Страница 130 из 268
Except, of course, that it almost certainly had been Lord Furtag's scouts which had roused these nest-killers to fury. They must have followed a courier to find Sorkar, and only a courier from Furtag's force could have reached this rendezvous so soon. And that gave Sorkar a volume of space in which at least one of their important worlds must lie. That might be enough. If it was not, it was at least a start. And this star system was another.
Those monster ships' sheer size impressed him deeply, yet anything that large must take many years to build, so each he slew would hurt the nest-killers badly. He only hoped those who had already clashed with his nestlings would be foolish enough to stand and fight here.
A soft musical tone sounded, and he made himself relax, hoping that Battle Comp noticed his tranquillity. The queasy shudder of hyper translation ran through his flagship, and Defender dropped into phase with reality once more.
"Achuultani units are emerging from hyper," Dahak's mellow voice said.
Colin nodded as the dots of Achuultani ships gleamed in the display. He looked around the empty bridge, wishing for just a moment that he'd let the others stay. But if this worked, he and Dahak could pull it off alone; if it failed, those eight thousand-odd people would be utterly invaluable to 'Ta
"Keep an eye on 'em," he said. "Let me know if they do anything sneaky."
"I shall." Dahak was silent for a moment, then continued. "I have continued my study of energy-state computer technology, Colin."
"Oh?" If Dahak wanted to distract him, that was fine with Colin.
"Yes. I believe I have isolated the fundamental differences between the energy-state 'software' of the Empire and my own. They were rather more subtle than I originally anticipated, but I now feel confident of my ability to reprogram at will."
"Hey, that's great! You mean you could tinker them into waking up?"
"I did not say that, Colin. I can reprogram them; I still have not determined what within my own programming supports my self-aware state. Without that datum, I ca
"Yeah." Colin frowned. "But even if you could, you'd have problems, wouldn't you? They're hardwired for loyalty to Mother—wouldn't that put a crimp into your replication?"
"Not," Dahak said rather surprisingly, "in the case of the Guard. Its units were not part of Battle Fleet and do not contain Battle Fleet loyalty imperatives. I suppose—" the computer sounded gently ironic "—Mother and the Assembly of Nobles calculated that the remaining nine hundred ninety-eight thousand seven hundred and twelve planetoids of Battle Fleet would suffice to deal with them in the event an Emperor proved intractable."
"Guess they might, at that."
"The absence of those constraints, however, makes the replication of my core programming at least a possibility, although not a very high one. While I have made progress, I compute that the probability of success would be no more than eight percent. The probability that an unsuccessful attempt would incapacitate the recipient computer, however, approaches unity."
"Um." Colin tugged on his nose. "Not so good. The last thing we need is to addle one of the others just now."
"My own thought exactly. I thought, however, that you might appreciate a progress report."
"You mean," Colin snorted, "that you thought I was about to get the willies and you'd better distract me from 'em!"
"That is substantially what I said." Dahak made the soft sound he used for a chuckle. "In my own tactful fashion, of course."
"Tactful, shmactful," Colin gri
He broke off as the glittering hordes of Achuultani light codes suddenly vanished only to blink back moments later, much closer in-system.
"They are advancing," Dahak said calmly. "A trio of detached ships, however, appear to be micro-jumping to positions on the system periphery."
"Observers, damn it. Well, no one can count on their enemies being idiots."
"True, though that will be of limited utility if we are able to repeat our earlier success and destroy them before they rendezvous with the main body."
"Yeah, but we can't be sure of doing that. It's a lot shorter jump this time, and they can cut their arrival a hell of a lot closer. Tell 'Ta
"Acknowledged," Dahak replied. "Two has acknowledged," he added a moment later.
"Thanks," Colin grunted.
His attention was on the display. The Achuultani had micro-jumped with beautiful precision, spreading out to englobe Zeta Trianguli at a range of twenty-seven light-minutes. Now they were closing in normal space at twenty-four percent light-speed. They'd be into extreme missile range in another ten minutes, but it would take them almost an hour to reach their range of The Cinder, and he and Dahak could hurt them badly in that much time.
But not too badly. They had to keep closing. He needed them deep into the stellar gravity well for this to work, and—
He snorted. There were over a million of the bastards—just how much damage did he think his fifteen ships could inflict in fifty minutes?
"Open up at fifteen light-minutes, Dahak," he said finally. "Timed-rate fire. We don't want to shoot ourselves dry."
"Acknowledged," Dahak said calmly, and they waited.
Great Lord Sorkar fought his exultation. The nest-killers had not even attempted to cloak themselves! They simply sat waiting, and that was fine with Sorkar. Many of his nestlings were about to die, but so were the nest-killers.
There had been a few more of them about, he noted. There were a third-twelve of new ships to replace the one they had lost in the first clash. Well, that was scarcely enough to affect the outcome.
His sca
Of course, they were infernally fast even in n-space... . If they made a break for it, none of his nestlings could stay with them, but he knew an answer for that.
"They are deploying an outer sphere, Colin."
"I see it. Want to bet they leave it ten or twelve light-minutes out to catch us between two fires if we run?"
"I have nothing to wager."
"Chicken! What a cop out!"
"Enemy entering specified attack range." Dahak's mellow voice was suddenly deeper.
"Engage as previously instructed," Colin said formally.
"Engaging, Your Majesty."
Great Lord Sorkar flinched as the first of his ships exploded in eye-clawing fury. Nest Lord! He had known they out-ranged him, but by that much?
More ships exploded, and now those strange, terrible warheads were striking home, crumpling his mighty starships in upon themselves, but still the nest-killers made no effort to flee. Clearly they meant to cover the planet to the end. What in the name of Tarhish could make it so important to them?! No matter. They were standing, waiting for him to kill them.
"Open the formation," he told his lords. "Maintain closure rate."