She opened the urns and sang an ill-remembered memorial chant. The breeze around the darkship wafted bits of meth dust. She continued on into rites of Mourning for the entire Degnan pack, which she had owed for so long.
"I kept my promise, as you kept yours," Marika whispered to the spirits of the huntresses. "We kept faith. Fare you well wherever, and I pray we meet in another life, to hunt the same trails."
Fighter aircraft were coming up from the south and in from the west. Another flight circled over the distant sea, hoping she would flee that way. Up in orbit others were thinking of her too. Starstalker was keeping close track.
She scattered the last ashes, sped one final farewell, then resumed her place at the tip of the dagger, well satisfied that she had fulfilled her principal obligation. Now she could join the rest of silthdom in death.
She had the golden bowl passed, for she felt a need of renewed strength. She had begun to feel her years. And she could not convince herself that self-sacrifice was the only remaining answer.
Ready?
Her crew responded affirmatively. Some even seemed eager to fling themselves into the jaws of the All. There were no doubts in their minds. They would die here, heroically, or later, if vanquished but unslain, in some grand and foolish ceremony.
Marika hurled ghosts wherever aircraft were approaching, scattering wreckage over land and sea. Then she climbed rapidly, calling on her backup to assume the Mistress's duties again.
She stretched herself to the system's bounds, searching for her old dark ally. The great black fought her angrily. She refused to acknowledge its desire to be left alone. She dragged it toward her.
Then she opened to the battle.
It was even no longer. Henahpla had been slain. Cherish had but two bath remaining and could not manage her black while struggling to control her voidship. Several fainthearts had fled for the derelict.
The outcome was no longer in doubt if one were silth enough to read it.
Starstalker began guiding alien warships to intercept Marika.
She whipped the great black in on the Serke voidship. They shrieked and jumped away, but not without having smelled the rotton breath of death. Not distracted by having to manage the darkship, Marika kept watch. She hurled the black the instant she sensed Starstalker returning from the Up-and-Over. Again she got her blow in. Then again, and again, and the fifth time Starstalker did not gather ghosts fast enough to escape.
Marika brushed the Serke voidship once more to make sure it would not recover, then let be. Let them think, and worry, and wonder if their allies would save them or let them die, adrift a few thousand miles from the homeworld they had come so close to recapturing.
The warships above were sniping at the wooden darkship, though Cherish valiantly strove to distract them. Rather than assume control of the darkship, Marika began flinging the great black among those who awaited her. Her hammer blows caught them off guard. In minutes they began to scatter.
Despite the evidence that the struggle would end in their favor, alien ships began leaving the inner orbits. A quick scan told Marika they were removing their jump ships from danger. The riderships would have to carry the brunt.
She might die here. She might be defeated. But already she had won a great victory for Commander Jackson's people. If they took advantage.
She reached orbital altitude despite all that could be thrown her way, though she lost two bath and had to resume control of the voidship before she wanted. She clawed her way into the shadow of one of the smaller moons, dodged from it to another farther out, part of her mind wielding the great black, part seeking ghosts with which to take the Up-and-Over. She wanted to get into open space now, to steal maneuvering room.
Ghosts were scarce. Most of the surviving Mistresses had fled, stripping the surrounding void. She would have to wait till more drifted in.
She pranced around the little moons, among the wrecks of alien ships, at times pretending to be debris. She sent a dozen ridership crews to whatever those creatures recognized as their maker. Always she inched away from the homeworld. Always the All stalked with her, though she was so weary she thought she would collapse any moment.
Cherish died, her soul parting from her flesh with a last scream of touch encouraging Marika to fly away, to regain the derelict and thence mount another offensive. There were a few Mistresses among the stars, wandering. She could bring them in, train them to the great blacks, and finish the massacre begun here.
Marika returned a gentle, thankful touch as Cherish melded into the All. There was one silth who, like herself, never yielded.
She gathered ghosts.
She was alone in the home system, the only darkship still in action. The aliens were closing in. Even those vessels that had withdrawn were returning to taste the kill.
She threw the great black one last time, then jumped, dragging the monster with her a hundred million miles outward.
She waited.
They did not come. They had lost touch.
She had the senior bath pass the golden liquid again. And then she jumped inward again, dropping not four miles from Starstalker and a bevy of small alien attendants.
Good-bye, old witches. Old enemies. You lose again. She loosed the great black and took pleasure in the screams of the dying till enemy fire came so near one of her bath complained of scorched fur.
She skipped into the Up-and-Over, reversing the route she had used to approach the homeworld.
Chapter Forty-Six
I
For all good news there must be bad, for all good fortune balancing evil. That which Marika garnered a week after fighting her way free of the homeworld was the worst.
Alien warships had beaten her to the derelict. A Main Battle was there, with riderships deployed, and it was evident that several Mistresses had stumbled in to their deaths already.
Tired of fighting, of killing, of struggling on when there seemed no end to the struggle, Marika nevertheless jumped in, leaving the Up-and-Over so near the derelict the aliens remained ignorant of her advent.
The starship had been pounded into scrap, as had the starships belonging to Jackson's expedition. Nothing lived except on the planet below. Marika reached with the touch and found a few silth, but no starfarers. All those had been driven away.
She drew the system's great black, disposed of the crew of the Main Battle, then took the Up-and-Over while the riderships bustled about in panic. She jumped to another world and found another alien waiting there, fully alert. She departed rather than fight. She needed rest.
A second and third world proved equally perilous. The supply of golden liquid was getting low. And her bath had been exposed to space too long. She had to get down.
There was but one place left to flee, a world Henahpla had discovered, hidden on the far side of the cloud. She had designated it as a last hiding place if ever she were ousted from the derelict.
Could she survive so long a passage?
She made it, barely, but had to be aided down to the surface by the few silth who had reached the world already. She collapsed once she was down, was only vaguely aware of the chatter of silth afraid she would be lost to them.
She wakened occasionally, took a bit of broth. She suffered spates of delirium in which she believed she was arguing with Grauel, Barlog, Bagnel, Gradwohl, Kiljar, or even Kublin. She believed she was delirious when she overheard the ongoing argument polarizing the makeshift encampment.
Once she staggered from her shelter and tongue-lashed the Mistresses and bath, damning them for yielding to despair, but they did not understand her tangled Ponath dialect. She collapsed before she could make them understand. They restored her to her pallet and resumed their defeatist chatter.
Later, a Mistress came to inform her that another two darkships had come in. She observed, "I think you are suffering from more than exhaustion, mistress. A pity we have no healer sister."