Sen sen no sen: seizing the initiative.
It seemed Schenck was a better war admiral than anyone had reckoned. Far better. And with half a million ships! Even more, if the approaching force was just a vanguard . . .
Ships fled from Labyrinth in panic.
Abandoning her.
Dirk McNamara was disadvantaged by the stupid ceremony he was engaged in, on a floating platform surrounded by holostreamers in the midst of several thousand revellers, celebrating one victory while innocently setting themselves up for defeat by Schenck and his unexpected all-out strike, and with a fleet that was at least thousands of times larger than it should have been, perhaps even greater, and how the hell had the bastard managed that?
Not far from the ceremony’s location, some five subjective years previously – though decades by mean-geodesic time – Dirk had killed a previous Admiral Schenck: that odious, treacherous fucker who had not been able to back down from a duel, and had nearly won through the most devious of tricks.
Covert femtoscopic weapons had been floating in mid-air, set as booby-traps by Schenck inside hidden layers of reality, programmed to take out Dirk by manifesting directly inside his heart and brain while he fought; but Dirk’s perceptions were finely tuned to danger always, and he had read deception in the bastard’s eyes and outmanoeuvred him, before taking his revenge in the most appropriate way: causing spacetime to slide apart in shards, wrenching Schenck apart, while twisting the maze of rotations hard, to the mathematical limit.
The duration of Schenck’s dying was infinite, literally for ever.
Too bad Dirk had not thought of killing the entire family.
He tapped his tu-ring.
Calling for my mother. Some hero.
But Ro McNamara was the true and legendary First Pilot as well as First Admiral, and if she made an appearance, she could be a figurehead to rally morale, not to mention an aggressive tactician who fought just as he did, though perhaps without that edge of madness that took him through when rational tactics failed.
There was no reply to his ping, though, which meant that even Labyrinth had not thought of – or was not capable of – rousing Mother by reaching into whatever layer of reality she was using to skip through time, dipping into mean-geodesic timeflow like a skipping stone touching a lake. She and he both, of course, but by now she might be biologically younger than her own son.
Sons, if Kian still lived, the soft-hearted bastard. Silly fucker wanted everyone to love each other. Once, he had even said we should spend time among the Siganthians, getting to know their ways – that was a long time ago, before the place was declared a hellworld – because the aliens might be strange but they were robust and in their own fashion spirituaclass="underline" fearsome to non-metallic lifeforms, but not to be shunned out of fear, rather embraced in mutual enlightenment.
Enlightenment! Silly fucker.
What had happened to Kian, on the day he was burnt by the mob, had helped to make Dirk the consummate fighter that he was. No other response was logical.
And now, a new and unexpected battle.
His platform continued soaring above the crowd as these odd, irrelevant thoughts swirled through Dirk. They were almost welcome: a symptom of the mind under combat stress. Below him, Pilots were disappearing into fastpath rotations. But he stayed on the platform, soaring over people’s heads, because he wanted to be seen.
Heading for the fight.
‘We need a battle plan.’ This was Admiral Whitwell, his words sounding in Dirk’s ears, his face a tiny virtual holo. ‘Formations to be—’
‘I have one,’ Dirk told him.
Accelerating harder now, the platform, with the docking bay in sight, his bronze ship awaiting him.
‘What is it?’
Dirk grinned as he soared towards her, his ship.
‘We kill the fuckers.’
Her hull was open for him.
Dirk-and-ship flew.
Hard lined and old school, from a time when every flight was intrinsically a mortal risk, they had every confidence in taking down soft-living, younger Pilots, however corrupted they might be, however strong this phenomenon, this so-called darkness.
All military commanders study history. Once, Dirk knew, an admiral called Yamamoto struck with a fleet out of nowhere; and if the place called Pearl Harbor had contained the whole military and civilian population of the targeted power, the war would have ended there.
Then, they had merely woken a sleeping giant. But Schenck had the opportunity to destroy Labyrinth in a single attack; and if she perished, who would mourn or take vengeance?
Even the Zajinets were gone.
**To me, Pilots.**
They flew out to face the invaders.
Chains of explosions blossomed around Labyrinth.
Whipping from side to side, Dirk-and-ship avoided weapons fire – others were perishing all around, some destroyed as they exited docking-caverns – making their assessment: the first objective was to take out the vanguard, Schenck’s long range attackers. Failure meant too few defenders would get clear of Labyrinth, and the attackers’ main fleet would be upon them, and that would be it: the end.
Those who had flown clear were scattered without formation, victorious in simply surviving so far, but more was needed. Most were fighting one-on-one battles, except notably for nine Sabre squadrons, who had not hung around to rally others but simply soared into clear space, before turning to observe and wait until they could make a difference.
Which was now, with Dirk McNamara in command.
**Here and here. All Sabres to attack together.**
Their ack-signals came back as fleeting blips.
**Do it, while I gather up the rest.**
Dirk switched to max-power broadcast, aiming to reach the scattering ships that were not special forces and needed specific commands. Some might think of personal survival, but if Labyrinth fell then renegades would rule, and isolated fugitives would live in fear until they were hunted down. They had to understand what was at stake here.
The SRS squadrons came hurtling in, taking out a leading rank of renegades in simultaneous firebursts, while Dirk blared his message to the largest concentration of survivors:
**This is Dirk McNamara. I need you, Pilots.**
There was incoming fire, but Dirk-and-ship twisted away.
**Labyrinth needs you! Come to me now.**
Something burned across the leading edge of ship-and-Dirk’s starboard wing, enough to hurt but not to slow them down.
**Time to fight, Pilots.**
He curved back towards the battle.
And, miraculously, the other Pilots and their ships accelerated, following their admiral.
Inside Labyrinth, Pilots were still running or fastpath-rotating to their ships. Escape tunnels were forming as Labyrinth reconfigured to provide maximum exit capability, needing the vessels to get clear, as many as possible, before weapons fire started to—
=I’m taking hits.=
This was Labyrinth under direct attack.
While thousands made their panicked way to the docking bays, public broadcasts direct from Admiral Whitwell kept them appraised of the situation outside. There was a pause in that commentary, Whitwell’s voice trailing off, before coming back strongly through every Pilot’s tu-ring.
‘Roger Blackstone is promoted to brevet-Admiral.’
Corinne received that signal as, cursing, she-and-ship flew clear of Labyrinth into a rain of weapons fire that took all their concentration to dodge. Only when they were clear of immediate danger could a part of her mind ask two very obvious questions.