Shiva Option

She jarred to a sudden halt and sucked in a deep, shuddering breath as she realized she'd been screaming into this inoffensive middle-aged guy's helmet.

"Sorry, Pops," she said uncomfortably. "Didn't mean to blast your eardrums."

"Oh, that's all right. And yes, I think I do understand. I've lost friends myself. I just lost a lot of them, when Riva y Silva went. And before that . . . I lost my brother."

"Shit. I shouldn't have dumped that load on you."

"That's all right," the man repeated. "But tell me: what about that little girl? What happened to her?"

"I adopted her. It was all I could do, especially after . . . after losing the child I was carrying."

"I'm sorry."

"Anyway," Irma went on, "she's going to be twelve in a few days. I haven't been able to see all that much of her, just whenever I can get leave. And every time I do, it's been so long that . . . well, it's as if . . . Hell, there I go again. Why am I telling you all this?"

"Possibly because I'm the only other human being available," the man said, and she could have sworn she heard something almost like a smile in the distorted voice. "Anyway, I'm glad you have. It reminds me of why we're doing what we're doing."

"Huh?"

"You see, you're wrong about one thing. There is an end to the Bugs. It's right here, in this system."

"So? It's not like it'll make any difference to you and me. Face it: transponder or no transponder, the odds are about a million to one against our being rescued. Nobody's going to come looking for survivors out here in the middle of all these cubic light-minutes of nothing."

"It's possible that you're being too pessimistic," the old-timer suggested in an odd tone, almost as if he were chuckling over some private joke. Which was just a bit much out of somebody in a suit that was about to crap out in the middle-literally-of nowhere at all.

Something scornful was halfway out of Irma's mouth when her communicator suddenly pinged with a deafening attention signal.

The shuttle's crew was made up of Tabbies, but there was a human lieutenant aboard. He was already speaking to the middle-aged man as they cycled Irma through the i

"-and he's waiting for you now, Sir."

Hmmm . . . Irma reflected. That "Sir" sounded awfully respectful. Pops must outrank me. Maybe I shouldn't have lipped off quite so much.

"Thank you," the man said to the lieutenant and bent over the cabin com screen, which displayed the image of an Orion. Incredibly, he began speaking in what sounded awfully like the howls and snarls the Tabbies called a language.

I always thought humans couldn't do that, she thought.

"What's been happening?" she demanded of the lieutenant. "I've been out here a long time."

"The kamikazes hurt us, Sir," the youngster said, "but not enough to even the odds when the Bug deep space force arrived. That was what they must've hoped for, but they crapped out. Our battle-line was still fast enough to hold the range open, and we blasted them out of space without ever closing to energy range."

"But what about their suicide-riders?"

"Yeah, they had the speed to close with us. And we took some losses from them. But only a few of them managed to break through without fire support from their capital ships." He shrugged. "Like I say, we got hurt-but every single one of their ships is either dead, or so much drifting junk nobody's ever going to have to worry about it again."

Irma sagged against a bulkhead with relief. Then, with the important questions taken care of, another one occurred to her.

"But if the Fleet's still headed in-system, how the hell did you find us? What were you doing back here?"

"You've got to be kidding!" The lieutenant stared at her with a stu

"Fang Zhaarnak?" Irma stared back in confusion. "What does he have to-?"

But then the older man wrapped up his alley-cat-like conversation with the Orion in the com screen-who, Irma now noticed, wore the very heavily jeweled harness of exalted rank-and turned to say something to her. And as he did, she finally saw his face clearly-the face she'd seen in more news broadcasts then she could count. The face she'd seen before the First Battle of Home Hive Three when the admiral commanding Sixth Fleet in Zephrain had a

"Oh, shit," she said in a tiny voice, and Raymond Prescott smiled at her. There were ghosts behind those hazel eyes, she thought numbly, yet that smile held a curious warmth. One that didn't fit well with the stories she'd heard about him since his brother's death.

"I just asked Fang Zhaarnak to inquire into the status of VF-94, Commander. You'll be glad to know that three of your pilots made it back to Hephaestus."

"Thank you, Sir. Uh, Admiral, I apologize for-"

"For heaven's sake, don't apologize! As you pointed out-rather forcefully, as I recall-you saved my life. And that wasn't all you did for me."

"Sir?"

"You reminded me of something I'd lost sight of, in the world of large-scale abstractions I inhabit, and in . . . becoming what I became after my brother was killed. You reminded me of why we're fighting this war-the real reason. And it's very basic and very, very simple. We're fighting it for that little girl of yours."

After a moment in which the background noises of the shuttle seemed u

"We're on our way to rendezvous with Fang Zhaarnak's flagship. Grand Fleet's regrouping for the final advance in-system. In the meantime, our carriers are going to go back to Anderson Three to pick up replacement fighters from the reserves there. We still have some work to do."

Irma straightened up.

"Sir, if possible I request to be returned to Hephaestus."

"After what you've been through? No one will expect you back immediately, and Fang Zhaarnak's people are already informing Hephaestus that you survived. At least take time to get checked out physically."

"I'm fine, Admiral. And . . . if we're going to get a couple of replacement pilots, I'll need all the time I can get to integrate them into the squadron before we tackle the planets."

Prescott nodded, and smiled.

"I believe we can probably arrange that, Commander."

Kthaara'zarthan stood on Li Chien-lu's flag bridge, a motionless silhouette against the viewscreen whose starfields now held two new, pale-blue members: the twin planet system occupying Home Hive Five's third orbit, seemingly almost touching each other at this distance.

Vanessa Murakuma didn't disturb him. Instead, she turned to her chief of staff.

"Are the ship losses in yet, Leroy?"

"Yes, Sir. As expected, they were very light in this latest action. So the earlier figures are essentially unchanged."

She thought of what lay behind McKe

But Leroy was right. Virtually all those ghastly losses had been sustained in the earlier battle with the deep space force and its massive wavefront of kamikazes . . . and the Bugs had shot their bolt in that battle. When Grand Fleet had reached the i