Women of War (25 page)

A beam of white light connected a Scorcher vessel to an empty spot in space. Lara couldn't tell which way the energy was flowing. Was this a marine weapon hitting the Scorchers? Had the marines duplicated the Scorcher particle weapons?

Then a marine ship appeared at the end of the light, its stealth apparently disabled.

More rays of light connected Scorcher ships with invisible fighters.

“That marine ship is hot,” someone reported. “Cabin's flooding with gamma.”

Get out, Lara thought to the marines in the dying fighter. Escape pods started to launch haphazardly from the hot ship. Beams of Scorcher particle weapons met them. The escape pods had even less shielding. They erupted and bled their atmospheres into space. Six escape pods. Six dead marines.

“Fish in a barrel,” someone muttered.

“Shut up,” said the commander.

That's how it continued. The Scorchers killed the marine ships, then picked off the escaping crew pods one by one. In minutes, it was over.

“May all sentient beings attain enlightenment,” Lara whispered.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the fleet,” said Fleet Commander Chuen, “it's show time. Hold positions. Close to one half AU. Throw some improvisation into that music. Let's entertain these bastards.”

“And let's hope that the marines didn't screw up our opening night,” Lara said.

The Scorchers accelerated sunward much faster than the fleet traveled to meet them. Beyond the orbit of the system's dead binary planet, the two fleets closed on one another.

“Point five AU,” reported the helm.

“Cue intro music,” said the commander. “A one and a two ...”

The music started up.
Thump thadada thump. Wheeze.

Just like Scorchers liked it, Lara hoped.

“Flag undulation,” the commander said.

Lara refocused her sensor image to watch her own fleet. The human ships formed a plane that approached the Scorchers edge on. Then Lara felt the acceleration push into her seat, then shove her against her restraints. The planar formation began to undulate like a flag in the wind.

“Tempo,” Lara said to herself. “Let's stay on the beat.” Actually, the pilots were doing a good job so far. But the hardest maneuvers were still ahead.

“Pinwheel coming up,” said the commander. “A one and a ...”

The human ships formed a spinning spiral. They elongated into a cone. Still spinning, they rotated the cone through all planes, like some geometry demonstration.

“Coaster,” the commander said, and again counted out the time as the formation changed. The ships lined up and followed one another as if they were the cars on a roller coaster track. The human fleet traced impressive three-dimensional outlines, then followed the same “track” again. And again. And again, throwing the crews left and right in their restraints. Up and down.

“Flock,” the commander said. In a move that looked a lot like the one the Scorchers had just performed, the ships turned in unison, swirled, and barely missed colliding. After that, some basic geometric shapes.

The performance went fast. The ships contracted into the rotating spherical formation that Scorchers seemed so fond of. The music stopped.

No one aboard the
Alpha
spoke. The two fleets had been converging all this while. They were only light seconds apart.

A particle beam sliced from one of the Scorcher ships and through a ship of the fleet, the
Trillium.

“Damn!” the commander said. “All ships, acquire targets!”

“Wait,” Lara said. “Hold fire.”

Another beam hit
Trillium.

“Commander, damage assessment?”

A pause. “Hull breaches. The ship is sealing itself.”

Lara said, “As we just saw with the marines, the Scorchers will hit the reactor when they want to kill.”

Another beam sliced through the
Trillium.

“If they keep that up,” said the commander, “they'll put more holes in the ship than she can seal. Or they'll punch a hole through a crewman. What the hell are they doing?”

“Giving us a bad review?” Lara said. “Testing us ...”

“Signal
Trillium
,” said the commander. “Abandon ship.”

Lara thought of the marine escape pods tumbling free of their ships, taking fire. Dying.

“Commander, keep that crew in place. We've got to do this right, or they're dead. If you trust me, give me a direct channel to the ship's captains and musicians.”

“Channel open, Madam Chuen.”

Lara superimposed a 3-D grid over her sensor visuals. “This is Defense Chief Lara Chuen,” she said. “Attend my visuals, please. Pending approval of your commander, this is how I propose we evacuate the crew of the
Trillium
.” She highlighted the damaged ship's position on her grid. “We'll need up tempo music for the transit ...” She drew a line from the
Trillium
. “That's the
x
axis.” She drew a perpendicular line intersecting it. “There's the
y
. Recovery ships park at either end of
y
. Let's make the positions of the
Trillium
and the two recovery ships the points of equilateral triangles.”

“
Trillium
is hit again,” said an
Alpha
crew member.

“Crew of the
Trillium
, your escape pods travel this line, one at a time. Park at the intersection of
x
and
y
.”

“They don't have fine propulsion control,” said the commander. “Not in the pods.”

“So they do the best they can. Next pod starts down the
x
axis. The pod in front doesn't leave the intersection until the pod behind is almost there. Fire and cut off your engines to the beat of the music.”

“There's another hit.”

“She's bleeding atmosphere.”

Lara said, “First pod goes left. Next one goes right. Third one left. Alternate recovery ships until everyone's safe.”

The commander broke in. “Those are my orders. Where's the music?
Crescent
and
Rigel
, you're the recovery ships. Don't just take your positions. Dance your ships to them. Let's go!
Trillium,
abandon ship.”

Another particle beam sliced the
Trillium
's hull.

An unfamiliar voice broke in. “Uh, Commander, the drummer is aboard the
Trillium
.”

“Improvise!” Lara said.

Pss-sst psaaaaaa
, hissed one of the sound boards.
Pss-sst psaaaaaa, pss-sst psaaaaaa
. One by one, the other musical voices added their own hiss or moan. Jazz with a Scorcher flavor.

The Scorchers kept punching holes in the
Trillium
, but they did not fire on the escape pods. One by one, the pods moved according to Lara's choreography. One pod didn't move out of the intersection fast enough, and collided with the decelerating pod behind it. Travel along the axes was approximate, not the eight mirror-image flights that would have been ... beautiful.

It wasn't a beautiful evacuation. But Lara didn't think it was half bad.

As the last pod was recovered, the music stopped.

“They're holding their position relative to us,” said the commander.

An analog signal sounded. A tone. Two tones, actually—a note and a dominant overtone. Another, similar tone sounded. And another. They harmonized.

The Scorcher fleet receded.

“They're accelerating back toward the Hawking radiation,” said the
Alpha
helmsman.

Lara tuned her sensorium to home, to the blue and white globe of her world. There would be no scorching of its surface. No alien graffiti.

She shut down her visuals. The bright interior of the ship made her blink.

The harmonizing tones kept multiplying. The resulting sound was richer and richer, more and more beautiful.

Fleet Commander Chuen said, “I wonder what that is.”

Lara smiled a weary smile. “Do you mean to tell me,” she said, “that you don't recognize applause?”

REE-LIN watched as her young charge Jerio wandered from booth to booth at the festival of lights. At thirteen years of age, the girl enjoyed the rare freedom of an evening out with only her Geiko, or bodyguard, as escort. Today Ree-Lin wore the standard violet short robe and black pants of her profession. The sleeves of her robe were just wide enough to conceal a personal dagger on her left arm but short enough to show her dagger cuff on the right arm. Normally she would also wear high leather boots to protect her shins and knees and to carry her throwing blades, as well as a fitted leather vest holding a number of deadly secrets; but today was not a day for this warrior to be outfitted in fighting leathers.

Ree-Lin attracted admiring glances from both men and women. She had large brown eyes that missed little and high cheekbones that were the envy of most. Her shoulder length mahogany hair was pulled up and back in a high knotted ponytail and secured with an ivory hair pin that served as a fastener and as a weapon, if need arose. She also carried the trademark black staff of a bodyguard during peace time.

Nearly her opposite in looks, Jerio's yellow hair came down to her waist in three long braids, and her bright blue eyes turned up slightly at the corners. Her mouth was small and her nose just a bit long, but the effect was stunning on one as healthy and well-cared-for as she. Today she wore knee length robes embroidered with willow leaves and berries, with bell-shaped sleeves that were long enough to cover half her palms.

She had been looking at a selection of fruits offered by a tired-looking old woman and was about to turn away when she noticed a small boy reach up to the table next to her. He took an apple as another child, a girl perhaps a year older, asked the old woman about the availability of strawberries. Both children were thin and dressed in the homespun garments of the working poor. The old woman politely told the girl that strawberries would not be available until the wind moon, and the girl replied with thanks and walked away. Jerio pretended not to see the boy take a second piece of fruit, presumably for his sister, and instead gave the old woman a senvi to pay for both apples. Ree-Lin saw the old woman look toward the direction the children had gone, and then give a humble bow to Jerio that she returned in kind.

She has a good heart
, Ree-Lin thought with pride as she walked over to join her honorary little sister.

The Geiko sighed and chided herself for her maternal ponderings, but she was prone to introspection, and couldn't help but wonder at Jerio's future.
She is so young to the ways of the world. How do I prepare her for the realities of life without scaring her from living it? The world is changing and this last war was a sure sign that more will come.

Ree-Lin's thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a young man approaching Jerio as she walked on to the next booth. The Geiko scrutinized him.
Dressed as a foot vendor, basket of flowers, clean and well-groomed as required by city permits. No trace of weapons.

Ree-Lin kept one eye on her charge and one eye on the young man as she closed the remaining distance of three paces. He offered Jerio the purchase of a flower and the girl respectfully declined. The vendor bowed slightly with polite acknowledgment and then looked up to see Ree-Lin stopped next to him. He blanched for a second when he realized she was focusing her professional attention on him, then recovered by giving her the traditional greeting of respect, his main and second fingers held together pointing up with his other two fingers touching the thumb as he touched them to his sternum and bowed a full quarter. The gesture was of one who owed respect to the other for reasons known to all; in this case it was because the Geiko had played an important part in ending the war that the festival of lights was organized to celebrate.

Not a threat,
she thought as she bowed back to acknowledge his greeting.

A few people passing by at the busy festival noticed the display and also gave her the greeting. Ree-Lin noticed Jerio beaming every time she received the sign. She, however, felt differently about the attention.
They need to let me do my job. I have greeted at least three score, and I am in danger of losing my focus.
She bowed again and returned to her duty as bodyguard.

Jerio stopped at a pastry booth, staring at the display of fragrant orange rolls and cinnamon crisps. With anticipation in her eyes she turned back to see that Ree-Lin had caught up with her. Ree-Lin was older than her companion by nine years, and looked more like a student than the warrior bodyguard of house Zai. She smiled at the unasked question and nodded her approval.

“Would you like me to buy you a pastry as well?” Jerio asked.

“No, I would prefer to wait for a more nutritious snack of felfey with sweet leaf, thank you,” she answered. Ree-Lin referred to the traditional grilled lamb with spice, wrapped in a bread pocket and garnished with the green sea vegetable. The savory smell filled the air and mixed with the orange and lemon pastry scents as well as several other delicious treats from other booths around the festival ground.

Jerio considered her answer and replied, “You are correct, that would be the best place to start. We will have orange rolls afterward.”