Earth Song: Twilight Serenade (11 page)

Chapter 14

February 14th, 535 AE

Dervish Star System, Galactic Frontier

The doors to the CIC closed and Lilith unconsciously returned it to the more natural condition she preferred. The walkway vanished as did her mother’s work station. All the lighting was reduced to just the barest hints around the circular space and the walls all appeared to become transparent to show the stars outside. Behind her the swirling dance of three dying stars feeding off each other played out, casting her face in stark relief as the tiny girl seemed to float in space. Time slowed as she took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Fiisk, stand by.”

“Standing by,” the CI from the Fiisk replied instantly.

“Combat formation Iota,” Lilith said, and her ship blazed away at more than a thousand gravities of acceleration. The two Eseel, capable of considerably more speed and acceleration than the Kaatan, easily fell in behind only a hundred meters to her stern, while the Fiisk sped up at its best acceleration, five hundred gravities.

The enemy fighters ignored the Kaatan and finished their encircling maneuver, coming around and behind the Fiisk. The CI began to destroy them in efficient order, her lighter A-Paws swatting them from the sky, one shot, one kill.

Displays came alive showing enemy capital ships.

“You mean us dead?” Lilith asked the enemy fleet as a trio of T’Chillen destroyers changed course. The enemy ships combined their shields and attempted a maneuver called “Vital Spear” in her tactical training. “Come see who shall give their lives!” She launched two waves of missiles a fraction of a second apart.

Five Sub-C Kinetic Impactors slammed into exactly the same section of shield the three destroyers shared, flashing it out instantly. In the microsecond before the ships could rotate or move another shield into the hole, three shipkillers flashed through the hole and the destroyers bloomed into fireballs of death and destruction.

A score of particle beams flashed along the Kaatan’s flank and Lilith unconsciously shifted weakened shields around as two T’Chillen cruisers bore down on her. The Fiisk began raining its batteries of energy weapons on one of them as Lilith attacked the other. Lilith was completely unaware that as she fought she was laughing in glee.

The bots had Minu into the medical bay quicker than she would have thought possible. Through the haze of dizzying pain as the contractions got quicker she dimly saw them seem to open the floor and move through walls, the sections opening before them and closing behind. Nice trick she thought as she screamed and tried not to grab the nearest bot and crush it into blue powder.

She’d been hurt many times in combat, more than once in what would have been fatal injuries if not for advanced medical care. None of them were a pain to compare with this. It built with a terrifying sense of hopeless doom. There would be no escape from this.

The door to the medical bay closed just as the ship shuddered and the lights flickered. She felt the barest hint of movement and knew the ship must be maneuvering radically for them to feel it through the compensators. When she’d been aboard the ship during battles she always tried not to remember that should the compensators fail the fragile living beings on board would become strawberry jam from even minor maneuvers.

“You are in labor,” the medical intelligence announced as she was transferred into a form fitting examination table.

“No shit!” she cried and grabbed her belly. “What was your first fucking clue?”

“Scornful comments are of no benefit. Is the patient in excessive pain? Records on your subspecies indicates this is sometimes the case.”

“Does it look like I’m enjoying this?” she said as the contraction let up and she leaned back again.

“If you wish, I will anesthetize the patient. The infant can be delivered robotically to avoid discomfort.”

“No!” she cried out, suddenly afraid.

“You do not wish to avoid pain?”

“Yes, of course I do! What human wouldn’t want to avoid pain?” She felt the baby move inside her. “But Aaron isn’t here. The least I owe this baby is to feel it come into this world.”

“Your logic does not register.”

“That’s because you are a machine.” It had no reply to that. “Can you administer a light pain killer… you know, down there?”

“I am sorry, the medical intelligence does not understand this request.”

“My vagina, damn it!”

“Yes,” the machine intelligence responded, almost managing to sound abashed. “I will administer a level two anesthetic to your reproductive organs. If this is insufficient, communicate your distress and it will be increased.”

“I want you to listen to this order and comply. I will be doing plenty of screaming in the next few minutes,” she said, then demonstrated as another contraction hit like a thunderbolt. “This is normal for human females, do you understand? It is normal! You will not knock me out or when I wake up I will disassemble this sick bay, find your electronic brain, and rip it to pieces with my bare, fucking, hands!”

She was fully aware that as the pain built she sounded more and more shrill, and simply didn’t care. If this was all she had left of her husband, she would be awake to see him or her born if it was the last thing she did.

“That is against my ethical programming.”

“How does being dismembered by a pissed off mother align with your ethical programming?”

“Your orders will be carried out.”

Minu felt the cold prick of a needle and the pain slowly took a not overly large step away. She panted and gasped in relief and the bed extruded scanning arms that swept all over her body, spending an extra moment over her head, heart, and then swirling around her distended belly.

“Your cervix is dilated five centimeters, and contractions are less than five minutes apart. Delivery should take place in approximately two hours.”

“Is that all?” she asked as she felt the beginnings of another contraction. Worse, her hips hurt and she had to take a crap. “This labor thing sucks!”

The first cruiser was torn apart by internal explosions as the second one dodged as best it could and spun desperately to bring fresh shields to bear. Unlike the Kaatan, its shield projectors couldn’t be aligned in almost any direction.

The remainder of the enemy fleet – a huge dreadnought, two heavy cruisers, and four more destroyers – came into the threat bubble and started releasing waves of missiles. Lilith snorted in derision of their terrible tactics. They should have come in as a unified formation. The cruisers were shielding for the destroyers as they rained death toward her, the dreadnought hanging back. It was called the “Strong Screen” tactic.

That tactic called for heavy fighter support on the flanks, but they’d foolishly spent their fighters early without any support. Lilith sent the Eseel out to either side where their relatively light weapons began to intercept the missile storm, blunting the heavy attack. Half of their number already neutralized, Lilith’s point defenses chewed almost all the remainder up. A total of two missiles hit her shields; one a glancing blow and the other a solid impact. The ship shuddered from the blow but she shunted the temporarily spent shields to a quadrant not in the threat bubble. The results of the attack was useless against her.

“Is this the best you have?” Lilith growled.

The Fiisk was catching up to Lilith after she’d slowed to begin the engagement. As it drew closer, it turned to provide more access to its heavier bombardment weapons and poured energy fire into the lead screening cruiser. Their mission to blunt the missile storm done, the two Eseel harassed the retreating cruiser and managed to inflict some damage until the dreadnought sent a wave of missiles after them. The two gunboats darted away, nearly as fast as the pursuing missiles which were themselves wiped away by the Kaatan’s point defenses.

The harried cruiser was showing signs of weakening and the second one drew closer to aid it, and Lilith leaped at the opening. The Kaatan tore forward, past the two screening cruisers. The one cruiser that had just managed to retreat past the screening ships was dumping energy, most of its screens recycling. The Kaatan caught it completely unaware and nearly cut it in two.

Lilith snarled in triumph as she pummeled the previously safe destroyers, making the survivors break formation and try to disengage, then with a snarl she came about and went for the prize. The dreadnought lay exposed like a welcome feast.

“You must attempt to moderate your breathing,” the medical intelligence advised as a pair of probes with curved spoon-like endings penetrated her and began to spread Minu’s birth canal in ways she was certain it was not designed to be spread.

“You breathe, damn you!” she barked and tried to climb backwards out of the bed. A restraining field came alive and she might as well have been glued to the couch. She cursed and swore at the machine, all the time knowing in the back of her mind that the last thing she needed to do was go raging around the medical bay with a baby hanging out of her crotch. She was suddenly struck with the thought that maybe the way Lilith was born wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

“I do not breathe because I am not a living biological, but if you do not breathe your blood oxygen levels will drop to the point that you will lose consciousness, something that you have threatened me with bodily harm should it occur, so I would appreciate it if you would breathe more?”

She almost chuckled at the machine’s fear for its own safety. The pain was intense, even with the medicine that had been administered. The temptation to hold her breath and push was almost unbearable. Despite it, she lay back, closed her eyes and breathed hard and deep. It actually helped a little. She felt little mechanical arms wiping sweat from her forehead.

“Oh shit,” she moaned as another contraction took hold of her. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shiiiiiit!” The ship shuddered from more weapons fire and she screamed.

The Fiisk remained closer to the star system, several light seconds behind as the Kaatan tore into the T’Chillen dreadnought like a child into a birthday gift. After the first raking pass Lilith began to come around for the second one. Something tingled her senses. This is a dreadnought and this is the best it can do?

She was committed to the second run, dodging intermittent return fire from the hulking ship. It was rolling, trying frantically to bring fresh shields to bear when dozens of new targets began appearing.

“A quantum gateway has been generated,” the Fiisk CI announced.

For the first time in combat, Lilith was taken completely off guard. “What is a quantum gateway?!”

“The quantum gateway was a tactic employed by the enemy near the end of the Great War. It factored into our defeat in most engagements. The enemy learned how to make a gateway, similar in ways to our tactical jumps, and transport vast fleet elements seemingly wherever they wished. The home worlds were lost to a series of raids using this technology, and the war was considered unwinnable.”

The tactical displays flashed as ship after ship popped out of nowhere and were added to the threat bubble until twenty-seven more ships were bearing down on them. Four dreadnoughts, six cruisers, two carriers, and fifteen destroyers. Even after the ships passed through, the gateway also remained open.

She didn’t need the computers help to know the tactical assessment. The quantum gateway had appeared only one light second away. There was only two destroyers and two cruisers behind her, but the dreadnought was now beginning to pour fire at her, no longer playing easy. It was a well laid trap, and she was cut off from retreat.

“If I am to die, it shall not be an easy death,” she said and spent flights of missiles with wanton abandon carving open the shields of the dreadnought. Laid bare, she combined her main A-Paws and ravaged the dreadnought before coming about and leaping towards the new enemies.

The fleet was just forming as the last of the destroyers appeared through the quantum gateway. The carriers started to disgorge fighters, and Lilith set upon them. The last thing the huge combined fleet of Tanam and T’Chillen ships expected was for the sole Kaatan ship of the line to attack. Lilith launched all twenty of her remaining Sub-C kinetic impactors, ten to each carrier. The enemy ships tried to raise shields and one even managed to stop two of the missiles. It wasn’t enough. Both carriers were ripped to pieces and turned into spinning balls of energetic fire. A trio of T’Chillen escort destroyers were caught in the conflagration and perished as well. 

The Kaatan was hit a dozen times from the main energy batteries of the new dreadnoughts and cruisers as Lilith bit her lip and desperately dodged. “If I can just figure out which one is the command ship,” she thought hard and analyzed their patterns. The Kaatan danced on a knife edge of oblivion as the enemy fleet poured fire at her.

The ship shuddered and lurched as Minu snarled and bore down from the last contraction. The medical intelligence said she was dilated to fifteen centimeters and almost ready to deliver. She’d been terrified for a few minutes as the pain made it impossible to feel the baby move any more until the medical intelligence reassured her. “The baby is doing fine. But you are showing extreme signs of fatigue.”