A strange screaming filled the void.
These humans touched when they died!
Their screams went on and on and on as their ship began breaking up.
Why so long?
Their dying tore at her nerves, distracted her from the broader struggle... Crewed by the dying, the disintegrating human ship ripped past, drives accelerating still, carrying the remains outsystem.
A bolt of light stabbed so close Marika imagined crisping heat. She tore her attention from her victim.
A small ship was almost atop her. She ducked reflexively, fired her rifle as it screamed past, and only then thought to fling the great black.
Tortured screams flooded the touch.
That was the last small ship of the main force. Marika probed for the leading group. It too had been hard hit. Three survivors were streaking back toward their dam ship.
Victory. But at a terrible price. She could not find half a dozen Mistresses.
The main force turned. Marika ordered pursuit abandoned. She wanted no more losses.
She trailed the enemy’s withdrawal, watched him recover his surviving rider, then his singleships. The smaller vessels all nestled into recesses in the larger’s flanks.
She tried for the main ship’s drives, but it kept her too busy evading fire to concentrate.
Riders recovered, the destroyer pulled away. Marika found its acceleration astounding. Such power!
The starship vanished. Like a darkship leaping into the Up-and-Over, yet with a twist that seemed to rend the fabric of the void itself. Marika shuddered to a shock that recalled nearby thunder. But there was no sound out there in the dark.
II
“They got whipped, but they’ll be back,” Commander Jackson prophesied. “They learned what they wanted to know.”
“Uhm.” Marika conversed in monosyllables, gruffly concealing her uncertainty. Seldom had she been so uncertain of her capacity to cope. The incredible, powerful technology behind that killing machine!
“They’ll come ready to fight, Marika. I wish I had orders.”
“Why did the smaller ships cling to the large one?”
“Economy. Military grade hyperdrives are costly and bulky. So each hypership carries riders equipped only with cheaper, less massive system drives. Military grade system drives. A Main Battle carries riders on its riders.”
Marika sighed. Despair began worming its way deep into her soul.
The destroyer had been gone four days. A ragtag fleet of voidships dropped from the Up-and-Over, badly mauled. Marika hustled her Mistresses out to meet them.
“They’re from my homeworld,” she told Jackson. “All who were able to fight their way through.” They were, in fact, the last star-faring silth save a few crews exploring and not yet aware that the beast was afoot.
“The voidship Starstalker has returned to home space. Accompanied by your enemies.” The news the touch carried was almost too grim to bear. “Silth talents have been of little value against alien technology in fighting on the surface.” The Communities were struggling bravely and desperately, but with scant hope. The general populace was giving no help. Even the long loyal brethren faction was making only token efforts at resisting.
Marika cursed the All within the shadows of her heart. She, the rebel within silthdom, had been by time and circumstance hammered into a symbol of everything silth. She had become the adhesive bonding harried silthdom together. How had she come to this?
She knew the message borne by the homeworld Mistresses. The Communities were struggling on in hopes she could, once again, stay the jaws of doom.
What was the point? The All seemed determined to see an end to the silth ideal.
She took the wooden darkship into the void alone, beyond the touch of those waiting aboard the derelict. The ashes of Grauel and Barlog rested at the axis. She faced the urns.
Grauel. Barlog. We are returned to where we began. Savages surround us. And this time there is no Akard to send help.
There is a difference, Marika. They war upon silth alone.
True. But without us what would meth be? And how long will it be silth alone?
Silence.
She cruised the dark till exhaustion turned her homeward, not once finding an answer she wanted. There were options, possibilities, and some things that had to be attempted whatever befell, but all outcomes depended upon Jackson’s people.
She strode down the arm of the voidship, poised over the last of her pack.
There was no choice. She had promised. She had to take them home.
Jackson told her, “It’s insane,” after Marika dismissed the assembled Mistresses. “Your silth sorcery won’t mean a thing against a rebel fleet. Please wait.”
“Your people have shown no interest in what is happening here. There is no point in waiting.”
“They must be hard-pressed. It’s hard to defend everything when marauders... “
“Take the struggle to the marauder. That is what I have done all my life. To the sorrow of thousands. No. No, my human friend. This I must do, though it means my end. I have my obligations. To my huntresses who have fallen, to my Community that is no more, to all meth and silth still living. I was created by the All to act. If I achieve no greater victory, I must break through and scatter these ashes before I rejoin the All.” None of the Mistresses had questioned that. They understood.
“What you call kalerhag is an obligation?”
Marika eyed Jackson warily. Even the humans? “What makes you mention kalerhag? It is a forgotten rite.”
“I doubt that. I cannot speak your language, but I can follow conversations. Kalerhag is a growing theme. The bath especially are talking mass suicide if your mission fails.”
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 homeworid, 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, pretending 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 s
ummoned 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.