Glen Cook - Ceremony

A medium ship turned her way, accelerated incredibly. How had it detected her so easily? She grabbed the Up-and-Over, skipped, regained control of the great black. The ship found her again and closed swiftly, but the great black came too. Marika skipped again, flung the great black.

A strange screaming filled the void.

These humans touched when they died!

Their screams went on and on and on as their ship began breaking up.

Why so long?

Their dying tore at her nerves, distracted her from the broader struggle ... Crewed by the dying, the disintegrating human ship ripped past, drives accelerating still, carrying the remains outsystem.

A bolt of light stabbed so close Marika imagined crisping heat. She tore her attention from her victim.

A small ship was almost atop her. She ducked reflexively, fired her rifle as it screamed past, and only then thought to fling the great black.

Tortured screams flooded the touch.

That was the last small ship of the main force. Marika probed for the leading group. It too had been hard hit. Three survivors were streaking back toward their dam ship.

Victory. But at a terrible price. She could not find half a dozen Mistresses.

The main force turned. Marika ordered pursuit abandoned. She wanted no more losses.

She trailed the enemy's withdrawal, watched him recover his surviving rider, then his singleships. The smaller vessels all nestled into recesses in the larger's flanks.

She tried for the main ship's drives, but it kept her too busy evading fire to concentrate.

Riders recovered, the destroyer pulled away. Marika found its acceleration astounding. Such power!

The starship vanished. Like a darkship leaping into the Up-and-Over, yet with a twist that seemed to rend the fabric of the void itself. Marika shuddered to a shock that recalled nearby thunder. But there was no sound out there in the dark.

II "They got whipped, but they'll be back," Commander Jackson prophesied. "They learned what they wanted to know."

"Uhm." Marika conversed in monosyllables, gruffly concealing her uncertainty. Seldom had she been so uncertain of her capacity to cope. The incredible, powerful technology behind that killing machine!

"They'll come ready to fight, Marika. I wish I had orders."

"Why did the smaller ships cling to the large one?"

"Economy. Military grade hyperdrives are costly and bulky. So each hypership carries riders equipped only with cheaper, less massive system drives. Military grade system drives. A Main Battle carries riders on its riders."

Marika sighed. Despair began worming its way deep into her soul.

The destroyer had been gone four days. A ragtag fleet of voidships dropped from the Up-and-Over, badly mauled. Marika hustled her Mistresses out to meet them.

"They're from my homeworld," she told Jackson. "All who were able to fight their way through." They were, in fact, the last star-faring silth save a few crews exploring and not yet aware that the beast was afoot.

"The voidship Starstalker has returned to home space. Accompanied by your enemies." The news the touch carried was almost too grim to bear. "Silth talents have been of little value against alien technology in fighting on the surface." The Communities were struggling bravely and desperately, but with scant hope. The general populace was giving no help. Even the long loyal brethren faction was making only token efforts at resisting.

Marika cursed the All within the shadows of her heart. She, the rebel within silthdom, had been by time and circumstance hammered into a symbol of everything silth. She had become the adhesive bonding harried silthdom together. How had she come to this?

She knew the message borne by the homeworld Mistresses. The Communities were struggling on in hopes she could, once again, stay the jaws of doom.

What was the point? The All seemed determined to see an end to the silth ideal.

She took the wooden darkship into the void alone, beyond the touch of those waiting aboard the derelict. The ashes of Grauel and Barlog rested at the axis. She faced the urns.

Grauel. Barlog. We are returned to where we began. Savages surround us. And this time there is no Akard to send help.

There is a difference, Marika. They war upon silth alone.

True. But without us what would meth be? And how long will it be silth alone?

Silence.

She cruised the dark till exhaustion turned her homeward, not once finding an answer she wanted. There were options, possibilities, and some things that had to be attempted whatever befell, but all outcomes depended upon Jackson's people.

She strode down the arm of the voidship, poised over the last of her pack.

There was no choice. She had promised. She had to take them home.

Jackson told her, "It's insane," after Marika dismissed the assembled Mistresses. "Your silth sorcery won't mean a thing against a rebel fleet. Please wait."

"Your people have shown no interest in what is happening here. There is no point in waiting."

"They must be hard-pressed. It's hard to defend everything when marauders ... "

"Take the struggle to the marauder. That is what I have done all my life. To the sorrow of thousands. No. No, my human friend. This I must do, though it means my end. I have my obligations. To my huntresses who have fallen, to my Community that is no more, to all meth and silth still living. I was created by the All to act. If I achieve no greater victory, I must break through and scatter these ashes before I rejoin the All." None of the Mistresses had questioned that. They understood.

"What you call kalerhag is an obligation?"

Marika eyed Jackson warily. Even the humans? "What makes you mention kalerhag? It is a forgotten rite."

"I doubt that. I cannot speak your language, but I can follow conversations. Kalerhag is a growing theme. The bath especially are talking mass suicide if your mission fails."

Was it engraved on the genes? Kalerhag had been out of vogue for ages, and most recently discredited by Serke behavior in the face of absolute defeat. Yet it became attractive in the face of the terrors borne by these aliens. "It could be," she murmured in her own language. "Should honor and the need of the race demand."

Forget that. That was not a good way to think when there was a strike to mount. She dared think of nothing but conflict. The voidships were poised. The best of the best Mistresses, Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter, were ready to launch the first phase, down interdicted voidpaths, behind a trio of great blacks. Soon horror would stalk the stars.

Marika's own approach would pursue a starway only she knew, only she had the strength to fly.

"Where there is life there is hope. An old saying among my people."

"We meth are fatalists and mystics. Symbol is always more important than substance."

"But suicide ...

"Not suicide. Kalerhag. Sometimes to defy, deny, even defeat fate, one must rob it of its prey."

Jackson shrugged. "Perhaps. Some of our ancestors venerated such gestures."

Marika grunted, withdrew. She assembled her crew, including redundant bath and a back-up Mistress, in the sanctity of a small compartment set aside for ritual. Soon most of the silth aboard had crowded in or were watching from beyond the hatchway. The humans respected that time and stayed away.

Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter were long gone. The principal follow-up forces had departed. The passageways aboard the derelict were naked of silth. Only a few old brethren researchers maintained a meth presence. Marika was about to leave.

She did not expect to return.

Jackson's messenger caught her at the lock, about to share golden liquid. "Mistress, the Commander must see you before you leave."

"Must I?" She did not need her despair reinforced by Jackson's negativity.