CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The dot of Zeta Trianguli Australis burned unchanged, for the fury of its death had not yet crossed the light-years.

Senior Fleet Captain Sarah Meir, promoted when Colin evicted Dahak's crew, sat on the planetoid Ashar's command deck and frowned as she watched it, recalling the dark, hopeless years when she and her Terra-born fellows had fought with Nergal's Imperials against Anu's butchers. There was no comparison between then and now... except that the days were dark once more and hope was scarce.

Scarce, but not vanished, she reminded herself, and if Colin's reckless battle plan shocked her, it was its very audacity which gave them a hope of victory. That, and the quality of their ships and handful of crews.

And Dahak. It always came back to Dahak, but, then, it always had. He'd stood sponsor for them all, Earth's inheritance from the Imperium on this eve of Armageddon. It might be atavistic of her, but Dahak was their totem, and—

"Captain, we have an inbound hyper wake. A big one," her plotting officer said, and adrenalin flushed through her system.

"Nail it down," she said, "and fire up the hypercom." Acknowledgments came back, and she called up Engineering. "Stand by for Enchanach Drive."

"Yes, ma'am. Core tap nominal. We're ready to move."

"Stand by." She looked back up at Plotting. "Well?"

"We've got an emergence, ma'am. Ninety-eight hours, about a light-month short of the vanguard's emergence locus."

Sarah frowned. Damned if she would've hypered in this close to the "monster nest-killers" the vanguard must have reported! Still, with their piddling communication range, they had to come in fairly close... and a light-month gave them plenty of time to hyper out if bad guys came at them.

Usually, she thought coldly, but not this time. Oh, no. Not this time.

"Communications, inform the flagship. Maneuvering, head for the rendezvous, but take us on a dog-leg. I want a cross-bearing on this wake."

Stars streamed across the display, and she relaxed. In another four days the uncertainty would end... one way or another.

Great Lord of Order Hothan twiddled all four thumbs as he replayed Sorkar's messages yet again. Hothan was small for a Protector, quick-moving and keen-witted. Indeed, he had been severely disciplined as a fledgling for near-deviant inquisitiveness and almost denied his lordship for questioning what he perceived as inefficiencies in the Nest's starships. Yet even Battle Comp agreed that those very faults made him an excellent strategist and tactician, and they had helped Great Lord Tharno select him for this duty.

Yet Sorkar's reports made him more than simply curious. There was a near-hysterical edge to them, most unlike his old nestmate. But, then, this was the Demon Sector, and Sorkar always had been a bit superstitious.

"Emergence confirmed and plotted," Dahak announced. "Margin of error point-zero-zero-zero-zero-two-nine percent."

Colin grunted and ran down his mental list one last time. Dahak was at eighty-six percent efficiency; his other ships were all at ninety or above. All magazines were topped up, and transferring Dahak's skeleton crew to Ashar had given them sixteen autonomous units once more. They were as ready as they could get, he thought, deliberately not looking at the hastily-installed mat-trans which had replaced the tactical officer's couch and console.

"All right, Dahak, saddle up. Get the minelayers moving."

"Acknowledged." The unmanned colliers moved out, accompanied by Dahak and his bevy of lobotomized geniuses, loafing along under Enchanach Drive at sixty times light-speed. They weren't in that great a hurry.

The colliers reached their stations and paused, adjusting their formation delicately before they began to move once more, now at sublight speeds.

The brevity of the first clash with the vanguard, coupled with the ships lost at Zeta Trianguli, meant Colin had more spare missiles than planned. He rather regretted that—though he would have regretted depleted magazines more—for each missile was three or four less mines his colliers could lift. Still, they had lots of the nasty little buggers, and he watched them spill out as the colliers swept across the Achuultani's emergence area at forty percent of light-speed.

He bared his teeth. Mines were seldom used outside star systems, for it was impossible to guess where an enemy might come out between stars. But this time he didn't have to guess; he knew, and the Achuultani weren't going to like it a bit.

Great Lord Hothan stretched one last time before he folded his legs and sank onto his duty pad. Before Sorkar's messages, Hothan had not worried about routine emergences from hyper in interstellar space, but he had no more idea how the nest-killers had surprised Sorkar than Battle Comp did, and, like Great Lord Tharno, he was determined to guard his own command.

His nestlings had been carefully instructed before entering hyper. They would emerge as prepared to confront enemies as nestmates, yet if these nest-killers were indeed the demons Sorkar had described that might not be enough, and so he and Great Lord Tharno had taken a radical decision with Battle Comp's full concurrence. Protectors could not serve the Nest if they perished; should the nest-killers be waiting once more, prepared to kill his ships in great twelves, he would return to hyper and flee.

He watched the chronometer and checked Battle Comp for final advice. There was none, and he made himself relax. Half a day-segment to emergence.

Colin watched the hyper traces flash blood-red in Dahak's holo projection as the vanguard's tattered couriers and the main body rushed together. They would rendezvous in one more hour, and the battle would begin. It would be a battle, too; more terrible than the oncoming Achuultani could possibly imagine. And probably more terrible than he could imagine, as well.

Dahak floated at the core of a globe of fifty-four stupendous planetoids, and Colin felt a brief stab of unutterable loneliness as he realized he was the sole living, breathing scrap of blood and bone in all that horrific array of firepower. He shook it off; there were other things to consider.

The waiting minefield frosted the black velvet of Dahak's display like a glitter of diamond dust. The stealthed colliers ringed the mines, waiting obediently to play their part in Operation Laocoon, and fifteen more stealthed Asgerd-class planetoids were invisible even to Dahak's scanners, their positions marked only because he already knew where they would be. Those ships were 'Tanni's command, the reserve which could move and fight without Dahak's control. Yet they were more than counters on a map. They were crewed by people—by friends—and too many of them were about to die.

Great Lord Hothan tightened internally despite years of discipline and training. He chided himself for his inability to relax. Yet perhaps that was good, for tension honed reactions and—

His thoughts broke off as one of his read-outs suddenly peaked. That was odd. The depths of hyper space were unchanging: seething bands of energy that ebbed and flowed in predictable, regular patterns, not in sudden peaks.

But his read-outs peaked again. And again and again. Glowing numerals flashed with a jagged, stabbing intensity whose like he had never seen, and his nerves twisted in sudden dread.

Colin smiled coldly as the mines began to vanish.

The Achuultani could play many tricks with hyper space, but there were a few which hadn't occurred to them. Why should they, when they were perpetually on the offensive? But just as they had planned and trained for countless years to attack, so the Imperium had schemed and planned to defend, and the Empire had refined the Imperium's basic research.