The Perun had an unprotected flank, and the Endymions of the HS, notably the Khonvoum, Bendis, and Sedna, known as "The Three Great Hunters," specialists in tracking hidden insurgents, were clawing forward at the limits of their capabilities, afraid that their route would be intercepted by another cruiser that might miraculously Dérive in to within a millimeter.
They did not unload their cargo of asteroids but struck the venerable Perun at the weak point of its hull with their prow, bending and pushing the ship; their objective was, at the risk of losing three vessels, to bring down the Perun, and perhaps, more importantly, the Alké and Andreï.
A blinding light emanated from the Perun, then, in the second that followed, dozens and hundreds of others burst from within the Perun, blinding the officers, the AIs' sensors, and above all radiating a particle field so strong that it erased all onboard computer programs of more than ten ships.
The fusion bombs had exploded, with or without an order from that madman Constantin, and they had wrought their devastation.
Everyone was in the dark, but Andreï had a good idea of everyone's position.
" We have to change position as fast as possible, helmsman, " said Andreï. " I know you can't see anything. I don't think the grapnel works. We can't eject our asteroids because we don't have any left. What do we have manually? "
"We can shout and flail around… and try not to bump into things…"
"The pods. All officers present on the bridge, go to the port passageway and manually eject all the escape capsules. If you think it's a bad idea, do it after you've gotten inside one!"
"At your orders," and the officers, hands held out in front of them, run into the passageway to try to carry out the commands. One by one, the capsules launch, making the ship tremble. And also, a loud creaking… a vessel very close, probably.
Sight returns a few minutes later, and the reconstruction systems of the onboard computers also switch the lights back on and reboot the controls.
Eyes narrowed, Andreï thinks he sees to port the Gilgamesh recovering the capsules into its belly… let's hope no one threw themselves into them. The thrust from the capsules has indeed made the Alké slide to the side, which itself scraped along the open hull of the Perun. Frozen, shredded bodies slap softly against the glass bay. The blind maneuver saved them: the other Endymions continued their inertial course toward the presumed position of the Alké and crashed into one another.
"I know this is the time to strike again, but in a certain sense, our mission is accomplished," declared Andreï, to the immense relief of the officers. "We're going to fall back…"
"My Admiral, Sweet Sun is no longer responding."
"Could you be more explicit…"
"He's unconscious, or dead. The X-rays from the bombs… it looks like he sort of exploded from his cells outward."
"Yes, we're all due for cancer too, even if it's not the most immediate lethal risk. Peace to his soul. We can't fall back anymore… I'm thinking. Petra, tell the Amaterasu and Ptah that we have no Dérive fallback solution for the moment."
The officers' morale, which had just risen, plummets drastically, and the floating dead help little. On the other side of the Perun's torn hull, the Endymions of the Stellar Fleet were carpeting the vessel with missiles, and those the Alké had not annihilated were turning toward the cruiser. They are waking up.
Andreï lifts his eyes toward the standard Dérive windows: in 15 minutes, they could jump to Calchas, but what for? All the Dérive arrival points are probably mined.
"We're coming to protect you!" declared Milovan.
He had tracked and disabled the Namtar, notoriously under-equipped. The Amaterasu was now sliding up on the starboard side of the Alké—which was therefore more or less protected on both flanks, but was in any case out of ammunition.
Slowly, like lions approaching, about twenty cruisers advanced toward their structure, which was slowly falling toward Caliban. They were waiting for their systems to be fully restored before charging.
"Okay, Pallas, ask Momoko to form two zero-G exploration squads to go fetch more fusion bombs in the Perun. Ask Samad to load a crate of antimatter into the inner spindle."
Antimatter, by convention, was a forbidden weapon during wars. Andreï had two crates of one ton each thanks to the defection of Militiades. He had always thought that one of them would be a plan B against the Aleph. Using it meant exposing oneself to stepping outside the rules of war, that is, being annihilated in return, attacked by proteas chimeras or viruses, and worse still, being seen as the villains of the story.
In the distance, Ippolita was fighting like a lioness, autonomously, one against five. She had long since exhausted her missiles, and after disabling the Sérapis and the Shiva, she had dared to retrieve the escape pods from those ships to turn them into manual countermeasures for her pursuers' missiles; whatever Gulmira's orders might have been, apparently the human-shield strategy had worked, for they were now trying to smash her hull through ramming instead of using missiles. What talent and what cruelty, thought Andreï.
Carthach, the radar officer, usually pale as death, turns his gaze toward the Fleet Admiral. Twenty, thirty, forty Endymions had just emerged from Drift, coming from the far ends of the Universe to support the Fleet. They appeared like a metal wall impossible to bring down, massacring the officers' morale.
Silence is absolute on the bridge of the Alké…
Petra announces an incoming communication from Gulmira. Andreï raises his hand to ask that she be put on hold long enough for him to think. The officers look at him full of hope. It is time to surrender.
After all… I don't have to destroy them all, he told himself. Our ships have gone to Caliban. He asks for an optical and radar verification.
Tohil's Anicroche, pursued by about fifteen ships, is about to touch the cloud layer.
Good… we can surrender… Amor Fati… victory no longer depends on our efforts…
A radar ping catches his attention.
The cloud layer lifts, as if blown upward by a powerful wind. It is an Endymion hidden in the upper atmosphere, probably landed on the ground and waiting for its moment. The Ananké, a cruiser as formidable as the Gilgamesh, led by the fearsome Esmée Képhalée, a fully capable field officer, who had received so many medals she could not wear them all. He saw in this hidden Endymion all of Esmée's tactical intelligence. He felt admiration, admiration and despair, when the Endymion struck all the targets of the Resistance Fleet with its missiles.
The Ravens exploded on impact, like fireworks, one Ozy spun down into the atmosphere, and Tohil's Anicroche sank beneath the clouds, a large hole visible in its hull.
The battle was now totally lost. Some officers lowered their eyes, others muttered a prayer.
Andreï, in shock, accepted Gulmira's incoming communication. She, with dignity, showed no emotion. She merely said:
"I am not here to humiliate you and cause even more casualties. You alone will be responsible for this catastrophe, and your officers will get out of it, I give you my word. Andreï, with a single order from me, your three ships turn to dust. I know your service record, your mentality, and your worth. Be worthy of yourself. Give me your officer's surrender and you will leave with what you hold most precious as a military man… your honor."
Andreï was not even looking at the communication. He was searching for a solution, a solution other than sending a ton of antimatter onto the Gilgamesh. Honor, he didn't care, not one bit.
In the end, he would not have the right to his joker, to the small nudge from fate. The game was lost from the very beginning. The lesson was the one taught in war school: go to war with more troops than the enemy. Simple, effective. Let's go…
He couldn't bring himself to say the words, because something else had just arrived.
A single vessel, smaller than an Ozy. It was black. He raised his hand to put Gulmira on hold again, ordered Carthach to zoom.
It was the Halcyon. It was clawing forward at a speed greater than that of the Alexandrites, and it fell upon the closest Endymion approaching the Alké, the white Sedna with the nose damaged from its ramming. The ship opened and all saw the shining hyperchalcedony-gold face of the Wau diving into the void toward the cruiser. Finally. Finally!
The officers' eyes widened and some smiled. The Wau Order had arrived! It had chosen their side! It was unimaginable!
Andreï resumed Gulmira's communication, and with firmness, answered:
"We will not surrender."