"Not a big enough one. Not with our manned vessels alone. From what Dahak's been able to discover, this reserve is their Sunday punch."
"Unfortunately, that is true," Dahak agreed. "Though they have scarcely twenty percent of Great Lord Hothan's numbers, they have very nearly seventy percent of his firepower. Indeed, had they maintained their unity, they might well have won our last engagement."
"That may be, but it's kind of small comfort. We had seventy warships and surprise then; we've only got twenty-six now, all but one damaged, and they know a lot of our tricks. The odds suck."
"In truth, yet must we stand and fight, my heart, for, look thou, and we flee before them, we lose the half of our own vessels—and abandon Dahak."
"I know." Colin sat and slid an arm about her. "I wish you were wrong, babe, but you seldom are, are you?"
"'Tis good in thee so to say, in any case." She managed a small smile.
"Your Majesty," Dahak said, and Colin frowned at the formality. Dahak intended to say something he expected Colin not to like.
"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 manned units to Sol."
"Are you forgetting you can't go supralight?"
"I am incapable of forgetting, but I am logical. If I remain here with the remaining unmanned units of the Guard, we can inflict substantial damage before we are destroyed. The manned units, reinforced by General Hatcher's sublight units, would then be available to defend Earth."
"And you'd be dead." Colin's eyes were green ice. "Forget it, Dahak. We're not running out on you."
"You would not be 'running out,' merely executing prudent tactics."
"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 unmanned units cannot fight without my direction; our manned units can. I must therefore insist that if my own destruction becomes inevitable, all surviving crewed units will immediately withdraw to Sol unless the enemy has been so severely damaged that victory here seems probable."
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 unmanned units without you, and, in the highly probable event that it becomes necessary for our manned units to withdraw, they will need you. And—on a more personal level—I will fight better knowing that you are elsewhere, able to survive if I do not."
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 'Tanni in Two."
"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 personnel from Earth to crew Heka, their single undamaged unit, and Empress Elantha, the next least damaged Asgerd, but Colin and Jiltanith put their feet down to refuse Hatcher command of Heka. He was too important to Earth's defense if they failed, and Hector MacMahan found himself in command of her. It was a sign of their desperation that he did not even argue.
But that was all they could do, and so they awaited Great Lord Tharno: fourteen manned warships, eleven with no crews at all, and one—the most sorely hurt of all—manned only by a huge, electronic brain which had learned the hardest human lesson of alclass="underline" to love.
"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 planned."
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 winning promotion, to end here, as no more than an advisor, the spark of intuition Battle Comp lacked.
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.