Timothy Zahn - Warhorse

“What is it?” Roman asked, his voice frowning.

Ferrol stared at the display, wondering if he was imagining things. But there was no mistake. The newly freed space horses, which had been angling sharply away from the approaching sharks’ trajectory as they left the corral, had begun to curve back inward toward that vector again. “Captain, take a look at the tactical,” he said carefully. “The escaping space horses… aren’t escaping.”

He turned to find Roman frowning at his own displays. For a moment their gazes locked—“Kennedy, are they still in too close to the star to Jump?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “I don’t think so, sir,” she said. “Not given what we now know about how much heat and radiation they can handle.”

“They’ve each picked up an optical net,” Marlowe pointed out doubtfully.

“Maybe…” He trailed off.

“But they’re not running away.” Kennedy looked over her shoulder at Roman, a vaguely stunned expression on her face. “They’re going to attack.”

Roman looked at her a moment; then, abruptly, reached for his console. “Amity to Tampy ships,” he called. “This is Captain Roman. Pull out of there, right now.

You’re about to be crushed by your own space horses.”

His answer was a burst of unintelligible whinelike squeaks and moans. “Damn,” he swore under his breath.

“Tie Rrin-saa into the line,” Ferrol suggested. “He can translate for you.”

Roman nodded, already keying for intercom. Ferrol shifted his attention back to the tactical; and a minute later the Tampy space horses began to veer away out of the sharks’ path. Out of the sharks’ path, and toward the loose sphere of space horses now closing in on the predators like a giant fist. “Make sure all recorders are on,”

he told Marlowe. “We’re going to want to get all of this.”

And the battle began.

It was, to Ferrol’s mind, a surprisingly leisurely confrontation; but perhaps all the more awesome for its slow, inexorable pace. Even as the Tampy ships reached the contracting sphere of space horses the sharks were breaking their own flying formation, angling outward to face their attackers like the fingers of an opening hand. Between the two groups, the vultures swarmed about like smoke in random cross breezes, either unable to maintain their optical nets in the face of the assault or else simply being thrown about by conflicting telekinetic forces.

Without warning, the Amity jerked, jamming Ferrol back into his seat. “Rrin-saa!”

Roman snapped. “What was that?”

“Sleipnninni wishes to join,” the Tampy’s voice came faintly over the intercom.

“Sso-ngu is having trouble holding him.”

“He has to,” Roman told him. “We can’t risk dragging the Amity into the middle of something like that. Change Handlers if Sso-ngu can’t hold on—double up if you have to—but keep Sleipnir here. Is that understood?”

“Your wishes are ours.”

Kennedy half turned. “We may be fighting a losing battle, Captain,” she said tightly. “The other Tampy space horses have gone back in, too.”

Ferrol swallowed hard. Kennedy was right: freed of the immediate threat of being the closest ones to the sharks, they’d now turned around to join the shrinking sphere, their tethered ships dragged helplessly along behind them like so much tinsel. Like Sleipnir, sensing somehow the group blood lust; unlike Sleipnir, too close to the center to have a hope of ignoring it.

The sphere continued to close… and then, moving in unison, the sharks abruptly veered off their vector, angling toward an edge of the sphere as if attempting to punch their way out. The space horses countered instantly, twenty or so of them shifting over toward the intersect point. Bolstering the forces at that flank… and as he watched the maneuver Ferrol felt a shiver run up his back at the irony of it all.

His dream, scoffed at by everyone from the Senator on down, of creating a fleet of warhorses…

On the tactical, the sharks again changed direction. “They’re running,” Kennedy said.

“Or trying to,” Roman corrected grimly as the space horses again shifted to counter the move. “Marlowe, are you getting any indication as to what exactly they’re fighting with?”

“No, sir,” Marlowe shook his head. “I’d guess they’re all trying to choke or bludgeon each other to death with telekinesis, but we haven’t got any instruments that can confirm—”

He broke off as the Amity twitched again. “Rro-maa?”

“I’m here, Rrin-saa,” Roman answered. “Still having trouble?”

“Sso-ngu and Hhom-jee cannot hold Sleipnninni for much longer,” the Tampy said, his voice very alien. “He is driven, his mind closed to all else. As if, perhaps, in perasiata.”

Ferrol hissed soundlessly between his teeth, throwing a glance at the intercom. The Tampies’ first definition of perasiata had been as a sort of coma; two hours ago, they’d used the term for Sleipnir’s panic reaction to the approaching sharks; and now it had become a berserker-type rage. The same word, for three entirely different reactions… Perhaps, he thought, the Tampies didn’t know nearly as much about space horses as they thought they did.

He looked back at the tactical, at the sedate dance of death taking place out there.

No; they really didn’t know as much as they thought they did.

“Tell them they have to hold Sleipnir as long as they can,” Roman was saying to Rrin-saa. “At least for another few minutes. Near as we can tell, the space horses are winning out there, but—”

“I’ll be damned.”

Ferrol twisted around. Kennedy’s voice had been little more than a whisper, but there’d been something in her tone… “What is it?” Roman asked.

Kennedy took a deep breath. “I believe the battle’s over, Captain,” she said, the words coming out with—for Kennedy—unusual difficulty. “As good as over, anyway.”

Ferrol glanced back to see Roman frown at his displays. “Explain.”

She nodded toward her displays. “Look at the vultures,” she said quietly. “It’s hard to see—the space horses are blocking most of the view. But you can see enough.”

“I’ll be damned,” Marlowe echoed. “She’s right, sir. The vultures have grouped into optical nets again… in front of the sharks.”

“They’ve switched sides,” Kennedy said, shaking her head in obvious wonderment.

“Seen which way the battle was going, and decided en masse to join with the winners.”

On a hunch, Ferrol keyed for a forward visual scan. “Our optical net’s gone, too, Captain,” he told Roman. “The vultures are…” He paused, searching.

“They’re heading for the battle,” Marlowe put in.

“Interesting, indeed,” Roman said thoughtfully. For a moment he stared at his displays… and then, as Ferrol watched, a tight smile tugged at his lips. Reaching over, he keyed his intercom. “Rrin-saa?”

“I hear, Rro-maa. We cannot hold Sleipnninni for much longer—”

“No need,” Roman cut him off. “Tell Sso-ngu he can let Sleipnir go any time now, only to try and hold it down to a couple of gees.”

“Your wishes are ours.”

Roman keyed off the intercom; and as he did so the Amity abruptly lurched forward. Ferrol fought his stomach, and a moment later Sleipnir had settled down to a steady three gee acceleration. “I hope you’ve timed this right,” he told Roman as the brief nausea faded away. “I really don’t think we want to get there while the fight’s still going on.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Roman said. “I expect the sharks will have been beaten too far down to bother us by the time we arrive. And actually, it’ll probably be better to get there a little early than to be too late.”