L. Modesitt: Fall of Angels

“WHAT ARE YOU going to do when you get back to Heaven? Visit your family?” asked Saryn in a low voice, barely audible above the hiss of the ventilators. As second pilot, she had control of the Winterlance while the captain dozed in the command couch. Saryn’s eyes were glazed, her mind half on the neuronet.

“I’ll probably think about that when the time comes. Might be a long time,” pointed out Nylan. “Headquarters has extended all flight officers’ tours another two years.” The engineer’s thoughts flicked across the power net, only a section of the full neuronet, as he answered.

“Why don’t they just say that we’re stuck until we drive the demons out?”

“Top angels-excuse me, Cherubim and Seraphim-express their commands more temperately.” Nylan cleared his throat. “Where are we headed?”

Saryn expressed a mental shrug through the net. “I’ve got the coordinates, but the captain didn’t say why. We’re positioning for an underspace jump, and awaiting further orders.”

ALLNET CALL! ALLNET CALL!

As the neuronet alert jabbed through his thoughts, Nylan stiffened and glanced around the bridge of the United Faith Forces’ frigate Winterlance.

Ryba-the captain-hit the net so quickly, her thoughts cold and clear across the neuronet, that Nylan wondered if she had ever been asleep.

At times like these, the engineer wondered if he ever really had known the captain. He knew that she drove herself, that she spent hours in high-gee exercise, that she knew and practiced not only unarmed martial combat, but even the antique twin sword exercises of Heaven’s Sybran horse nomads-and that the blades on her stateroom wall were razor sharp and had sharpened points as well. Then, she had been raised in the nomad heritage where women fought and commanded-and she did command.

Nylan stifled a yawn and eased fully into the net, catching the last of the on-line feed.

“ … line two to be led and coordinated by UFFS Winterlance … line three to be led by UFFS Stormsweep. Action will commence at 1343 standard …”

“Shit …” The contemptuous word that floated unattached through the net came from Saryn, who had just released the conn to Ryba, although Saryn had stayed linked to catch the incoming message.

“Right enough,” affirmed the captain, her tone not quite sardonic. “Twelve towers, and only fifty of us, and half are destroyers with barely adequate D-draws.”

Saryn stood, wiggling her fingers. Then she tried to massage her neck with her left hand before settling back into her couch and trying to rest while Ryba reoriented the Winterlance prior to setup for the underspace jump prior to the attack.

With a deep breath, Nylan stretched. The engineer could check the files for the whole message, but the captain had it, and he knew enough-more than enough. The demons had a picket line of towers across the transit corridor, with webs into the underspace that would effectively cut the United Faith Alliance in two.

The damned towers that drew power from who knew where and how were almost invulnerable-almost. Except when enough de-energization was concentrated on the nexus points in their energy links, and then the entire line went up into pure energy. Most of the time, though, it was the angel ships that went up in energy.

The towers had to be hard to build, because there were only about fifty known to exist. That still meant enough to quarter the UFA and to disrupt trade and communications totally.

“Engines … interrogative fusactor status.” The captain’s inquiry burned into Nylan’s thoughts.

The engineer suppressed his annoyance. Ryba could have dropped into the power subnet easily enough; it wasn’t as though the Winterlance were anywhere close to jump or combat yet. He slipped deeper into the system and ran through the checks, then pulsed the summary to her.

“Thank you, engines. Power net looks good.”

Nylan straightened in the couch and watched as the captain studied the displays-the ones spread across the front of the cockpit, and those in her mind. Her thoughts flicked through the Winterlance’ s neuronet, making course adjustments, tweaking the power flow from the twin fusactors, and studying, again and again, the icy images of the demon ships of the Rationalists.

“Lots of power there, Ryba,” observed the wiry whiteblond engineer from his third seat. His unvocalized words flowed through the neuronet to her.

“I wish you two would speak aloud. All those empathetic overtones mess up the net.” Ayrlyn, the comm officer, took a deep breath, although her words were also unspoken, flowing through the net with ice-burning overedges.

Empathetic overtones? Just because they occasionally slept together? Nylan glanced sideways to the fourth seat where the brunette sat, her thoughts restricted to the commnet, as she monitored everything from standing wave to demon frequencies.

“Net’s faster.” Ryba’s no-nonsense words snapped across the net with their own burning edges.

Nylan winced and decided to check the power subnet again.

“Ten till jump. Time adjustment will be negative five for sync.”

The engineer moistened his lips. Backtime twists out of jumps seemed to give the angel ships an advantage, but the power requirements on the fusactors meant they had to be rebuilt almost every third sortie, and eight units was the max backtime possible for an angel cruiser. The destroyers could go ten, but their underspace mass drag was less. So were their shields.

A negative five meant the force would contain at least one heavy cruiser, with three to five de-energizer draws. That also meant trouble.

“Trouble …” As if to confirm Nylan’s concerns, Ayrlyn added the single word verbally.

“Weapons … interrogative D-status.”

“De-energizers are ready, Captain.” Both Gerlich’s voice and “net voice” came across as a smooth deep baritone, smooth as the man himself, unusually so for a full Sybran. Of the ship’s officers, half were full-blood Sybran-Ryba, Gerlich, and Mertin-big. broad-shouldered, and, despite their size, most at home in the chill of the high latitudes of cold Sybra. Ayrlyn was mostly Svennish, and Saryn and Nylan were about half and half.