“Already laid in, sir,” the TACO said.
“Make it so,” Prael replied. “But I’m glad that Miss Moon is back singing. Lovely voice, I’ll admit. Hearing her sing ‘I Stand Alone’ is a bit odd, though. What’s next? Ozzie?”
“Sierra 50 terminated, sir,” the TACO said as the destroyer broke apart. No secondaries, but it was in pieces and drifting which was good enough.
“Was it my imagination or was the fire much less effective that time?” the CO asked.
“No, sir, it wasn’t your imagination,” the TACO said. “Return fire rate was lower and less interlocked. Don’t know why. But we took a lot less damage. And there’s a hole we can fire through to one of the troop carriers.”
“No, take out one more destroyer, first,” the CO said. “That will ensure we can get through. Sierra… 48. Set that up.”
“Ready, sir,” the TACO said a moment later.
“Engage.”
Status of boarding force.
‹Units 1,336,788 and 25,463,785 destroyed. Enemy combat unit damaged, 70% reduction in fire, significant air and water loss. Enemy combat unit preparing new attack run. Estimate loss of one Ground Combat Carrier prior to arrival of secondary escort group. Arrival at space station in point four turns.›
“Dreen fighters redeployed around the boarding group,” the TACO said. “Boarding group entering warp-denial field.”
The CIC was more than just evacuated at this point. Despite being deep in the interior of the ship, light could be seen coming in.
On the other hand, they’d managed to destroy six Dreen destroyers, one of the troop carriers and the cruiser. Not a bad haul, even if they had gotten the ship blown to ribbons.
“That’s all we can do here,” Captain Prael said. “Let’s go pick up our dragonflies and see if we can get the old girl patched up. The rest is up to Commander Weaver. If he can get it together.”
“Look, the brain works in strange ways, okay?” Miriam said defiantly. “Mine especially. I’ve tried just about every song you two can’t mangle too badly. I’ve thought about beams of light, lightning, hammers, everything I can think of. Nothing seems to work. ‘Dragonfly’ worked once. I just can’t get it to work again. But there’s something there, I know it. I can feel it.”
“You know, it actually was the dragonfly,” Carpenter said. “I mean, that was the attack method. A big, glowing, green and yellow dragonfly. Does that help?”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “I mean, what hit the ship was the beams, but the thing that attacked them was a dragonfly.”
“I made a dragonfly?” Miriam asked, blinking. “Cool.”
“Well, it was like a laser light-show dragonfly,” Bill pointed out. “It was about as insubstantial as mist.”
“That just makes it cooler,” Miriam said. “A mist dragonfly is cooler than a real one.”
“But that’s what did it,” the petty officer said. “That big mist dragonfly… ate the destroyer. Does that help?”
“Sort of,” Miriam said, staring into the distance. “Avatars.”
“And that means… ?” Weaver said.
“An avatar is, in Hindu mythology, the descent of a deity in carnate form,” Carpenter said. “In computer terms — ”
“I know what an avatar is, PO,” Bill said. “I meant, what does it mean in this context?”
“It means I have to have an image of something to form,” Miriam said, still staring into the distance. “Songs with avatars. ‘Dragonfly’… I’m blanking.”
“ ‘Black Unicorn’?” Carpenter said then shrugged at their expressions. “Sue me. I’m a Heather Alexander fan. I can set this thing to bodran.”
“Got some music?”
Analysis of gaseous phenomenon.
‹Phenomenon generated by combination of gravitational beams and coherent energy beams interacting with gaseous particles. Phenomenon nonhazardous. Intersection of combat units with coherent energy beams transfers six hundred exajoules of energy to combat unit resulting in termination. Secondary effect of gravitational beams irrelevant.›
Defense?
‹None. Power levels are equivalent to multiple main sequence stars. Only defense is capture of station.›
There was a pause as the Dreen fleet-mind considered this new weapon the hell-spawned thing Species 27264 had created.
Why is it black? And why is it just… hovering?
“If you ever meet me standing there, you’ll wish that you were never born,” Miriam sang. “I’ll seize your soul and strip it bare, I am the Black Unicorn.”
“Come on,” Weaver whispered, mostly to himself. “You’ve formed it, now use it!”
A black unicorn with bat-wings out of nightmare was crossing the system, galloping through glowing clouds of mist. Just as insubstantial as mist, it was, nonetheless, impressive. Especially given that it was bigger than all four of the Jovians put together and using about ten percent of the output of the blue-white star to generate.
It had formed slowly, most of the way across the system from the Dreen fleet. Now it closed on the Dreen, seemingly moving in slow motion. The actual speed was very close to that of light, but from their position it seemed ominously slow.
If the Dreen had anything similar to emotions, it was going to seem agonizingly slow.
As the music crescendoed, the monster from the deeps of space lowered its horn and drove it into the Dreen fleet.
The fleet was gathered in an egg-shaped formation around the brain-ship. As the horn hit the lead ships, dozens flared and died under the enormous power of the Tree. The entire vanguard of the fleet was ripped asunder.
Miriam gasped in response, but maintained the image and continued to sing. The unicorn, though, only circled the fleet as the music continued. It only seemed to attack on the instrumental portions, diving in again to slash its horn through the fleet, ripping dreadnoughts, superdreadnoughts and destroyers apart as if they were the insubstantial mist.
As the song drew to a close, the unicorn turned and began trotting away, fading into the stars as the last chord died, the only sign of it a flash as from a silver hoof.
“Damn,” Bill muttered, looking at the Dreen fleet. It was redeploying, fast, and seemed to be putting most of its combat power forward, as if to shield the brain-ship.
“And I will stand here at the gates,” Miriam sang, “and face the onslaught, fighting…”
Again, the avatar had formed slowly, fading into view from the mist that now filled the system. A Greek hoplite in full armor, spear extended, shield up and helmet down. Smaller than the unicorn, he drifted into reality between the station and the approaching fleet, then began striding forward.
All units, engage the anomaly.
‹Anomaly gaseous in nature. Engagement futile.›
Obey.
Beams of plasma, massive chunks of heavy metal driven to relativistic speeds, the full output of the remaining fleet flashed out at the warrior. He paused and raised his shield, shedding the fire as if it were so many Persian arrows. As strikes got through to his armor, though, it was penetrated, red blood running unheeded down his chest.