Dirge (29 page)

MacCunn was constitutionally unable to keep himself from discussing strategy, even during what should have been a walk marked by casual conversation.

“Your task force will complement our ships nicely in sector twelve. We’ve been weaker there than I would like for nearly two months now.”

“Task force?” Haajujurprox adjusted her valentine-shaped head to peer up at him.

“The one dreadnought you brought and the escorts that are accompanying it.” MacCunn smiled, wondering if the venerable thranx knew the meaning and intent of the expression.

“My dear Field Marshal MacCunn,
cl!rrik,
that is no task force. That is our scouting force. Subsequent to the final approval by your full government of the terms of our mutual arrangement, a substantial portion of the Hive fleet will arrive here within days. Less what is required to maintain the adequate defense of Hivehom, Trix, Willow-Wane, and Calm Nursery, of course. While the AAnn wait in hopes of seeing you weakened, they would be more eager still to take advantage of any perceived frailty on our part.”

MacCunn looked at Yirghiz, who was silent but visibly elated. “Then we can expect the assistance of a few more of your warships?”

“It is recognized that if the defense of Pitar is to be broken, any adjustment in the balance of forces must be significant. Otherwise the effort would be wasted.”

The two senior officers indicated their agreement, reiterating that the blockading force would be grateful for any help, no matter how limited or unobtrusive.

Six days later two hundred and sixty-five thranx warships dropped out of space-plus around Pitar’s sun.

20

T
he arrival of the unexpectedly impressive thranx forces was met with a unanimity of cheers and a spontaneous outpouring of warmth among the humans who crewed the ships charged with enforcing the quarantine around the defiant and venomous Dominion. The reaction on Earth and throughout the colonies was less homogenous. While delighted at the offer of assistance, a good deal of suspicion was voiced over the terms of the proposal.

The opposition to any formal agreement was led by the highly visible and equally vocal xenophobe faction. Dubious at having to deal on equal terms with giant bugs, the prospect of fighting alongside them and possibly at some point in the future for them drove the most extreme groups into paroxysms of fury. Consequent outbreaks of violence protesting the agreement, while distressing, were effectively contained by the world government. Despite vigorous attempts to do so, these could unfortunately not be concealed from an active and perceptive media. Agitated debate over the virtues and drawbacks of the understanding continued even as thranx warships prepared to go into battle alongside their human counterparts.

The reaction among the thranx was equally divisive, but deliberated with considerably more restraint. In the end the desires and self-serving rationales of both governments prevailed: Thranx warships would fight alongside those of the armada.

It was a moment in time fraught with significance when the order for the first combined attack was transmitted. Several dozen ships began to probe forward on a wide astronomical front, their movement and positioning coordinated by hastily forged closed communications. Throughout the armada tension ran higher than usual. No one knew how well human forces would operate alongside those of the insectoids.

Activity in normal space exposed ships and personnel to counterattack by Pitarian forces. It was impossible to conduct any kind of fight in space-plus, a realm of nonconforming physics where the customary definitions of matter and energy no longer held sway. But on low drive power, conventional weapons could wreak havoc in minutes. Ships could be damaged or destroyed, and thousands could lose their lives. Advancing to within accurate bombardment range of a target world in space-plus was of course impossible. The stress of emerging into a planet’s gravitational field, even at a distance where its effects would be greatly reduced, would impact on the sensitive alignment of a ship’s KK-drive field and tear it apart as soon as it emerged back into normal space.

So the commingled fleets advanced as rapidly as was feasible, knowing that the Pitar could not shift ships to meet them any faster than they were already traveling. Computation systems stood ready to orchestrate flights of explosives and high-energy weapons. All personnel were at battle stations and on full alert. Over the previous year many such confrontations had riven space in the vicinity of the twin asteroid belts and the innermost gas giant. Everyone hoped this battle would be different than those.

Detecting the incoming ships, the Pitar promptly allocated a force large enough to counter the incursion. As soon as far-ranging instrumentation descried this enemy activity, another human-thranx battle group began to move inward from its position on the far side of the Dominion’s sun. As before, their location and movement was noted by the Pitar, and as previously, a sufficiency of warships was reassigned to intercept them.

Within an hour the entire armada, augmented by the substantial thranx force, was in motion, as were all available Pitarian craft. It was very much like a gigantic chess game, one that involved hundreds of pieces of varying strength engaged in simultaneous motion on an interplanetary scale. Aboard the
Tamerlane
as aboard every ship in the armada, there was hope that the final and deciding battle might at last be at hand: that with the addition of the thranx force the blockaders might at last have enough strength to overwhelm and beat their way past the Pitarian defenders.

It was not to be.

Watching the constantly shifting readout within the flagship’s main battle tridee, the lowliest ensign saw what was happening at the same time as general officers like Yirghiz and MacCunn. At first no one could believe it. The ship’s battle instrumentation, which automatically compensated for far punier human senses, was quickly checked for error. Nothing was malfunctioning, and subsidiary instruments confirmed the accuracy of all primary modalities.

Pinpoints of light were rising from the vicinity of both the Twin Worlds. Ascending and racing outward along the appropriate vectors to support existing Pitarian defenders. They were prodigal in number, not staggeringly so but still disappointingly abundant. The Pitar had been holding a substantial number of perfectly good ships in reserve, not employing them even for routine patrol or to help rotate ships and crews. Designed to furnish an entirely unsuspected line of defense for the Twin Worlds, their masters were now forced to use them in order to counter the unexpectedly augmented human attack.

MacCunn, for one, did not have to wait for the official report from remote sensors. The moving pinpoints were difficult to count, but he could estimate.

The offensive was called off before any ships could engage. There was no point in risking personnel and material to fight to yet another draw. The efficacy of Pitarian ships, weapons, and tactics had already been amply demonstrated. No one wished to risk thousands of lives to secure a reiteration of what was already well known.

No one died in the aborted sortie, but the sense of disappointment that spread throughout the armada was crushing. Expecting a decisive battle, the ships had instead withdrawn without either side having loosed a single missile or fired so much as a ranging shot. The thranx had broken the status quo, and the Pitar had promptly reestablished it. The thranx commander, a di-eint himself, was apologetic. They would try harder next time. But no more thranx vessels could be expected to participate than those that had already arrived. The rest of the thranx fleet was obliged to remain on home station to defend their respective worlds.

The government of Earth and its colonies tried to minimize the aftermath. No ships had been lost in the most recent engagement, and not a single soldier had died. Furthermore, the clandestine strength of the Pitar had been exposed. They had been forced to reveal the extent of their reserves. As a military argument it was a good one, but it carried little weight with the discontented people of Earth and associated worlds.

Besides, what proof was there that the Pitar were not concealing still additional martial capacity? That the next assault, however greatly enhanced, would not be met by a similar counteraction? What if the Pitar had yet to divulge their full strength? These were questions a cautious military could not answer. The reaction on Earth and elsewhere, once more led by the xenophobes, was not salutary.

To break the deadlock around the Twin Worlds of the Pitarian Dominion a radical improvement in weaponry or change in tactics was obviously required. But what?

The one development no one expected was that both would occur simultaneously and as a consequence of the same research, or that it would be the thranx who first hit upon the singular idea.

In addition to the cultural and diplomatic exchanges that had permeated relations between human and thranx since the time of first contact, there was a quiet but continuous exchange of scientific information. Discovering that the human interstellar KK-drive was more efficient than their own, the thranx promptly adopted and incorporated into their own vessels specific aspects of its design. Human engineers and researchers also benefited from the results of thousands of years of thranx research. Largely ignored and overlooked by their respective governments, as well as by the fanatics on both sides, the scientists went about their work in stolid, systematic fashion. Which is to say they mutually engaged in the monotonous, boring, dull, everyday work that constitutes the vast bulk of what ordinary people think of as science.

Space-minus communications delivered information and accepted cautious propositions. Arcane theories were debated and hypotheses scrutinized. Good things arose from these communications, though nothing very dramatic.

Until a small group of thranx physicists decided to broach an idea to a visiting party of human colleagues.

The engineers were on Hivehom to explain certain aspects of KK-drive manufacture to their thranx counterparts. They were practical men and women who were far more interested in application than theory. As such, they were bemused by the physicists’ insistence; for that matter, so were their thranx counterparts.

It was left to a senior member of the local research group to make the presentation. Humans and thranx alike had gathered to hear him in the casual surroundings of an underground esplanade. Organized water spilled in a systematic, tranquil manner from the ceiling, suffusing the air with the music of its falling while saturating the circumscribed atmosphere of the sizable chamber with additional moisture. The thranx delighted in its feel. Wearing as little as mutual modesty would allow, their human visitors tolerated the incredible humidity as best they were able, having long since learned that working with the thranx on one of their worlds meant sweating not just while at work, but every minute of every day.

Couvinpasdar was aware of all the eyes on him, compound and single-lensed alike. He could not interpret many of the multitudinous human facial expressions but would not have been wrong in supposing that they were the fleshy equivalent of the progressive gestures of skepticism being propounded by his fellow thranx. While humans and hive members chatted in the increasingly convenient and maturing language of Symbospeech, the young physicist set up the small image generator he had brought with him. When he was ready, he was forced to gesture and call for attention, so indifferent to his proposed presentation were the members of his audience.

“I extend gratefulness to all who have taken time from their busy schedules to grant me a few moments worthy of their contemplation, especially our visiting human friends, whom I know find the controlled climate here in the inner levels of the hive less than homelike.” Perspiration pouring down their bodies, the watching, slightly impatient bipeds could only agree.

Activating the projector that was attuned to his voice patterns, Couvinpasdar walked around and occasionally through the images it generated as he spoke, pointing out specific details and occasionally using a truhand to manipulate them. Some of his audience granted him their full attention, while that of others wandered. Around them, unaware that an important demonstration of combat physics was being presented in their midst, thranx strolled and clicked and whistled in pairs or small groups. To one of the humans who also happened to be something of a historian, reflecting later on the demonstration, it was as if Robert Oppenheimer had exposed the design and schematics of the first atomic bomb on a busy day in New York’s Central Park. Few of the busy, preoccupied thranx gave the unusual gathering more than a passing glance. Those who did look ignored the shifting, shimmering projection in favor of scrutinizing the loose-limbed, gangly bipeds.

“We have found that your kind are very good at conceptualizing basic scientific breakthroughs,” Couvinpasdar was saying. One of the attendant humans murmured something, and a couple of her companions responded with soft coughing noises—human laughter, the young physicist knew. He did not let it distract him. “Thranx are very good at finding improvements in existing engineering and other practical applications that humans often overlook.” No laughter this time.

“My research group has been studying the problem of how it might be possible to break the defenses that surround the Pitar. Very early in our discussions we came to the conclusion that this could not be done with existing weapons, not as long as the Pitar match ship for ship. Furthermore, any vessel mounting a radical and potentially advantageous new weapon would immediately be set upon by the Pitar in all their strength. Therefore it was decided that any new weapon must also incorporate into its scheme and make use of a corresponding shift in strategy.” The projection mutated.

Floating before the assembled audience was one of the smallest ships any of them had ever seen. It was, in fact, smaller than the lifeboats that were carried about most ships. But it was neither lifeboat nor repair vessel nor intership shuttle. There was the KK-drive field projection fan, severely shrunken and modified, and behind it—absurdly close behind it—the main body of the vessel. A single tiny weapons blister on a standard body-girdling belt ran around the median of the ship. Its diminutive size rendered it virtually inoffensive. Atop the craft was a structure that at first glance resembled a lifeboat launcher. In the context of the ship’s ridiculously small size it struck several of the onlookers as a structural extravagance.

Speaking in a mixture of Low Thranx, Terranglo, and Symbospeech, Couvinpasdar elaborated on the design. “We call this a stingship. As you can see, it is quite an unpretentious design. It is designed to carry a crew of two: one human and one thranx.” He indicated the locations on the schematic. “One here, and the other here, on opposite sides of the vessel. They are intended to complement, not back up, one another. To carry out its intended mission with maximum efficiency, the stingship is designed to be flown by two pilots operating in tandem.”

“Doing what,
currukk
?” a thranx member of the audience inquired. “The vessel is too small to do any real damage. Even a small Pitarian or AAnn warship would easily blast it out of the sky.” The questioner gestured at the center of the model. “It is not even large enough to generate its own defensive screen.”

“The stingship relies on agility for its defense,” Couvinpasdar replied.

“With a drive attenuated to that size,” one of the humans pointed out, “the vessel is not capable of interstellar travel.”

“It is not intended to be,” the physicist explained. “Stingships are meant to be carried, in sizable numbers, in the holds of larger craft. Dreadnought-class ships, or preferably, a new class of vessels specially built for the purpose.”