The Armageddon Inheritance

“Yes?” He made his tone as discouraging as possible.

“Your Majesty,” Dahak said stubbornly, “Her Majesty is correct. The wisest course is to withdraw our ma

“Are you forgetting you can’t go supralight?”

“I am incapable of forgetting, but I am logical. If I remain here with the remaining unma

“And you’d be dead.” Colin’s eyes were green ice. “Forget it, Dahak. We’re not ru

“You would not be ‘ru

“Then prudence be damned!” Colin snapped, and Jiltanith’s arm squeezed him tight. “I won’t do it. The human race owes you its life, damn it!”

“I must remind Your Majesty that I am a machine and that—”

“The hell you are! You’re no more a machine than I am—you just happen to be made out of alloy and molycircs! And can the goddamned ‘majesties,’ too! Remember me, Dahak? The terrified primitive you kidnaped because you needed a captain? We’re in this together. That’s what friendship is all about.”

“Then, Colin,” Dahak said gently, “how do you think I will feel if our friendship causes your death? Must I bear the additional burden of knowing that my death has provoked yours?”

“Forget it,” Colin replied more quietly. “The odds may stink, but if we hold the entire force here, at least you’ve got a chance.”

“True. You increase the probability of my survival from zero to approximately two percent.”

“Yet is two percent infinitely more than zero,” Jiltanith said softly. “But were it not, yet must we stay. Dost’a not see that thou art family? No more might we abandon thee than Colin might leave me to death, or I him. Nay, give over this attempt and bend thy thought to how best to fight the foe who comes upon us all. Us all, Dahak.”

There was a long silence, then the sound of an electronic sigh.

“Very well, but I must insist upon certain conditions.”

“Conditions? Since when does my flagship start setting ‘conditions’?”

“I set them not as your flagship, Colin, but as your friend,” Dahak said, and Colin’s heart sank. “There may even be some logic in fighting as a single, unified force far from Sol, but other equally logical decisions can enhance both our chance of ultimate victory and your own survival.”

“Such as?” Colin asked noncommittally.

“Our unma

Colin frowned, then nodded slowly. That much, at least, made sense.

“And I further insist, that you, Colin, choose another flagship.”

“What? Now wait a minute—”

“No,” Dahak interrupted firmly. “There is no logical reason for you to remain aboard, and every reason not to remain. Under the circumstances, I can manage our remaining unma

Colin closed his eyes, hating himself for knowing Dahak was right. He didn’t want his friend to be right. Yet the force of the ancient starship’s arguments was irresistible, and he bowed his head.

“All right,” he whispered. “I’ll be with ’Ta

“Thank you, Colin,” Dahak said softly.

They did what they could.

Fabricator’s people worked twenty-four-hour days, and the crews attacked their own repairs with frantic energy. At least they could manage complete missile resupply, since their colliers could make the round trip to Sol in just under eleven days, but Sol had no hyper mines, so they would fight this battle without them. At the combined insistence of Horus and Gerald Hatcher they also transferred perso

But that was all they could do, and so they awaited Great Lord Tharno: fourteen ma

“Hyper wake detected, Captain,” Jiltanith’s plotting officer said, and alarms whooped throughout their battered fleet. “ETA fourteen hours at approximately one light-week.”

“My thanks, Ingrid.” Jiltanith turned to Colin. “Hast orders, Warlord?”

“None,” Colin said tensely from the next couch. “We’ll go as pla

Jiltanith nodded silently, and their eyes turned as one to the scarlet hyper trace flashing in Two’s display.

Great Lord of Order Tharno watched his read-outs, aware for the first time in many years of the irony of his rank. He had spent a lifetime protecting the Nest, honing his skills and wi

Yet the thought was barely a whisper, a musing with no hint of rebellion, for Battle Comp was the Nest’s true Protector. For untold higher twelves of years, Battle Comp had been keeper of the Way, and the Nest had endured. As it would always endure, despite these demonic nest-killers, so long as the Aku’Ultan followed the Way.

Still, he wished at least one of Hothan’s command ships had survived, and not simply because he had all too few of his own. No, Deathdealer’s Battle Comp had deduced something about the enemy during its final moments—something which had changed its targeting orders radically. Yet none who had survived knew what that something had been, and Tharno’s ignorance frightened him.

His crest flattened as the advanced scouts reported. The scant double twelve of emission sources floating a half-twelve of light-days from Nest Protector accorded well with the reports of Hothan’s survivors, assuming no reinforcements had arrived. But both Tharno and Battle Comp recalled the incredible cloaking systems their Protectors had reported.

Yet had many reinforcements been available, surely more of them would have engaged Hothan. The diabolical trap which had closed upon him proved the nest-killers had known what they faced; knowing that, they would have mustered every ship to destroy him. Tharno suspected Battle Comp was correct, that the nest-killers had no more of those monster ships, but they would proceed with care. He gave the order he and Battle Comp had agreed upon, and his fleet micro-jumped cautiously forward, spreading out to deny the enemy a compact target to pin as Hothan had been pi

To return to the Nest would mean Tharno’s death in dishonor, perhaps even the ending of Nest Protector’s Battle Comp. Yet that would be better than to perish to the last nestling.

And Tharno was well aware of his nestlings’ danger. They were outclassed. To triumph, they must fight as a unit, closely controlled and coordinated, and too many command ships had perished. Nest Protector had but a quarter-twelve of deputies, and none approached his own capabilities. So Nest Protector must be warded from harm until his enemies were gathered for the Furnace.