In Death Ground Part 22

"Perfectly, Sir," Murak.u.ma replied in a small voice.

"Good. And now, a couple of final points that could have been communicated to you through regular channels... but, since I was coming out here anyway-" The twinkle was back, this time accompanied by a very slight smile. Avram fumbled in her attache case and extracted an official-looking folder. "You're a full admiral now. We'll make the official announcement later." She allowed herself a moment to savor Murak.u.ma's expression, then made a great show of having an afterthought and reached back inside the attache case. "We'll also make this official later." She extracted a small, flat box, deep-blue edged with gold, and casually tossed it to Murak.u.ma, who seemed to come out of shock just in time to grab it out of the air.

The newly promoted admiral forced her maelstrom of emotions to subside - dear G.o.d, she'd only been a vice admiral for... how long? - and opened the box. The light caught the twenty-four karat gold of what lay within, but that wasn't what dazzled her as she gazed at the royal beast suspended from the multicolored ribbon. The Lion of Terra - highest decoration the Federation could bestow on its sons and daughters, conferring on its holder the right to take a salute from anyone in uniform who didn't possess it, regardless of rank.

After a time, Murak.u.ma remembered where she was and lowered the box, revealing Hannah Avram, smiling an odd little smile. "I believe, Admiral," the Sky Marshal said, "That I'll have that drink now. Have you got any white wine?"

Murak.u.ma's smile started out tremulously, but didn't stay that way. "Sure you won't make it Irish, Sir?"

Rear Admiral Marcus LeBlanc leaned back, propped his feet on the desk, and ran a hand over the top of his head from front to back in a habitual gesture of weariness. The surviving hairs were insufficient to mar the sleekness, and for the thousandth time he wondered if that was because of wry realism, misplaced pride, sheer d.a.m.ned stubbornness, or just a lifelong aversion to putting himself in the hands of the medical profession.

"Are these the last of the reports?" he asked the offensively young ensign.

"Yes, Sir," Kevin Sanders responded, with more energy than he had any right to show this late in the working day. "We had to practically extort a final draft out of Dr. Kovac. But they're all here, ready to be correlated."

"Too d.a.m.ned late in the day to start doing it now," LeBlanc muttered. His gaze s.h.i.+fted to the window. They were at that point of their work-cycle where the end of the working day actually corresponded to the setting of Alpha Centauri A. As usual at this time of year in this particular part of Nova Terra, it was dipping behind the pale blue curve of Eden that loomed over the oceanic horizon like some t.i.tan-emperor's floating pleasure dome. LeBlanc's ad hoc organization of Bug specialists had been isolated here for reasons which he'd at least found good for a cynical laugh. The Powers That Be could stress "security" all they wanted, but they were far less concerned over Bug spies disguised as humans or fanatical human adherents of Bug-ism than that their citizenry might get wind of his team's... disturbing theories. Yet he couldn't deny that the island of New Atlantis was a lovely place, with its dramatic topography and the subtropical Terran vegetation that had pretty much pushed aside the less-evolved local stuff. Maybe too lovely; where reality presented such a gentle aspect, it was almost possible to forget what was happening in the universe beyond the white-sand beaches and regard the beings they studied as some fascinating abstract problem in xenology. Periodically, LeBlanc made himself view the tapes from Erebor.

Sanders followed his gaze. "Beautiful island, isn't it, Sir? I don't know about the name, though. I mean, there never was an old Atlantis!"

LeBlanc grinned. Sanders should know, coming as he did from Old Terra, which made him something of a rara avis in the TFN. He'd been working for Admiral Antonov's staff spook but had contrived to get himself detached to LeBlanc's outfit. The new-minted rear admiral was glad to have him; he had the kind of irreverent originality this project needed, and he was the sort to fit in well with this oddball half-military and half-civilian crew. In particular, he seemed to resonate well with the Tabbies, of whom there were quite a few here, along with a fair number of Ophiuchi and a couple of Gorm. Besides, LeBlanc liked him in the way people generally like those in whom they unconsciously recognize their own younger selves.

"Take a load off," the admiral said, gesturing at a chair. "Sorry you had to deal with Kovac - I know he can be difficult." He stretched hugely. "Late as it is, I suppose I need to try and make some sense of these reports tonight. The Director is sure to want a briefing." The Director of Naval Intelligence had arrived on Nova Terra less than a local day ago. So far she'd been kept busy at Allied Grand Fleet Headquarters, a quarter of the way around the globe. But she was bound to show up at New Atlantis, sooner rather than later.

"There's not much you can tell her about the databases, Sir," Sanders said as he settled into the chair. "We're still where we were when Dr. Linkovich had his initial insight. The Gorm have been trying to construct a model for electronic - 'psychotronic'? - storage of psionic data patterns by a.n.a.logizing from what they know of how their minisorchi operates. They're sure there must be such a model. But... Well, Gorm don't scream and smash the furniture. Not their style. But I can tell that that's exactly what they'd be doing if they were human.

"Trouble is, not even they have a 'unified field theory' relating psi to matter and energy. We humans don't have a clue; we've never had any real reason to be interested. So until some genius comes up with such a theory - which the Bugs must already have - we're just p.i.s.sing into the wind."

LeBlanc stretched again, and rubbed his eyes. "Well then, we'd better concentrate on areas where we have a chance of accomplis.h.i.+ng something. Like these new attack craft Admiral Murak.u.ma encountered."

"Oh, yes." Sanders brightened, oblivious to the pain that had crossed LeBlanc's face at the mention of Admiral Murak.u.ma. "That was what Kovac was working on. He gave me a running discourse while his flunkies were getting his 'extremely tentative and incomplete conclusions' printed out. I think I've got a pretty good - if elementary - idea of what he's driving at."

"Well, summarize for me. I'd like to hear the 'elementary' version before I tackle the full report."

"I fancy I'd like to hear it too, Ensign."

The clipped, British-accented voice from the doorway had a remarkable effect. LeBlanc was on his feet, fumbling to fasten his collar, while Sanders, who wasn't all that far removed from the Academy, was too busy trying to brace a bulkhead that wasn't there to be concerned with the state of his uniform.

"Why, er, Admiral Trevayne," LeBlanc stammered, "we weren't expecting... that is, we didn't know you were..."

Winnifred Trevayne waved a dismissive gesture, and occupied an empty chair. "Please be at ease, Admiral LeBlanc and Ensign... Sanders, isn't it? I remember you from your time on the Sky Marshal's staff." She steepled her fingers and gazed over them, sighting along the bridge of her keel-straight nose. Her coloring was dark, but that was the only vestige of the Jamaican fraction of her ancestry. "I suppose I should have given you some notice of my arrival. But I've only just been able to get away from Grand Fleet Headquarters. Besides, I couldn't face one more well-prepared reception." Her eyes surveyed the none-too-tidy office, finally settling on LeBlanc and Sanders, and her lips formed what in anyone else might have been suspected of being a smile. "Something rather refres.h.i.+ng about this place, actually. And now, Ensign Sanders, you were starting to say when I interrupted... ?"

Sanders took a deep breath. "Well, Admiral, our staffs concluded that the Arachnids have found a somewhat different approach to applying cla.s.sic drive theory to small craft. We've always had a problem in applying the technology to smaller packages, because of the 'shallowness' of the inertial sump a.s.sociated with small craft." The ensign was rapidly returning to his chatty norm. "For example, the version that made fighters possible paid for its compactness with a sump that was so much less deep that fighter performance, unlike that of stars.h.i.+ps, is degraded when carrying external ordinance, and-"

LeBlanc cleared his throat nervously. "I believe the Director is already conversant with these matters, Ensign."

Sanders had the grace to blush. "Er, sorry, Sir. We have a lot of xenologists around here who have to have things outside the biological and social sciences explained to them, and you sort of get used to... Well, let me cut to the chase. The data from Fifth Fleet suggests that the Bugs have developed a kind of intermediate drive for these 'gunboats,' too large for most small craft but with a sump almost as deep as a full-sized stars.h.i.+p's. Their maximum speed is lower than an unloaded fighter's, but they can carry external ordinance without being slowed down."

"They must pay some sort of penalty," Trevayne mused.

"Oh yes, Sir. The penalty comes in the form of a high power requirement, with a correspondingly strong emissions signature. This, combined with its large size - for a small craft - means a gunboat can be targeted by s.h.i.+p-to-s.h.i.+p weapon systems. And it's not large enough to absorb the kind of damage those weapons dish out."

"That suggests it ought to trigger mine attacks as well," LeBlanc put in. "Actually, there's another piece of good news, as well. a.n.a.lysis of the observational data confirms the supposition that, being larger than other small craft, gunboats can't use internal bays. Instead, they seem to be carried externally on s.h.i.+ps. So rearming them must be an EVA operation, and it doesn't take much imagination to see how awkward that must be."

"For openers," Sanders piped up, the other two's exalted ranks momentarily forgotten, "it means the mothers.h.i.+p's drive field has to be deactivated while they're doing it. The radiation would deep-fry somebody in a vac suit!"

He seemed about to say more, but Trevayne raised a hand. In the ensuing silence, she looked from one of them to the other and then back again.

"I'm afraid you're missing the point, gentlemen. You see, all the points of 'good news' you've adduced are outweighed by the one very large item of bad news." She met their eyes again, even more gravely than before. "The one, single advantage we've had up to now has been our somewhat superior technology. And we've a.s.sumed that that state of affairs will continue, that their tactical inflexibility must be accompanied by a lack of inventiveness. We can no longer make any such a.s.sumption. Since encountering our fighters, they've developed, produced and deployed a countervailing system. I'm not certain we could do so well in so short a period."

In the dead silence that followed, LeBlanc's quiet voice seemed almost raucous. "Uh, Sir, Admiral Murak.u.ma speculated that the gunboats could perhaps be the end result of some R&D program they already had underway before the war."

"That, Admiral LeBlanc, is a cla.s.sic example of whistling in the dark. It would be sheer folly for us to rely on it. Instead, we must a.s.sume there are more surprises in store. You and your people here must try and foretell what those surprises are going to be. You must try to deduce, on the basis of past experience, what they find most threatening in our technological tool kit and how they'll seek to counter it." All at once, her trademark crispness wavered, and she held a hand over her eyes as though to s.h.i.+eld them, even though the office was only dimly illuminated against the twilight. "It's all we can do," she said, addressing someone other than LeBlanc and Sanders. "We really have no way of knowing what lies in wait."

Outside the window, the slow rotation of the twin-planet system sent the last light of Alpha Centauri A vanis.h.i.+ng behind Eden. The sister planet shaded abruptly from sky blue to ultramarine, and the heavens grew dark.

Chapter Twenty-four.

Broken Claws

Fourteenth Great Claw of the Khan Zhaarnak'diaano glowered into the small holo tank of his repeater plot. The worthless planets of the uninhabited Telmasa System orbited their K4 primary with a bland uselessness which mirrored his own mood all too accurately. Clan Diaano had once been famed for the warriors it produced in the Khan's service, but that had been before the Wars of Shame. It was not his clan's fault no chance had arisen to win back the honor lost in those disastrous wars, yet every one of his ancestors seemed to prowl the back of his mind, muttering balefully over their descendant's failure to seize glory by the throat in this war. For more than a full human year - almost two Orion years - it had raged, and still he sat tethered as a "rear area security umbrella" designed only to rea.s.sure civilians!

He growled and kneaded his claws in and out of his chair's padded armrests. Of course, very few of the Khan's warriors had so far been given the chance to measure themselves against these new foes - these "Bugs." Fang Anaasa and his pilots had won enormous renown for their rescue of the Human Fifth Fleet in the Third Battle of Justin, but no more of the KON's units had been rushed forward... for reasons which were one more ember in Zhaarnak's seething disgust.

Technology. Technology and experience. The Humans' R&D had - once more - outpaced the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaieee's, and so they were better equipped than the Khan's Navy. They had begun the war with better s.h.i.+elds, better armor... better weapons. Even now their technical missions were busy throughout the Khanate, working to upgrade the KON's technology as if the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaieee were cubs who must be led by the hand. And though the Federation's last major war was an Orion century old, it remained more recent than anything the Khanate could claim. Antipiracy operations, the suppression of a slaving outbreak in the Khithaar Sector, the short confrontation when District Governor Maashaar defied the present Khan's sire... those were all the "wars" the KON had fought since the Third Interstellar War, and so the Grand Alliance had agreed the Humans should lead the battle in the Romulus Cl.u.s.ter.

The great claw bared the tips of his fangs. Deep inside, a part of him acknowledged that it was the Humans who had first been attacked. Their warriors' blood had been the first shed, their civilians the ones butchered, and so it was right that they be given the honor of facing the foe. Yet another, deeper part of him could not accept that. Humans were chofaki. They had no honor. They were clever, yes, and skilled in the cold blooded execution of maneuvers, yet they lacked the warrior's fire. He had heard the arguments - Valkha, but he had heard them! - since the Theban War. Minisharhuaak! Of course they had shouldered their obligations in that war, but they had done so out of fear, Zhaarnak thought. It was they who had given the crazed Thebans technology in the first place, and they'd feared Liharnow the Great would loose the Navy upon them if they did not "step forward." And they had shown themselves chofak yet again in this war. What true warrior would have fallen back again and again, abandoning millions of his own civilians to certain death - to being eaten like so many marhangi?

He made his claws retract, and his mind replayed the official briefings like some endless, meaningless chant. The Humans had had no choice but to fall back. They had fought again and again, and not even Zhaarnak could deny the damage they had inflicted - a.s.suming the reports were accurate. Yet that was the point. If the reports were accurate, then why had they been forced back? Almost four hundred superdreadnoughts - that was how many capital s.h.i.+ps the Humans' Fifth Fleet claimed to have destroyed. Four hundred! The entire Orion Navy contained only four hundred and six stars.h.i.+ps, including even destroyers! Was he to believe the Humans had destroyed thirty times the KON's total tonnage without even slowing their enemies?

Ridiculous! Such inflated claims were the proof they were chofaki, dirt-eaters, beings so lost to honor they could not even recognize it as a concept! According to those same intelligence packets the Humans' s.h.i.+ps were faster, their weapons longer ranged, their defensive technologies and datalink superior, and they had fighters! If they had destroyed so many s.h.i.+ps, if they held such a tremendous tactical advantage, then why were they on the defensive? Oh, true, they had retaken Justin - finally, with Fang Anaasa's help - yet did they truly expect Zhaarnak to believe any opponent could absorb such losses and continue to attack?

He shook himself and rose. Softly, Zhaarnak, he told himself. Softly. Whatever you may think, it is your duty not to show your officers your disgust. And be truthful. Would you be so ready to believe them chofak had they not brought such dishonor upon your clan?

He twitched his ears brusquely, angry with that last thought, yet he could not quite reject it. His clan fathers had charged into battle in the Orion way in the Wars of Shame... and the Humans had slaughtered their commands in the chofak Human way. Perhaps the Terran Navy had taught the KON how wars were won, but what of honor? What of the battle sagas chanted when warriors were laid to rest? The Wars of Shame took those things from his clan, and even the meager redemption Clan Diaano had won in the Third Interstellar War had come on Human terms. It was the Humans who shared the strikefighter technology with the Khanate even before the Rigelians turned on the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaieee. It was the Humans whose industrial might had built entire stars.h.i.+ps for the Khan. Even Varnik'sheerino, the greatest fang of the last three centuries, had been forced to dance to Human terms, coordinate his plans with theirs!

Be honest. Be honest, Zhaarnak. Chofak Humans may be, yet what you truly hate is that they never let your clan regain honor from them - only with them. There is no Human blood upon your claws, and you hate them for it.

Well, perhaps that was truth, but truth was a bitter herb, and whatever cause he had to hate them, their showing in this war was cause enough for contempt.

He snorted and stepped into the intras.h.i.+p car. If he could not take his battlegroup to war, at least he would not sit here on his flag bridge like some clawless cub and watch an empty plot!

Least Claw of the Khan Shaiaasu'aaithnau sighed in relief as his six Lahstyn-cla.s.s light cruisers headed for the warp point. Under other circ.u.mstances, he would have enjoyed exercising his first squadron command, but the Shanak System was and always had been as useful as a screen door on an airlock. It was lifeless, a cul-de-sac accessible only via a single closed warp point, whose sole claim to importance was that it lay adjacent to the extremely useful Kliean System. Unlike Shanak, Kliean boasted two habitable planets and an immensely rich asteroid belt. It was one of the Khanate's oldest and wealthiest inhabited systems... and the only reason Shaiaasu and his s.h.i.+ps had just spent a thoroughly boring month resurveying Shanak.

He let himself relax as his lead s.h.i.+p entered the warp point, and lazy thoughts chased about his brain. He understood the panic behind his orders. If the rumors from the Human's Justin System were true, even the potential for a similar threat to a system like Kliean must be terrifying to the Khan's administrators. And, he admitted, the survey data on Shanak had been over four Orion centuries old. Improved instrumentation might have discovered a second warp point - it had not, but it might have - yet that had made the mission no less boring, and he felt abandoned so far from the front. Not that Lahstyn-cla.s.s cruisers would have been much use in combat.

He purred a chuckle at the thought of his little survey s.h.i.+ps leading a life-or-death attack. He had seen one of Humans' Hun-cla.s.s cruisers. Now there was a survey s.h.i.+p! But the Federation was wealthy enough to build such vessels for survey work, and the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaieee were not. Indeed, he took a sort of perverse pride in his command's austerity. Humans might need big, comfortable s.h.i.+ps; Orions did not. Not, he admitted, that he would refuse one!

He chuckled again, then braced himself as his own s.h.i.+p entered the warp point. Acutar seemed to twitch around him in the familiar stress of transit, and he carefully did not grunt in relief as the brief nausea eased. He gazed longingly into his plot at the blue dot of the planet Masiahn. He had relatives down there - and he wished he had time to visit them. Masiahn was one of the jewels in the Khan's crown, a beautiful world of mountains, forests, and swift, white-foaming rivers. The planet had an enormous tourist trade, and Shaiaasu would have loved to spend a few weeks there. The jahar hunting was excellent, and not many could mount one of the needle-tipped antler racks on his wall or claim he'd taken the beast with no weapon but his own claws.

But it was not to be. His squadron had completed this component of its mission, and he knew Great Claw Zhaarnak's reputation. The 109th Survey Squadron was an independent command, but the great claw was responsible for covering its operations, and Zhaarnak must be like a zeget with a thorn in its paw. Any mere least claw who wasted a single hour longer than necessary would regret giving him a target for his ire!

The cloaked cruiser watched the last enemy vessel disappear. It had been astounded when the enemy first appeared, for this system had always been useless. Reachable only via a closed warp point and with no outbound warp points, it had never attracted any attention. Yet doctrine was inflexible: any star system, however useless, must be picketed, and so this one had.

Now the cruiser waited, making absolutely certain of the coordinates of the second closed warp point through which the enemy vessels had vanished before it fired its courier drone home.

Zhaarnak looked up from his paperwork as his com buzzed. He activated it, and Least Claw Daarsaahl'haairnaahn, his battlecruiser flags.h.i.+p's CO, looked out of it at him.

"Yes, Daarsaahl?"

"Least Claw Shaiaasu has reported, Sir," his flag captain - a term the KON had borrowed from the Humans, Zhaarnak thought sourly - twitched her ears derisively. "Having found nothing in Shanak, he is en route to Thraidaar. He will pa.s.s through Telmasa within the next two days."

"So he found nothing. Why am I not surprised?" Zhaarnak's ears mirrored the flag captain's sour humor. If Shanak had been cleared, the battlegroup would shortly be moved from Telmasa to Sak to cover the choke point there, and would that not be exciting?

He c.o.c.ked his head in thought. Shaiaasu's message was for his information only, for the least claw was not technically under his command, but Zhaarnak was a great claw... and bored.

"Very well, Daarsaahl. Let me know when he arrives. We may as well run a tracking exercise on him. In fact, set up a few days of maneuvers. He can delay his Thraidaar survey that long, and we have been too long idle. Whether they let us fight it or not, there is a war on!"

"Of course, Great Claw."

"Good. In the meantime -" Zhaarnak surprised himself with a chuckle of true amus.e.m.e.nt "- I have more than sufficient paperwork to keep me occupied for the next several hours. Invite Theerah to join both of us for supper, and we can discuss the exercise plans over a haunch of zeget."

The freighter Sellykha was no swift thirahk. In fact, she was big, ugly, ungainly, and about as maneuverable as an overaged asteroid, but her captain loved her. The resource extraction s.h.i.+p had never been out of Kliean. She made her routine trips between the asteroid belt and the orbital smelters, earning her owners a steady if unspectacular profit, and if it was a boring berth, well, s.h.i.+pmaster Faarsaahl'ynaara had earned a bit of boredom in the autumn of his life.

Still, it was a welcome diversion to be ferrying the small prospecting team to Shaylka's single moon. The outermost planet of the system was a typical ball of ice, but its moon was much more interesting. Its eccentric orbit had been noted during the original system survey, yet only in the last few years had anyone gotten around to taking a closer look at it. No one was prepared to suggest where it had come from or how Shaylka had captured it, but it appeared to be rich in transuranic elements, and Sellykha's owners had gotten in the first claim on its mineral rights.

Faarsaahl padded down the bridge access tunnel - no intras.h.i.+p cars for work-a-day Sellykha! - while he wondered how much his employers would earn from those rights. It might all come to nothing, but there was at least the chance of a fat bonus, and his son-in-law and daughter had just presented him with his seventh, eighth and ninth grandcubs. Their home on Masiahn would need additional rooms, and he planned to give them a new wing for Jaathnaa's birthday.

He stepped onto the bridge, crossed to his command chair, and paused to check the engineering readouts. Number Two engine room had reported the recurrence of that irritating harmonic, and he wanted a detailed record for the yard techs. "Engineer's imagination" indeed! This time he would make those thaarkoni admit there was a problem and do something about it.

"s.h.i.+pmaster?" He looked up at his fourth officers call. The youngster's ears were half-flattened, and he waved at his display. "Could you look at this, Sir?"

Faarsaahl crossed the bridge, wondering what fresh totally prosaic discovery Huaath had made. You were young once yourself, he chided himself, but the cub was so s.h.i.+ny and new Faarsaahl kept looking for milk on his lips.

"What is it?"

"I am not certain, Sir." Huaath peered intently into his display as his claws ticked gently over his panel. "I seem to be picking up some sort of drive field."

"A drive field? Out here?" Faarsaahl tried to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

"Yes, Sir. Its frequency matches nothing in our database, however." Huaath waved at his display. "Look for yourself."

Faarsaahl peered over the youngster's shoulder, and his spine stiffened, for there was a drive field out there. Sellykha's sensors fell far short of Navy standards, but the signature burned clear and sharp, and Faarsaahl felt his claws slip from their sheaths in sudden, terrible suspicion.

"Its vector?" he asked quietly.

"It appears to be inbound from Shanak," Huaath said, and Faarsaahl's belly knotted. He stared at the display for one more moment, then turned sharply to his communications officer.

"Get your transmitter on line!" The com officer blinked in surprise, and Faarsaahl bared his fangs. "Quickly! Alert Masiahn and Zhardak that unknown stars.h.i.+ps have entered the system!"

The com officer stiffened, whiskers aquiver in sudden understanding, and bent over his panel with frantic haste. Faarsaahl watched him, then turned back to his fourth officer and laid a clawed hand on the confused youngsters shoulder.

"Inform them that Fourth Officer Huaath'raamahl spotted them," he told the com officer quietly. "See to it that they know it was only his alertness which let us get the warning off."

"Aye, s.h.i.+pmaster," the com officer said equally quietly, and Faarsaahl squeezed Huaath's shoulder. The cub still hadn't realized, he thought sadly. Sellykha had only a freighter's speed, but at least he could insure that Clan Raamahl knew it had a new father-in-honor.

Zhaarnak'diaano stared at his flag captain.

"What strength?" he demanded.

"The Governor had little data when he transmitted the alert," Daarsaahl replied flatly. "Sellykha was destroyed within minutes of sending her warning. s.h.i.+pmaster Faarsaahl continued sending updates to the last, but he had seen only twenty or thirty light cruisers at that time."

"Valkha," Zhaarnak whispered. At least the message had reached him quickly via the interstellar communication network comsats that relayed light-speed transmissions between warp points, but his thoughts seemed frozen. Shanak. They had come from Shanak, but how-?

"They tracked Shaiaasu," he said softly. "They must have. But how did they get there?"

"There must be a second closed warp point." Daarsaahl's ears went flat as she spoke. "Minisharhuaak! Our own survey showed them the way!"

Zhaarnak shook off his paralysis and spun to his com section.

"Emergency priority, Juaahr! All units are to form on Dashyr for transit to Kliean. Then set up a conference link with the carrier commanders. Request an immediate update on squadron readiness states from farshathkhanaak Derikaal. Then send our own alert up the ICN. Request any available support - utmost priority." The com officer nodded, and Zhaarnak wheeled to his operations officer. "If this is only a probe, we may be able to stop it, Theerah. Configure Derikaal's squadrons for an antis.h.i.+pping strike. If we can destroy them or drive them back on Shanak, we have a chance to delay them long enough for someone else to get here."

"Who, Sir?" Son of the Khan Theerah'jihaal asked quietly.

"Anyone!" Zhaarnak snapped, then flicked his ears in apology. His fear and anger were not the ops officer's fault. Oh, no. It was the four billion civilians in Kliean who woke the terror at his heart, and he turned back to his console as the first carrier commander appeared on his com.

The Fleet continued its advance. Two more freighters had been destroyed. Both appeared to have been moving towards the Fleet, perhaps in an effort to acquire more data. If so, that was a good sign - an indication there were no enemy wars.h.i.+ps to oppose the attack.

Sensors continued to report. Both targeted planets blazed with the emissions of densely populated, high-tech worlds, and those same sensors had already detected the system's ma.s.sive asteroid-based industry. That, too, was good. It indicated the wealth of resources waiting for the taking. Once its planets had been cleansed, this system would be a valuable prize.