Glen Cook - Ceremony

"It's critical."

Marika found the Commander in Communications. She sensed bad news immediately.

"My superiors have spoken at last, Marika."

"Sending bad news, of course." She had ignored the arrival of the courier drone.

"It's not good. There has been a change of government." Government was a concept Marika still did not understand. "General orders to the Fleet Arm are to undertake no hostile action till the State stabilizes and determines policy. I am able to defend myself. Nothing more."

"It could have been worse."

Jackson lifted an eyebrow.

"You could have been ordered to turn on us." She strode out, using old drills to calm herself as she hastened to rejoin her bath.

Alone.

In the void there would be little time to worry about betrayal. III Marika drove the darkship as hard as ever she had, hastily scouting the strike points assigned Henahpla, Cherish, and Satter. Each had employed her great black properly. A dead ridership drifted off each rest world, still tainted by last touch-screams. She snarled, an ice-hearted Ponath huntress with the blood of foes upon her fangs. The last weapon.

She grabbed the Up-and-Over, racing along the secret pathway to the homeworld, satisfied that her strategy was sound.

She should arrive first, armed with a great black dragged in from another system. Henahpla and Cherish should appear shortly afterward, armed with great blacks of their own. Satter would grab control of the home system's own black. Four of those monsters ought to be able to overwhelm everything in their way.

She drove hard. Her bath protested. She rested when she must, and resented every minute. Later, she rested one jump from home, after neutralizing a ridership.

All was timing now. The others had to be in position. If they were delayed, her next move would prove disastrous.

The time came.

Nervousness fled during the passage. She maintained an iron grip on her great black. Elation grew. The wait was at an end.

She paused on the brink of the home system briefly, wishing she dared make certain of the others. But the Serke aboard Starstalker were certain to sense the new great black.

Into the Up-and-Over, her mind fixed on Biter. She would use the moon for cover. Out of the Up-and-Over.

She almost lost the black in her astonishment.

The void was aswarm with aliens. Several of their ships were as dreadful as Commander Jackson had promised.

An electromagnetic storm exploded. Her appearance had been detected.

She hurled the great black.

She eased nearer Biter till she hovered in shadow just yards above its barren surface. Spears of light stabbed the night, coming nowhere near her. Beyond the moon, Starstalker flung panicky signals at its allies. The voidship began to move.

Terror and agony flooded the otherworld as a huge alien ship died. Thousands aboard, Marika reflected. The agony of their dying seemed to touch other humans elsewhere on a subconscious level. Their reactions were slow, tentative. She yanked the great black and hurled it at Starstalker.

Panic filled the otherworld.

The Serke voidship vanished. Marika was astonished. She had not thought those old witches possessed the nerve to take the Up-and-Over so close in.

She threw the great black at the largest alien she sensed.

Fire erupted upon Biter's face. Light lances dragged drunken scarlet feet across the monochromatic moonscape. Glowing balls welled by the dozen, yielded by missiles unable to target the wooden darkship.

Marika shifted her attack to a third warship.

A beam struck close by, followed by another. They might be guessing, but they were guessing well.

Out on the margin of touch she sensed another great black. One of her point Mistresses had arrived.

Where was Starstalker?

A beam seared the void only yards away. A missile boiled Biter's face close enough for the fringe gases to buffet her. All through nearby space small attack vessels were closing in.

She flung the great black once more, then gathered smaller ghosts and darted into the Up-and-Over. A missile erupted close by as she went, disturbing her concentration. She lost the great black. It fled before she stabilized her darkship and reached for it again. She cursed, moving nearer the surface of Chaser.

She sensed two great blacks under control out on the lip of the system. Soon, now.

Still no evidence of Starstalker.

She captured a large ghost and flung it into the drive of a medium-size alien hustling toward Biter. It went drifting toward the homeworid, unable to alter course.

She turned to another, again ruined a drive.

The crowd around Biter began turning her way. She ruined a third drive, aboard a ship headed toward her, then grabbed for the Up-and-Over, darting well inside the orbits of the smallest moons. That far in she would be unable to take the Up-and-Over again.

She started down. Best deliver the ashes while the alien remained distracted and confused.

Her latest victim bored into Chaser, igniting a geyser of fire.

Alien ships darted around, trying to locate her. Angry radio blasts filled the ether. Marika continued to marvel at their numbers and sizes. The damage she had done amounted to nothing. Everything they had must be here.

She felt Starstalker return, felt Serke minds questing. And in the same second two great blacks arrived among the foe. A third appeared only two minutes later. One set upon Starstalker. Terrified, the Serke fled again.

The rest of the starfarers should arrive soon.

Marika had no time to follow the struggle. She was going down as fast as she dared, yet not fast enough. The touch of a weary surface silth reached her, warned her that ground-based aircraft were being prepared to intercept her.

She raced toward the sea east of the New Continent, holding that touch with the surface.

The news from below was not good. Only a pawful of silth survived. Most were in hiding, scattered among the populace, pretending to be displaced workers. The alien was in complete control and looked likely to break faith with his Serke allies.

Perfidious males.

Marika felt the approach of the enemy aircraft while she was yet two hundred thousand feet up. She hurled ghosts. Aircraft dropped. How arrogant of them! Not one of their starships or aircraft was equipped with suppressors.

Maybe they did not know. Maybe the Serke were exercising duplicity of their own, counting upon her to batter the alien, and the alien to destroy her, leaving them to pick up the pieces.

She reached the surface unscathed and raced over gray waves edged with fire. One of the ships she had injured was coming down, trailing thunder.

The action beyond the sky was brisk. Three great blacks had ruined the alien's confidence. And now the main forces of darkships were arriving.

But their ships, all their ships, were titanium. IV The shore cliffline reared ahead, giants wearing boots of foam. Beyond, the land betrayed patches of green. Marika was pleased. Here the ice had lain fifty feet thick the last time she had come by. For all that had happened, the mirrors remained active.

She was a long way from the Ponath. Fast as she rushed along, the night was faster. It overtook her before she reached her ancestral territory. There in moonlight the land yet lay skeletal, not all the ice gone, but enough so the heads of hills and bones of dead forests had begun to show through. She slowed, searched for the packstead.

Again and again aircraft came to challenge. None of those that detected her ever came within eyeshot.

The ice had changed the land. Little seemed familiar, though the hills above the Ponath reared naked above the remaining ice. Bald heads where once had stood impenetrable forests. She slowed, uncertain she had reached the right country.