"We broke through?"
"No sir. They shut it down. On purpose."
"That's insane." He scanned the incoming data, looked for the error. It was not there. The Guardship was spewing more fire than it was taking. Its output was not falling off as it should. He checked the visual display.
Pieces flew off XII Fulminata in all directions.... He caught something, adjusted scale. "I'll be damned."
XII Fulminata was peeling itself like an onion, sloughing layers a hundred meters thick in chunks and sections as they were destroyed. The layers beneath were as heavily armed as those blown away.
It was depressing. They always had something more to show you.
More and more, his gun platforms were forced to waste time shielding themselves. That made it more difficult to fend off the pinpoint attacks of enemy fighters.
"Damn them. They're as crazy as Simon's suiciders. They just keep coming. How do you whip somebody who doesn't care if he gets killed?"
Be interesting to find out why they valued their lives so lightly.
No time to worry about it now. He tapped his wrist. "Ready? It's time."
He drifted away when no one was watching. He joined his family on the operating bridge of his personal Voyager. As Lupo One backed it from its docking bay, he said, "VII Fulminata blew up a minute ago. Want to screen it?"
"Might as well."
Lupo felt tired beyond any weariness justified by exertion. It was the tiredness that comes after great stress, great failure. It was a weariness brought on by a certainty that half a life's work had gone for naught.
He had expected it, but that did not soften the impact of reality.
Behind the Voyager, fire and death clawed the face of the night and ripped the fabric of space.
— 49 —
Absolute silence gripped VII Gemina. In every compartment boasting a viewscreen, men and women watched fire blossom on the field of stars, XII Fulminata's self-chosen eulogy.
No Guardship had chosen self-destruction in two thousand years. Even in defeat that extremity had been unnecessary.
WarAvocat suspected it was a statement rather than a necessity. Fulminata would not let anyone or anything external become the arbiter of its fate.
Characteristic.
WarAvocat surveyed the Deified. Makarska Vis refused to acknowledge his presence. He smiled. She was shaken. What support she retained, after her trick with the Ku, would dim.
He vandalized a holy silence. "Stand to, people. It's our turn."
The smell of fear tainted the air.
VII Gemina was deep into the deadly sock, approaching the point where XII Fulminata had dropped screen. Much of the enemy's resources had been destroyed. But a lot remained. Maybe enough.
A leaden weight dragged at WarAvocat. He did not want to follow XII Fulminata into oblivion. Could he have gone on without XXVIII Fretensis there to see?
The might of the enemy smashed in. In seconds VII Gemina was locked up inside its shield too tight to fire back.
He checked his secondaries.
XII Fulminata's last few and some of VII Gemina's were headed for XXVIII Fretensis to rearm. The XII Fulminata pilots would not be much use anymore, as exhausted and disheartened as they must be.
The enemy had begun recovery, too. Suddenly, he understood why Stareicha had seemed intent on racing to his doom. "Maximum acceleration ahead," he ordered, silently cursing the man or woman who had condemned him to follow this one straight course. "Connect me with all the squadron commanders. Off whichever Guardship. All secondaries to relay to anyone we can't reach directly."
Click! Every viewscreen reserved for the Deified became active.
"We have a net, WarAvocat."
"Access. All squadrons. This is WarAvocat VII Gemina. All ships capable break off present action. The enemy is recovering for rearming. Pursue. If his bays are open, fire into them. Destroy ships moving in to rearm. Don't waste time on enemy batteries. When you need to rearm, do so on XXVIII Fretensis.
"XXVIII Fretensis, I'm going to run this gauntlet through, then work back outside it. Do you have reserve pilots sufficient to reman ships off XII Fulminata and VII Gemina?"
A simple "Yes," and that connection ended.
WarAvocat checked his shield. It was solid but under increasing pressure. That pressure would get worse. Maybe so bad he would have to follow Stareicha's example and hope VII Gemina cleared the sock before it was consumed.
Could he give the order to drop screen? He was not WarAvocat XII Fulminata, obsessed with an image of invincibility, ready to accept destruction if withdrawal was the alternative.
All those silent Deified, many of whom had been WarAvocat before him, stared, knowing the conflict within him, perhaps wondering if they could have given the order themselves.
"WarAvocat."
That voice was grim. He hurried to the woman's side. She tapped her monitor. It displayed a schematic of the sock ahead, aflicker with fields of fire. She cancelled that. A stark portrait and bleak prognosis remained.
"I should have figured." He had been thinking of it as a sock, not a tube. And the mastermind on the other side had shown no inclination to miss an opportunity.
The end of the killing tube was plugged with chunks of dead rock. "How many? Four?"
"Six. Two are small."
That was one decision made. It was too late to avoid a collision. He had to go into that with a shield. "We taking any fire from them?"
"No, sir. Probe shows only dead rock."
"Fields of fire again."
She brought them back. He studied them, ignoring protests from warning systems associated with the screen. He grunted. Only one thing to do, feeble as that was. He had to open a port forward and throw everything he could to reduce the masses of those rocks. Tube it like a gun barrel so it would channel Hellspinners. The Twist Masters could get off more if they were not aiming them.
He gave orders. VII Gemina hurled massed fire forward. He fixed his attention on the schematics, ignored the creaking screen. It would hold. Or it would not.
A lucky Hellspinner destroyed the smallest rock. A heavy CT shell blew the other small one into gravel. Hellspinners rolled, snapped chunks out of the four big rocks. "I want everyone strapped securely," WarAvocat directed. He set the example.
Twenty-eight seconds and the run would be over. VII Gemina would be clear of the killing zone and ready to get down to the business of massacre.
"WarAvocat! The screen is going!"
"Hold it forward! All weapons commence firing!" He was going shitstorm, want it or not. "Damn it, I said hold the screen forward! Get it up! Get it up!"
Two. One. Impact.
— 50 —
Provik secured the stern view. "I was good enough to take out two Guardships."
"Only thirty to go," Four quipped.
"Good enough to take two, but they sent three. The same old story. You can't beat them if you play their game." He stared at nothing. "Our whole investment, smoke in a few hours."
Four said, "We knew the odds. We weren't doing anything new. Just putting more firepower in one place. We had the Outside screen, but it didn't contribute much."
"Tactically, it had little significance," Lupo admitted.
"We need a new strategy," Four said.
"I'm open to suggestions."
Three said, "We need Hellspinners."