Was it engraved on the genes? Kalerhag had been out of vogue for ages, and most recently discredited by Serke behavior in the face of absolute defeat. Yet it became attractive in the face of the terrors borne by these aliens. “It could be,” she murmured in her own language. “Should honor and the need of the race demand.”
Forget that. That was not a good way to think when there was a strike to mount. She dared think of nothing but conflict. The voidships were poised. The best of the best Mistresses, Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter, were ready to launch the first phase, down interdicted voidpaths, behind a trio of great blacks. Soon horror would stalk the stars.
Marika’s own approach would pursue a starway only she knew, only she had the strength to fly.
“Where there is life there is hope. An old saying among my people.”
“We meth are fatalists and mystics. Symbol is always more important than substance.”
“But suicide…”
“Not suicide. Kalerhag. Sometimes to defy, deny, even defeat fate, one must rob it of its prey.”
Jackson shrugged. “Perhaps. Some of our ancestors venerated such gestures.”
Marika grunted, withdrew. She assembled her crew, including redundant bath and a back-up Mistress, in the sanctity of a small compartment set aside for ritual. Soon most of the silth aboard had crowded in or were watching from beyond the hatchway. The humans respected that time and stayed away.
Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter were long gone. The principal follow-up forces had departed. The passageways aboard the derelict were naked of silth. Only a few old brethren researchers maintained a meth presence. Marika was about to leave.
She did not expect to return.
Jackson’s messenger caught her at the lock, about to share golden liquid. “Mistress, the Commander must see you before you leave.”
“Must I?” She did not need her despair reinforced by Jackson’s negativity.
“It’s critical.”
Marika found the Commander in Communications. She sensed bad news immediately.
“My superiors have spoken at last, Marika.”
“Sending bad news, of course.” She had ignored the arrival of the courier drone.
“It’s not good. There has been a change of government.” Government was a concept Marika still did not understand. “General orders to the Fleet Arm are to undertake no hostile action till the State stabilizes and determines policy. I am able to defend myself. Nothing more.”
“It could have been worse.”
Jackson lifted an eyebrow.
“You could have been ordered to turn on us.” She strode out, using old drills to calm herself as she hastened to rejoin her bath.
Alone.
In the void there would be little time to worry about betrayal.
III
Marika drove the darkship as hard as ever she had, hastily scouting the strike points assigned Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter. Each had employed her great black properly. A dead ridership drifted off each rest world, still tainted by last touch-screams. She snarled, an ice-hearted Ponath huntress with the blood of foes upon her fangs. The last weapon.
She grabbed the Up-and-Over, racing along the secret pathway to the homeworld, satisfied that her strategy was sound.
She should arrive first, armed with a great black dragged in from another system. Henahpla and Cherish should appear shortly afterward, armed with great blacks of their own. Satter would grab control of the home system’s own black. Four of those monsters ought to be able to overwhelm everything in their way.
She drove hard. Her bath protested. She rested when she must, and resented every minute. Later, she rested one jump from home, after neutralizing a ridership.
All was timing now. The others had to be in position. If they were delayed, her next move would prove disastrous.
The time came.
Nervousness fled during the passage. She maintained an iron grip on her great black. Elation grew. The wait was at an end.
She paused on the brink of the home system briefly, wishing she dared make certain of the others. But the Serke aboard Starstalker were certain to sense the new great black.
Into the Up-and-Over, her mind fixed on Biter. She would use the moon for cover. Out of the Up-and-Over.
She almost lost the black in her astonishment.
The void was aswarm with aliens. Several of their ships were as dreadful as Commander Jackson had promised.
An electromagnetic storm exploded. Her appearance had been detected.
She hurled the great black.
She eased nearer Biter till she hovered in shadow just yards above its barren surface. Spears of light stabbed the night, coming nowhere near her. Beyond the moon, Starstalker flung panicky signals at its allies. The voidship began to move.
Terror and agony flooded the otherworld as a huge alien ship died. Thousands aboard, Marika reflected. The agony of their dying seemed to touch other humans elsewhere on a subconscious level. Their reactions were slow, tentative. She yanked the great black and hurled it at Starstalker.
Panic filled the otherworld.
The Serke voidship vanished. Marika was astonished. She had not thought those old witches possessed the nerve to take the Up-and-Over so close in.
She threw the great black at the largest alien she sensed.
Fire erupted upon Biter’s face. Light lances dragged drunken scarlet feet across the monochromatic moonscape. Glowing balls welled by the dozen, yielded by missiles unable to target the wooden darkship.
Marika shifted her attack to a third warship.
A beam struck close by, followed by another. They might be guessing, but they were guessing well.
Out on the margin of touch she sensed another great black. One of her point Mistresses had arrived.
Where was Starstalker?
A beam seared the void only yards away. A missile boiled Biter’s face close enough for the fringe gases to buffet her. All through nearby space small attack vessels were closing in.
She flung the great black once more, then gathered smaller ghosts and darted into the Up-and-Over. A missile erupted close by as she went, disturbing her concentration. She lost the great black. It fled before she stabilized her darkship and reached for it again. She cursed, moving nearer the surface of Chaser.
She sensed two great blacks under control out on the lip of the system. Soon, now.
Still no evidence of Starstalker.
She captured a large ghost and flung it into the drive of a medium-size alien hustling toward Biter. It went drifting toward the homeworld, unable to alter course.
She turned to another, again ruined a drive.
The crowd around Biter began turning her way. She ruined a third drive, aboard a ship headed toward her, then grabbed for the Up-and-Over, darting well inside the orbits of the smallest moons. That far in she would be unable to take the Up-and-Over again.
She started down. Best deliver the ashes while the alien remained distracted and confused.
Her latest victim bored into Chaser, igniting a geyser of fire.
Alien ships darted around, trying to locate her. Angry radio blasts filled the ether. Marika continued to marvel at their numbers and sizes. The damage she had done amounted to nothing. Everything they had must be here.
She felt Starstalker return, felt Serke minds questing. And in the same second two great blacks arrived among the foe. A third appeared only two minutes later. One set upon Starstalker. Terrified, the Serke fled again.
The rest of the starfarers should arrive soon.
Marika had no time to follow the struggle. She was going down as fast as she dared, yet not fast enough. The touch of a weary surface silth reached her, warned her that ground-based aircraft were being prepared to intercept her.
She raced toward the sea east of the New Continent, holding that touch with the surface.
The news from below was not good. Only a pawful of silth survived. Most were in hiding, scattered among the populace, p
retending to be displaced workers. The alien was in complete control and looked likely to break faith with his Serke allies.
Perfidious males.
Marika felt the approach of the enemy aircraft while she was yet two hundred thousand feet up. She hurled ghosts. Aircraft dropped. How arrogant of them! Not one of their starships or aircraft was equipped with suppressors.
Maybe they did not know. Maybe the Serke were exercising duplicity of their own, counting upon her to batter the alien, and the alien to destroy her, leaving them to pick up the pieces.
She reached the surface unscathed and raced over gray waves edged with fire. One of the ships she had injured was coming down, trailing thunder.
The action beyond the sky was brisk. Three great blacks had ruined the alien’s confidence. And now the main forces of darkships were arriving.
But their ships, all their ships, were titanium.
IV
The shore cliffline reared ahead, giants wearing boots of foam. Beyond, the land betrayed patches of green. Marika was pleased. Here the ice had lain fifty feet thick the last time she had come by. For all that had happened, the mirrors remained active.
She was a long way from the Ponath. Fast as she rushed along, the night was faster. It overtook her before she reached her ancestral territory. There in moonlight the land yet lay skeletal, not all the ice gone, but enough so the heads of hills and bones of dead forests had begun to show through. She slowed, searched for the packstead.
Again and again aircraft came to challenge. None of those that detected her ever came within eyeshot.
The ice had changed the land. Little seemed familiar, though the hills above the Ponath reared naked above the remaining ice. Bald heads where once had stood impenetrable forests. She slowed, uncertain she had reached the right country.
She had flown too far west, for she came upon the promontory where Akard had stood. The ice had left no trace of the fortress. She turned eastward, thinking how puny were the works of meth in the face of the slow fury of nature.
She found the packstead easily, then, for something turned within her, connecting with the land of her birth. Her life there rushed through her mind, a torrent. How did that pup become the hard, cruel bitch riding the night above?
She summoned her backup and ordered her to take over as Mistress, to drift slowly above the site, fifty feet up. Marika went to the axis and collected the urns containing Grauel and Barlog.
Holding those urns, she gazed at the sky. The continuing struggle scarred the outer darkness. She opened, allowed the touch to overwhelm her.
Half her Mistresses had been destroyed. Satter was among those lost. No other Mistress had been able to take control of the system’s great black. But the survivors battled on.
The alien had suffered as heavily. A score of crewless starships drifted aimlessly, complicating the battle situation. The struggle remained close despite the technology and numbers ranged against the silth. Henahpla and Cherish, recalling what Commander Jackson had told them about warships, were trying to intimidate the enemy by concentrating on vessels capable of carrying riders away.
Perhaps that was not the wisest tactic, Marika reflected. But she let them continue, with just a light touch to let them know she would be back among them soon.
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 rotten 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.