Meanwhile another human battle wing reemerged in the vicinity. Tualurog decided, and barked a command to shipsmind, which passed it on. "All battle groups! All battle groups! This is your grand admiral! Your grand admiral! Do not allow the humans to run away! Choose a target, lock on and close! Attack, pursue and kill! Attack, pursue and kill! Do not be distracted! Do not disengage for any reason! Do not let them generate strange-space again!"
The order sounded on every Wyzhnyny bridge, in every compartment, down every corridor. And whispered in Charley Gordon's mind in the form of an intuition: it was time to call in the spooks. On Charley's order, couriers generated warpspace and radioed the waiting spook groups, which emerged at the edge of action, and received explicit orders via the Altai's shipsmind. Then they winked into warpspace again, to emerge at rendezvous coordinates with battle groups and mace triads.
Meanwhile the battle wings fought in slow motion, to permit maneuver. The maces, with their heavy shields, repeatedly disrupted Wyzhnyny contingents attempting to gang up on Commo battleships. Among the Commo battle groups, patterns of mutual support fluctuated with the need, their fire coordination adjusting constantly to threat and opportunity. And always the key was teamwork.
Most often the spooks mimicked battleships. And because they were less responsive than manned ships, they attracted much more than their share of Wyzhnyny fire.
Mostly the Commos had the advantage of two-layered shields, but not the veteran Altai. She took a heavy torpedo salvo, the energy overload collapsing her shield. Her escort cruisers saved her, two of them deliberately intercepting war beams, breaking their target locks. "Generate warpspace!" Soong snapped, and after a long moment the Altai disappeared, her battlecomp automatically steering an avoidance course "on the other side," against the high probability that more torpedos had been launched at her. They would follow, but the transition would break their target locks, letting them pass into warpspace limbo.
Soong exhaled through rounded lips, half whistling. He had, he realized, very nearly lost both his ship and Charley Gordon.
"Admiral," Charley told him, "the battle vectors have evolved almost ideally. I expect your Commos will get by without us while Engineering repairs our shield generator."
Then he ordered the navcomp to take them to a location in the F-space potentiality, one from which they could emerge outside the battle zone. Meanwhile Soong watched the array of screens, which for the moment showed only systems rundowns.
Engineering required little more than five minutes to replace the Altai's matric tap and breakers. Then she returned to F-space, somewhat removed from the fighting and unnoticed by the enemy. The battle had continued relentlessly. Few of the human ships with single-layer shields still lived, but many with two-layered shields fought on. This time Soong held the Altai clear of the fighting, and Charley began to issue directions to the fleet's battlecomps. Even during the Altai's absence, his battle programs had been decisive. Some of his simdrills and steel drills had assumed the loss of the Altai and her battle master.
Most of the spooks had died, but they'd played a crucial role. Meanwhile the Wyzhnyny could not waltz with the maces, which repeatedly disrupted Wyzhnyny formations and fire coordination. The Meadowlands had been destroyed, and no one had taken command. Tualurog's "attack, pursue and kill" order had hampered teamwork, dispersed formations, and seriously reduced responses to opportunity and threat. Increasingly fragmented, his warfleet simply followed his final order, until teamwork had almost totally unraveled.
Now Charley's main attention was on directing disengaged Commo units to strategic locations. Finally a critical point was reached at which the Wyzhnyny reactions became effectively suicidal, and their warships were overwhelmed.
The battle was over.
Soong remained on the bridge while the names of surviving ships scrolled. He had to know. When the list was complete, the Uinta was not on it. Even then he stayed, while shipsmind extracted and scrolled the identities of Commo ships destroyed.
Finally the Uinta's name appeared. She'd been ruptured and melted down.
When the rundown was complete, he left the bridge, the victor of the most important battle in human history. His back was straight, his head high, and his eyes dry. When he reached his stateroom, he drank himself to sleep.
Chapter 63
Proposal
Morning sunlight slanted through ten-foot windows, causing the polished table and walls to glow a deep golden mahogany-a product of more than expensive veneer and thorough polishing. There were also the window fields. It had been years since David MacDonald had been exposed to advertising, but he recalled the trade name: Rich Light. Because you have to be rich to own them, he thought wryly. The light itself was free though: sunlight. But altered to order. The window fields controlled the intensity and wavelengths transmitted.
A gavel tapped lightly. The president had gotten to his feet. "We have asked you here," he said, "to help us through a dilemma. A situation much preferable to yesterday's, but… We have a choice to make that on the one hand threatens humanity with centuries of trouble and grief, and on the other, a burden of guilt very difficult to bear. We need a third alternative, one that avoids both.
"Under our Emergency War Powers, the prime minister and I have the authority to make that choice ourselves, and in fact there is no time for parliamentary debate and clearance. So we especially want and need your counsel now."
Chang Lung-Chi scanned the assemblage: Admiral Fedor Tischendorf, Admiralty Chief; Dr. Arthur Shin, Minister of War; Melani Honghi, Commonwealth Minister; Dorje Lodro Tulku, Chaplain of the Office of the President; and Ambassador Qonits. With their principal aides, including David MacDonald.
Just now it was Qonits at whom Chang looked. "Mr. Ambassador, last night a great battle was fought in the Eridani System," he said. "A decisive battle. Analysis of battle recordings indicates that none of your warfleet survived, or even undertook to escape. They fought till the last was destroyed."
The words stunned Qonits; it was Quanshuk's vision realized.
"But that was the warfleet," Chang went on. "Your armada's noncombat ships-estimated at more than three thousand-still sit parked in warpspace, neither fleeing nor able to defend themselves. Experience suggests they even lack force shields. And we have the task of deciding how to deal with them."
He sipped honeyed tea, allowing Qonits a moment before he continued. "How many of your people do they carry? Ten million? Call it ten million in stasis. And their crews number what? Another quarter million? Along with the colonists you've set down, they are all the Wyzhnyny that exist in this galaxy."
His gaze was on the mahogany table now, but his attention was on his thoughts. "Do we destroy them? If not, what do we do with them? A month ago, when the question was rhetorical, I would have said destroy them. Said it regretfully. But alive in this galaxy-certainly in this sector of it-they pose a threat to the human species. Already they've murdered some twenty million of us. Given another week or two, they'd have killed more than a billion on Eridani Prime. A billion! Why should we feel compassion for them?"