It was the thing that made Bestrei, the Serke champion, the most terrible of living silth. Three living silth could manipulate that great darkness. Bestrei could control it better than any other. She could call it and hurl it against any challenger. None had the strength to steal her control and drive it away.
Kiljar said Bestrei meshed with it so well because inside she was just as cold, deadly, and vacant.
Marika feared it because she sensed it in her future. The script was written. The very nature of meth, silth, and the silth ideal made certain eventualities inevitable.
Someday ...
Unspoken by anyone, tacitly assumed and accepted by every silth, was the fact that one day Marika would have to meet Bestrei in darkwar. The confrontation was fated by the All. There was no escaping it.
When Marika reflected upon that chance she was afraid, for she was unsure of herself with the great black, with Bestrei. Most of her life she had been hearing about Bestrei and how terrible the Serke was. The one time their paths had crossed she had been awed by the raw power in the silth. The Serke and their rogue brethren allies had mounted several incursions into the home system the past few months, attacking the mirror project. Bestrei had not participated. Bestrei would not pariticipate in such trivialities, in the estimation of silth who knew her. She would be contemptuous of such nuisance tactics. She would not be seen till she was offered a traditional challenge with dramatically high stakes.
As seemed inevitable, fate stalked Marika's trail. As her Mistress of the Ship began to put on speed toward the trailing trojan point, Marika received a generalized touch from a fartoucher sister riding a picket darkship far out in the direction from which Starstalker and the raiders always appeared. It was brief, cut short.
Turn about, Marika sent to her Mistress. Starstalker is coming.
The plane of the touched reeked with the fear of the Mistress and bath. The Mistress returned, This is not our proper task, mistress.
Turn about. Set course upon the Manestar.
The darkship wheeled.
The speaker in Marika's ear began to babble as slower electromagnetic waves brought the warning.
II They are very daring this time, Marika sent. Many minutes had passed. Starstalker and the raiders were closing with the leading trojan. Never before had Starstalker come in so close. The Serke had been afraid to risk her. Losing her would mean losing the brethren she had brought aboard her.
Marika's Mistress of the Ship returned, They must be armed with more powerful weapons.
The possibility had occurred to Marika. A few bombs of the kind that had destroyed TelleRai could kill the project. Having them delivered might seem worth risking Starstalker.
She opened to the universe, sensed the movement of everything nearby. A dozen brethren ships and five darkships accompanied Starstalker. For the moment Marika was alone, the only defender capable of intercepting the raiders. The sisters down below remained confused, as always. Those within the work site could not get out into free space in time to save themselves, let alone do any defending.
Did the Serke know she was here? Had they recognized her? There was no indication in their behavior. The rogue ships were headed toward the mirror. The silth were forming a screen meant to intercept help coming up from the planet. Marika was tempted to strike at Starstalker itself, to destroy any chance for the criminals to escape, but she feared that might allow the rogues a chance to kill her project.
The rogues had to be halted first.
She went out the long arm of the darkship, her specially built wooden darkship, her darkship that so amused the sisters of the great titanium crosses. The struts bore shields showing her own personal and Degnan witch signs instead of those of a particular cloister, as was the case with all other darkships. She reached the Mistress of the Ship and sent, I will take it now. I am fresher. You guard while I attack. Do you understand?
Yes, mistress. The silth responded with an absolute lack of enthusiasm, despite understanding the necessity presented by the situation.
Marika assumed control, urging the darkship onto a course that would cut that of the rogue vessels from behind.
She put on velocity till she felt her bath begin quivering with the strain of her demands, felt the displaced Mistress shuddering, wanting to tell her to ease back, that they were too near space cluttered with materials for the mirror.
Marika swooped into the wake of the rogues and tasted the bitter flavor of ions from their exhausts. She gained rapidly, reaching ahead to see what she faced.
Two ships carried no crew at all. She allowed the darkship to drift while she captured a stronger ghost and took it forward for a closer look.
The uncrewed two were loaded with what must be bombs, great cumbersome devices with a jury-rigged feel. She explored one rapidly, but could find no way to disarm it or to detonate it prematurely.
She took the ghost into the fuel stores of those two ships, compressed it to marble size, put spin on it, and used it to perforate the tanks. She returned to flesh in time to watch the second flower of fire blossom against the night.
She felt the rage explode among the thwarted rogues, felt them begin sweeping the surrounding night. She returned to the otherworld and began stalking them.
They could not see her! Their radars could not pick up her wooden darkship. She was running right up to them, and they could not see her!
She hit one ship after another, just as she had taken the bomb drones. They scattered so she could not massacre them all.
Mistress. Come out. The Serke have turned our way.
She had known that would come and had ignored it.
Five of them to her one plus a spare Mistress. The odds were too long, strong as she was. Yet there was no way to hide from them. To do that she would have to abandon the talent entirely. To do that in the void meant instant death.
She curved after a rogue ship belching flame in an effort to escape, closed up, killed it, began looking for another.
Mistress ...
There is time. Do not distract me again. Six brethren ships had been negated. They would remember this raid as a disaster. Just guard me.
Let the Serke come. She was strong and treacherous. If nothing else, she could outrun them.
She was closing on another rogue when the Mistress touched her again. She suppressed her anger at being interrupted.
She did not need the warning.
Astounded, she forgot the rogue as she stared at a glowing darkship that had materialized only a few hundred yards away. She recovered barely in time to help the Mistress turn the attack.
This Serke Mistress was weaker than she. Grimly, Marika ducked through her loophole and seized a ghost, hurled it back.
The darkship vanished.
Another appeared an instant later, in another quarter, and vanished again before she could do it harm.
She finally understood. They were trying to attack her through the Up-and-Over.
How could she get out of this?
She could see no escape.
Decision came instantly. She swung the tip of the wooden dagger toward Starstalker and accelerated.
The Serke recognized her intent. They flung themselves into her path. She and the Mistress brushed their attacks aside and continued the drive toward the great voidship. Soon the sisters there would have to move or be rammed.
The Serke tried placing a preponderance of strength in Marika's path. But once they did that she knew where to expect their appearances. She recovered her advantage of her superior grasp of the dark side.
Short, sharp touch-shrieks filled the void as a Serke Mistress's heart exploded and her bath realized they had no hope.
Marika continued gaining velocity.
Starstalker vanished.