He paused, glancing at the general's expression in an effort to gauge the other's reaction to what he'd said so far. Ka-Frahkan only looked at him impassively, and he continued.
"If I were responsible for planning this operation, sir, my orders would be for them to move as far away from any known star system as the maximum endurance of their vessels permits. I would include a safety margin to give them time to locate a suitable world and to sustain them until their colony is prepared to exist out of its own resources. But that could mean they might travel for another full year, or even two. Our endurance is barely a quarter of a year with your brigade embarked."
"You have emergency cryo facilities, Captain," Ka-Frahkan said coldly.
"Well, yes, sir," Na-Tharla said slowly. "But as you just said, those are emergency facilities. If we were to put your brigade into cryo, we might suffer a loss rate of as much as five or even ten percent.
And it would only extend our endurance to approximately a year and a half. So even if it allowed us to follow them to wherever they're going, it's virtually certain we would be unable to return home again, afterward."
"This ship, and everyone aboard it, is expendable," Ka-Frahkan's voice was flat, "just as Admiral Na-Izhaaran's warships were. If this convoy is able to successfully establish a Human colony far enough from the Empire, it will, as you yourself have just pointed out, be virtually impossible for our survey forces ever to locate it. And if that colony survives, it will remember who murdered the rest of its species.
If it builds its strength, reproduces itself, someday it will return, probably with the support of additional colonized planets, to ... discuss the current unpleasantness with our descendants. And that could be far more dangerous than this ragged collection of ships might suggest to you."
Na-Tharla knew he looked puzzled, and Ka-Frahkan showed him the tips of his canines in a humorless challenge-grin.
"I—I ... see, sir."
Na-Tharla sounded badly shaken, but Ka-Frahkan knew he had ample justification for any shock he might feel. He was only a Navy captain, and the general knew his own seniority had granted him access to intelligence reports far more detailed—and grimmer—than anything Na-Tharla had seen.
"I see," the captain repeated after a moment, his voice a bit firmer. "And I also recognize that you're obviously in a better position to evaluate the long-term threat a colony like this might pose, sir. However, did we have prior confirmation that the Humans are pursuing such a strategy?"
"Not confirmation, no. Our analysts and planners have suggested that such an option would make sense to the Humans, especially when they realized they were inevitably going to lose the war, despite their accursed tech advantages. But to the best of my knowledge, this is the first such colony fleet any of our ships has actually sighted."
"In that case, General," Na-Tharla said slowly, "is it more important that we follow this single convoy to its destination and destroy it, or that we return to base with the confirmation that the Humans are indeed doing this?"
"That," Ka-Frahkan conceded, "is a very valid question, and I don't know that I'm qualified to answer it. But whether I am or not, I'm the one who has to make a decision. And I do know this much.
We know about this convoy, and we're currently in contact with it. We don't know how many of these colonies the Humans may decide to send out, or what percentage of them will survive. But we can assure the People that this one won't ... and no one else is in a position to do that. We stumbled across this opportunity only as the result of a vanishingly unlikely coincidence, and the Nameless Ones know how unlikely it is that any of our other squadrons will be equally lucky and encounter another one like it. So, as I see it, it's clearly our responsibility to seize the opportunity we have and see to it that at least one Human colony does not survive to threaten the People's future."
"I can't believe you actually did it, Captain," Adrian Agnelli said frankly.
He stood on the Harriet Liang'shu's bridge, gazing into the main visual display. Maneka's com image occupied one small corner of that huge display, but she wasn't using any visual interface of her own. She was once again fused with Lazarus, watching through her/their sensors as the brutally battered hulk of the hospital ship drifted closer.
"Thank Lazarus, sir," her image in the display said with a smile, although her physical body's lips never moved. "I told you he could plot a tight intercept."
"That's certainly true, Governor," Harriet Liang'shu's captain said, with a respectful nod to Maneka's image. "This is as pretty a piece of multidimensional navigation as I've seen in fifty years in space."
"I know," Agnelli said, unable to tear his eyes away from the slowly growing image of the wreck which had been CNS Kuan Yin. As far as Harriet Liang'shu's captain could see, the Governor's tormenting struggle between impossible hope and darkest fear was evident only in his eyes. But Maneka/Lazarus could monitor his pulse and respiration over the com audio, and the frightening power of his emotions was only too evident to her/them.
"Governor," her image said quietly a moment later, "Kuan Yin's communications appear to have been completely crippled. However, Lazarus and Mickey are both detecting power sources aboard the ship.
There's also evidence of continuing low-volume atmosphere loss, which suggests that at least some portions of the hull have retained internal pressure. I can't promise anything from here, but it looks as if there's a fairly good chance at least some of her crew have survived."
Henri Berthier's voice was calm over the com, but Maneka knew appearances could be deceiving.
Berthier, the Sherwood Forest's commanding officer and Agnelli's designated lieutenant governor, was also the Governor's personal friend. He knew Dr. Allison Agnelli-Watson and her husband William well.
Even if he hadn't, he was as painfully aware as any member of the colony expedition could ever hope to be of how vital the recovery of as much of Kuan Yin's cargo and personnel as possible was. And despite Lazarus' estimates—estimates in which she had shared fully at the moment they were generated—even Maneka found it hard to believe very many people could still be alive aboard that mangled hulk.
Especially since we still haven't been able to raise a whisper from them over the com, she thought grimly.
"Still nothing," Lieutenant Commander O'Reilly told Berthier.
O'Reilly was Sherwood Forest's second engineer, and he'd been assigned to the industrial ship in no small part because of his expertise in deep-space construction ... and salvage. According to the personnel dossiers Lazarus had accessed from Harriet Liang'shu's files, O'Reilly had also been selected for his job in no small part on Berthier's personal recommendation, so there'd never been much question who Berthier would select for this particular mission.
"But that doesn't mean a lot, Henri," O'Reilly continued. "Not yet. We know they've got heavy damage in the area, and that Hellbore hit forward took out both the main and secondary com centers.