched forward. Boulders crowded both sides of the trail and offered plenty of hiding places. The legionnaire decided to ignore them. He was tired—too tired to care. More than six standard months had passed since “the Battle of Arballa,” as the press liked to call it, and the peace had proved more difficult than the war. If “war” was the right word for what had transpired. Negotiations with the Thraki continued, and while some wanted the newcomers to leave, others were willing to let them stay—Tf they decommissioned half the armada, if they assumed the responsibilities attendant to membership in the Confederacy, and if they renounced all claims to me Sheen fleet. This was an issue that seemed to be of extreme importance to the Ramanthians, who favored the immediate distribution of Sheen assets as the means to compensate members for losses suffered during what the diplomatic community now liked to refer to as “an unfortunate series of incidents.” Booly grimaced. Some mighty fine soldiers had died during “incidents” like the one on BETA018. Though still denied the right to possess naval ships of their own, the Hudathans had proven themselves in battle and kept their side of the bargain. That being the case, their home world was open to commerce. Eventually, after the passage of enough time, it was hoped that full integration could and would take place.