Ceremony

Alarms howled in ship-night. Mistresses and bath scrambled from their quarters, raced to their darkships. Calmly, Marika strode to the situation room. Commander Jackson arrived before her. Already the human end, bustling, had adjusted to local scale.

It was real! Not the false alarm Marika had expected. But ...

"One ship," Jackson told her. "Destroyer size. Already deploying riders. We'll have singleships in our hair in an hour. I hope it's just a recon pass." She indicated dots radiating from a common origin. "I have to get my ships out of orbit."

Marika was irked. Why hadn't her patrols warned her? They should have done so long before the humans detected the arrivals. She hurled anger outsystem, though her pickets were too distant to receive a general touch. "They're going to run?" she asked.

"I have to protect my people." The human scientists were evacuating the derelict hurriedly. "We can't do much more than get killed if they attack."

Baffled, Marika shook her head. She examined the situation, wheeled, stamped away to her wooden darkship. She cut the bath's ceremonies short, drove into the void toward the incoming raiders.

A picket's touch found her then, reporting the arrival with overtones of bewilderment. The Mistress had detected nothing until a small human ship almost overran her.

Marika shivered with a chill that penetrated her golden shield. The aliens did not touch. The touch's absence rendered them invisible to Mistresses less talented than she. She should have realized.

She deployed her companion Mistresses.

Ghosts flung outward discovered an inward-bound formation of six small ships. Behind them, more sedately, came a second formation of one large ship, two a third its size, and four more small ships. Marika did not understand. Commander Jackson had spoken of one ship, a "destroyer," arriving.

Go!

Darkships vanished into the Up-and-Over.

Marika emerged into fiery confusion. Webs of light clawed the void. Missiles were everywhere. The smaller human ships were almost as nimble as darkships. She drove toward the biggest ship. A moment later she felt the touch-screams of dying silth.

The size of the main enemy ship awed her. It was long and lean and cruel, like some monster ocean predator. Its mass had to be several times that of Jackson's biggest ship.

A small ship exploded.

Another darkship died.

She had underestimated them. Terribly.

She flung a wild touch across the void, grabbed the system's great black, yanked. This was no time for finesse.

A medium ship turned her way, accelerated incredibly. How had it detected her so easily? She grabbed the Up-and-Over, skipped, regained control of the great black. The ship found her again and closed swiftly, but the great black came too. Marika skipped again, flung the great black.

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.