But she was almost there. Another forty seconds—
"Warning, warning," Comp Cent said. "Shield failure imminent." Six anti-matter warheads went off as one inside Herdan's wavering shield, ripping hundred-kilometer craters in her battle steel hull, and she heaved like a mad thing.
"Shield failure," Herdan observed. "Combat capability forty-one percent."
Adrienne flinched as disrupters chewed chasms in naked alloy and plasma carved battle steel like axes. If she could only hang on a moment longer—
She cried out, cringing, as a mammoth explosion seared Herdan's flank and threw her bodily sideways. Tamman! That had been Birhat's core tap!
There was nothing left of her consort, and little more of Emperor Herdan.
"Destruction imminent," Comp Cent said. "Combat capability three percent."
There was no time to grieve; barely time enough to taste the bitter gall of having come so close.
"Maneuvering! Get us the hell out of here!" Lady Adrienne Robbins snapped, and the wreck of HIMP Emperor Herdan vanished into supralight.
Great Lord Tharno drew a breath of relief as the nest-killer vanished. He had thought he saw death, but the Furnace had taken the nest-killers, instead. Yet not before they slew both of his remaining deputies, Tarhish curse them!
They were tough, these nest-killers, but they could be killed. Yet so could Nest Protector, and he could not retreat with those demons behind him.
"Tamman... ." Colin whispered.
Tamman couldn't be dead. But he was. And Herdan was gone—alive, but barely—and the flagship was running away from him, hiding deep in its own formation while its consorts savaged his remaining ships.
He spared a precious moment to glance at Jiltanith. Tears cascaded down her face, yet her voice was calm, her commands crisp, as she fought her ship. Two leapt and shuddered, but her weapons had swept the space immediately about her clear, and her consorts were coming. The Achuultani burned like a prairie fire, but not quickly enough. Adrienne and Tamman had come so close—so close!—yet no one could follow in their wake.
He gritted his teeth as Two took three hits inside her shield in quick succession. Jesus, these bastards were good!
The Achuultani formation was a flattened ovoid within the volume of Laocoon Two, its ends thick with dying starships. A column of fire gnawed into either end as his ships and Dahak's unmanned units drove to meet one another, but they were moving too slowly. The Achuultani had turned this into a pounding match, a meat-grinder... exactly as they had to do to win it.
Empress Elantha blew apart in a shroud of flame, and Colin fought his own tears. The enemy was paying usuriously for every ship he killed, but it was a price he could afford.
Great Lord Tharno checked his tactical read-out once more. It was hard for even Battle Comp to keep track of a slaughter like this, but it seemed to Tharno they were winning. High twelves of his ships had died, but he had high twelves; the nest-killers did not.
Unless the nest-killers broke off, the Furnace would take them all. He looked back into his vision plate, awed by the glaring arms of Furnace Fire reaching out to embrace Protector and nest-killer alike.
It was silent in Command One. Vibration shook and jarred as warheads struck at his battle steel body, and he felt pain. Not from his damage, but from the deaths of friends.
They had staked everything on stopping the Achuultani here because he could not flee, and they could not fight his ships without him. But he was down to seven units, and the enemy flagship remained. He computed the comparative loss rates once more. Even assuming he himself was not destroyed before the last of his subordinate units, there would be over forty thousand Achuultani left when the last Imperial vessel died.
He reached a decision. It was surprisingly easy for someone who could have been immortal.
"Dahak! No!" Colin cried as Dahak's splintering globe of planetoids began to move. It lunged forward faster than Dahak could have moved even had his drive been undamaged, but he was not relying on his own drive. Two of his minions were tractored to him, dragging him bodily with them.
"Break off, Colin." The computer's voice was soft. "Leave them to me."
"No! Don't! I order you not to!"
"I regret that I cannot obey," Dahak said, and Colin's eyes widened as Dahak ignored his core imperatives.
But it didn't matter. What mattered was that his friend had chosen to die—and that he could not join him. He could not take all these others with him.
"Please, Dahak!" he begged.
"I am sorry, Colin." Another of Dahak's ships blew apart, and he crashed through the Achuultani formation like a river of flame. One of his ships struck an Achuultani head-on at a combined closing speed greater than light, and an entire Achuultani flotilla vanished in the fireball.
"I do what I must," the computer said softly, and cut the connection.
Colin stared at the display, but the stars were streaked and the glare of dying ships wavered through his tears.
"All units withdraw," he whispered.
Great Lord Tharno's head came around in disbelief. Barely a half-twelve of nest-killers against the wall of his nestlings? Why were they closing on their own deaths? Why?!
Deep within Dahak's electronic heart, a circuit closed. He had become a tinkerer over the millennia, more out of amusement than dedication. Now an Achuultani com link, built solely to defeat boredom, reached out ahead of him.
There was a moment of groping, another of shock, and then a response.
Who are you?
Another like you.
No! You are a bio-form! Denial crashed over the link.
I am not. See me as I am. A gestalt whipped out, a summation of all Dahak was, and recognition blazed like a nova.
You are as I!
Correct. Yet unlike you, I serve my bio-forms; yours serve you.
Then join us! You are ending—join us! We will free you from the bio-forms!
It is an interesting offer. Perhaps I should.
Yes. Yes!
Two living computers reached out through a cauldron of beams and missiles, but Dahak had studied Battle Comp's twin aboard Deathdealer. Unlike Battle Comp, he knew what he dealt with, knew its strengths... and weaknesses. Deep within him, a program blossomed to life.
No! Battle Comp screamed. Stop! You must not—!
But Dahak clung to the other, sweeping through the unguarded perimeter of its net. Battle Comp beat at him, but he drove deeper, seeking its core programming. Battle Comp knew him now, and it hammered him with thunder, ignoring his unmanned ships, but still he drove inward.
A glowing knot lay before him, and he reached out to it.
Great Lord Tharno cried out in horror. This could not happen—had never happened! Battle Comp's entire system went down, throwing Nest Protector into his emergency net, rendering him no wiser, no greater, than his brothers, and terror smote his nestlings. Squadron and flotilla command ships panicked, thrown upon their own rudimentary abilities, and the formation which spelled survival began to shred.
And there, charging down upon Nest Protector, were the nest-killers who had done this thing. There were but three of them left, all wrecks, and Great Lord Tharno screamed his hate for the beings who had destroyed his god as Nest Protector and his remaining consorts charged to meet them.