Vandat looked up just as the Drift schematic blinked, flickered, and began to reorder itself, as fast as unseen fingers could repro-gram the data. He laughed. “So we send them to the arena, and what then?”
“Permit Alphyra Kodos to go to them if we must, along with her lab techs and data. And then reverse the schematics to get them out again. If we can. I can think of nothing else.” Reflections of the Sun twitched bony fingers.
Blossoms on the Wind keened, “Neither can I, though having such hive-excreta in our very midst is—”
“Never mind that,” Vandat declared. “We do hold Alphyra, and her databanks are at least cut off from communication, even if we cannot access them. If she is their goal, then she is our weapon. We can promise to release her only when they promise to leave.”
Reflections of the Sun twitched again. “I do not see how we can control them.”
“We cannot, but Torbal can,” Vandat reminded them. “The very protections in the arena that have kept us out can be utilized. If he wishes to leave with his mistress, he will have to cooperate now.”
“Very well,” Reflections of the Sun admitted. “Let it be so.”
“And just as well,” Blossoms on the Wind declared. “We have just run out of time. Let me handle the negotiations—you get ready for their invasion.”
Otomo eased his slip-fighter into the proffered dock, set it down, then glared in satisfaction at the ship bleeding its life away in an external dock several frames over, plasma spurting from severed waveguides, its engines spastically driving it into dangerous yaws against the flex-bands tethering it to the Drift.
Prinzeugen’s voice came over the common tactical link. “Otomo-san. If that old freighter gets any more unstable it’ll tear a hole in the Drift.”
“They should have surrendered sooner,” said Otomo as his engines wound down to silence, the rest of his pod settling around him.
The dock lights came up as the doors cycled shut, glinting off the predatory angles of the fighters. Otomo climbed out; he knew the Drift kludges would not dare start a major battle here. It would be far too easy for the Nietzscheans to breach the Drift walls and open it to space.
He gathered his force around him, then gestured Prinzeugen over to the inner hatch controls. Then the dock lights blinked. He dropped to his knee, his weapon up. Around him the station groaned; he felt the deck flex and his ears popped slightly.
“We must have hit some of the external controls,” said Prinzeugen from the display he was tapping at. “They’re making emergency repair efforts. But we’re clear to the command center. I think.” Behind him the display flickered.
They ran through the hatch, leapfrogging their way down corridors and through more hatches, checking their position on the increasingly jerky displays. The groaning of the station deepened. They saw no one at first, until they left behind the utilitarian architecture of the dock frames and burst into the mercantile areas. There a crowd was milling around in confusion; they scattered in terror as the Nietzscheans battered their way through, disdaining the use of their weapons.
THIRTY-THREE
Miracles are nothing more than the failure of enemy strategy.
—HIGH GUARD ADMIRAL CONSTANZIA STARK, CY 9775
Delta turned her back on the vidscreens, her hands pressed together, fingers gripping so tightly that Cyn and Harper, despite the waves of cold shivers alternating with nausea wringing through their own systems, could see it was painful.
Trance said, softly, “Here. You two drink this.” She brought from Delta’s dumbwaiter two gently steaming drinks.
Harper glanced over wearily, not even questioning how Trance had managed to get around the data system without a neural net. This Drift was not just under physical attack but data attack. But still Trance had managed to find something that tasted good, and somehow dulled pain as it went down.
Harper’s head dropped back and he breathed deeply, feeling his tortured nerves sending out cool, soothing green synapses. The underlying threat lay like a pool of poison underneath—he could sense it—but at least, for now, there was this soft cloud of easement. Enough to enable him to think.
Next to him, Cyn drew in breath after shuddering breath, each one slightly easier than the one before.
“That’s not the antidote,” she said at last.
Trance’s golden eyes rounded with sympathy. “No. They do not have the components we need here.” She smiled. “You really did get a rare one.”
Cyn dropped her head into her hands.
Delta said, “The directors are changing the schematics.”
Harper looked up. Even working together deep in the neural net, he and Delta had not broken past Alphyra’s firewalls, so she still remained isolated, but they had been monitoring all the other events. Including communicating readily with Vandat, when he asked for help.
“Strange,” Delta said. “That the schematics now show the command center to have shifted—”
Harper laughed, and snapped his fingers. “That’s not strange, that’s smart. It’s a containment effort. Your beetle-boys know what they’re doing.”
Cyn rubbed her temples. “What? Isn’t that the Nietzscheans landing on the Drift?” She pointed to one of the vidscreens, which showed the Nietzschean ships easing to a cleared dock.
Harper got up, moving to the dumbwaiter. “I feel better. I almost feel human. I feel human enough at least to want some Sparky Cola.” He punched the controls, and when the dumbwaiter ceased humming and the light greened, he smacked the door open, pulled out a frosty can, and popped the top.
The three women waited while he downed half the cola, then he sighed. “Oh, that was good. I think I better get another.”
“I’ll get it,” Trance said, amused. “What was that about containment?”
“Look there. Clear enough.” Harper’s finger traced on the vidscreen overhead. “There’s Otomo and the rest of his rats, now out of the ships, and leapfrogging through the lifts and byways. Giant rats, but still rats.” He tapped the schematic. “And our boys are rapidly unraveling and raveling just ahead of the Nietzschean rodents. So the first thing he wants is the command center, right?”
Cyn snorted. “Of course. And they just changed it—wait. Yes. why is it blinking like that?”
“Make it look like the net is partially down.” Harper grinned. “And looks like the Than have sent some scuttlers to lead ’em along. Keep ’em moving—look at those boys go. Better you than me. Especially with all that combat armor. And—wait, wait—where is that they are sending ’em? Can’t be!”
Delta said softly, “To the arena.”
Harper whistled. “Dylan is so not going to like that.”
“Nietzscheans! With weapons,” Trance murmured. The light that clung to her skin, her hair, her eyes, seemed to dim in luster.
“Oh yes, it’s Nietzschean gladiator time,” Harper said. “Look.” He pointed to the security vid. “There went the force field. That Torbal slime must be cooperating just as fast as his little legs can carry him.”
“The Nietzscheans are in,” Cyn said. “That can only be bad.”
“And the force field is locked down again. Great, Dylan and just about all the enemies he possibly could have. Oh. Where are the Magog? Never mind, I’m sure Torbal will send some in, as soon as he finishes his coffee break,” Harper said, sounding more bitter by the moment. “I hate it—Beka there—what can we do except sit on our thumbs until our bones melt?”
Delta frowned. “There might be something we can do,” she murmured. “Not about your bones, I fear.”
Harper snapped his fingers again, and cracked a second can of Sparky. “Your bees? Don’t tell me they carry little stinger weapons.”
“They do not,” Delta said. She nodded. “But I was thinking of my bees. And what you said before, Trance. About shadows, time, and space?”
Trance brushed her hand over a vidscreen showing a fountain. “The bees have attracted these…Shadows,” she said slowly.
“Can I communicate with them?” Delta asked.
“I don’t think so. They tried, but the effort seemed to exhaust them.” She explained briefly about the shapes the bees had made earlier.
“I can affect them, or it, a little. It—they—feel like sentience, but they are not. The Shadows feel like a presence in our dimension, but aren’t. Think of them as not just places where light is not but where energy is not.”
“You’re going woowoo,” Harper warned. “I hate it when you go woowoo.”
“But you already know that you cannot impose your concept of mechanics onto the universe,” Trance said. “Convenient as it would be.”
“I know,” Harper said. “And that’s why I hate it.”
Trance gestured toward the fountain on the screen, which was now empty. Silent. “For whatever reason, the Shadows coalesce around the bees.”
Delta leaned forward, her hands gripping her elbows. “What exactly are the Shadows?”
Trance studied her, seeing past the tiredness, the struggle against conditioning. “I could sense memory,” she said slowly. “Or emotional energy, perhaps. Flickers of image that may be my own mind imposing its own sense on, oh, the symbols.”
Delta whispered, “You are hedging.”
Trance said, “I sense some of the—beings—locked down in the darkness here.”
“Beings.”
Harper flicked glances between Delta and Trance as they spoke. Cyn still sat with her head in her hands.
Trance said, “Yes, your predecessors. They seem to cleave to your bees—remember, space and time have no measure with these things. There are also others. From the labs—”
“Don’t.” Delta spoke quickly. “Don’t. I didn’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t think—I don’t think I can bear knowing.” She spun on her seat, and her hands moved rapidly. “But if the Shadows work the way you say—”
Trance smiled, her sunny smile. “If you can get them to the arena, I think I can get them to phase through the force field, carrying the bees along with them.”
“Let’s test your theory,” Delta said, her voice crisp.
Cyn gazed at her in weary surprise; Harper whistled soundlessly.
Only Trance realized what she was seeing: not just conviction but decision.
Otomo followed his point team down the last corridor, which gave onto something bright.
When he emerged, at first amazed by the roar of sound, he blinked—he’d expected a brightly lit command center, but what he saw were what seemed to be warriors, surrounded by tiers and tiers of spectators.
But what caught his attention was a tall central figure, silent, smiling.
Daigo-Ujio!
It really was he—impossibly tall, even for an Odin-Thor, with his mother’s bronze skin, and a very cool, derisive smile.
Otomo burned for confrontation, but was intercepted by a kludge, tall for humans, with golden hair. This man smiled broadly, smugly, saying, “It pleases me to be able to show you firsthand the outcome of our most spectacular genetic experiment. Now, tell me where your ship is, and the Seraphim will guard us all as we retreat—”
Otomo waved his weapon lazily at the kludge. “Get out of my way.”
“But my very dear sir. I am Torbal, Alphyra Kodos’s assistant.”
Torbal stepped forward, smiling, triumphant. What those two stupid directors hadn’t realized was that these Nietzscheans were here for the Seraphim, and now they would ally—
And he was in control of the Seraphim.
And about to dictate terms. But first, the niceties. “You are here to escort us to your flagship. That is, Director Kodos is elsewhere, but I am certain that now you are here, our esteemed codirectors will release her to us”—he raised his voice, as Otomo shoved past him. “Here”—he scrambled forward again.
“Get out of my way.” Otomo raised his katana and without looking, brought it down in a whistling blow that knocked Torbal aside. “I am here for one purpose. And he stands there.” He pointed the sword at Daigo-Ujio.
Torbal’s jaw dropped, then he frowned. “You mean, you are not here for Alphyra Kodos?”
Otomo waved his weapon again. “We will discuss that later. I have more important matters to attend to—but you say you command these…things?” He looked at the Seraphim, who stood in order, beautiful faces preternaturally still, soft hair drifting. “Yes, I saw them fighting on the way in. Let’s test, shall we?”
He gave a short command to his squad captain, and the Nietzscheans opened fire.
Speedy the Seraphim were, and strong, but they were no match for plasma guns.
As the crowd screamed in ecstasy, the Nietzscheans burned down the Seraphim until every one of them lay still, smoldering, the smell unpleasant.
Everyone there felt the air filters kick in; Torbal said with numb, sick disbelief, “But…that’s what the Odin-Thor Alpha came for.”
“Wrong,” Otomo said. “That is, I did not. And my father would never have those things underfoot, except maybe as target practice. Not kludge-trained, and probably programmed for treachery. What he wants is your data. And he will get it, you may be assured.”
Torbal stood, stunned, appalled; the powerful air scrubbers had not yet removed the sickening smell of cooked meat, but alone he did not even seem to notice as he gazed helplessly at his carefully trained, unmatched, unbeatable darlings, all lying so still.
Otomo and Ujio studied each other through the fast-vanishing smoke.
Dylan Hunt, Beka, and Rommie watched, the first two marshaling the last of their strength, the latter listening on several fronts.
Up in the command center, Vandat and Reflections of the Sun watched, appalled. Vandat felt guilt as well as shock. He’d confidently assumed that Torbal’s lethal experimental gladiators could fight anything, including Nietzscheans. Well, maybe they could have fought unarmed Nietzscheans, but that track of thought was now useless.
“The Nietzscheans have control,” Vandat whispered.
The comlink chimed. Both the Perseid and the Than turned to face the side screen, where they saw Delta Kodos. “I think I might have a way to even things,” she said. “I think. Shall I try it?”
Vandat rubbed his chin. Was that not always the way—Delta always asked before acting. Alphyra acted and then asked later. If she had to.
Right now, action was required.
“Do what you must,” he said, glancing back at the Than, who nodded.
And so when Otomo shouldered forward and raised his weapon, no one paid any attention to the faint hum on the air—those few who could hear it over the crazed yelling of the audience.
Ujio said, standing with arms crossed, “What? No duel?”
Otomo spat. “Why? It’s only your head I’m taking back. Let the old man think I was stupid enough to fool with steel.” He flicked the katana thrust sideways through his belt.
Behind Otomo, Prinzeugen and two of the others looked around, feeling rather than hearing danger. Otomo, savoring the moment, pulled his weapon—
And saw black, shiny dots coalesce around it.
He shook his head—shut his eyes—violently shook his hand.
Black dots swarmed over the weapon. He turned, an order on his lips—to see his force lurching about, some of them with clothing jerking weirdly, some of them with faces covered by black shiny things, and all of them with weapons unrecognizable because of the sudden, unexplained accretion of these things—
Dylan Hunt and Ujio exchanged looks.
“Now,” Dylan said softly.
And they all charged—that is, Dylan, Ujio, Beka, and Rommie-avatar. Torbal hung back, tapping his com and ordering in a rising, hysterical voice his henchminions to come to the rescue.
Each chose their mark; Dylan’s force-lance hummed and sparked. Beka used the modified force-lance that Ujio had tossed her; Rommie was lethal with just her hands. The four might have been overwhelmed had it not been for the henchmen running out, lances at hand. The audien
ce screamed with crazed bloodlust as blood sprayed out, weapons whirling, trained fighters performing a dance of death. Around them iridescent bees swarmed, dived, swooped, interfering with Nietzscheans—and then, at last, as the enemy began one by one to fall, shot by bright spats of force-lance effectors wielded by advancing rings of henchminions, the bees streamed upward, and vanished out of sight.
In the center, Ujio waited for his half brother, who was still trying to free his plasma weapon.
Finally Ujio said, “Either with the katana or without it.”
Otomo flung away the weapon and whipped the blade around in a whizzing arc.
Ujio stepped easily aside. He had an arsenal on him, but in this fight he only used his hands; one strike to the elbow, another to the side of the knee, and Otomo was down.
A boot planted itself on Otomo’s chest.
Ujio gazed down at him. “Somehow I had you pegged as a spectator. What is it, torture?”
Otomo made a violent wrench and twisted away, to get a kick to the jaw. The katana went flying. Ujio picked it up. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t gut you now,” he said, gazing down at Otomo.
Would Otomo have begged? From his perspective, on the ground, half-stunned, his men were busy—couldn’t hear—anyway, he had to get control, by any means—any means—
But not five meters away a Seraph, deeply wounded instead of dead, lifted its head just an inch or so, and saw the man in black. Blood and fading vision blocked out everything else. It had been ordered to kill, and so, with its last energy, it raised its nerve-weapon and shot.
Ujio, breathing hard, stared as Otomo jolted violently, limned in bluish green light.
Then he collapsed, his corpse smoking faintly.
And again the audience roared their pleasure.
Unnoticed, the Seraph dropped, its last breath easing out.
Torbal looked around. The henchmen were just dispatching the last Nietzschean with the force-lance effectors—