Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [205]
The Adar looked from side to side, studying the projections. How might this change what he was forced to do? He crossed his arms over his chest and decided that it changed nothing.
Then a transmission shot across the communications band reserved for the Solar Navy. The image showed a black Klikiss robot standing at the helm of the lead Juggernaut. "We have come to assist you in the extermination of humans."
So, not EDF reinforcements after all.
Zan'nh assessed his response, then gestured to his communications officer. "No reply. This complicates our job, but it is General Lanyan's problem. Klikiss robots are not, and never have been, my concern. We will still do what we must." He drew a deep breath; the air in the command nucleus smelled stale and metallic. "Yes, we will do what we must."
By now hydrogue warglobes had surrounded the two cohorts of Ildiran battleships, coming in close as they anticipated the Adar's next move. The trapped and outnumbered EDF ships had no room to maneuver. Zan'nh felt cold inside, knowing there could be no turning back now. The hydrogues had sent far more warglobes than they had told the Mage-Imperator they would. Too many.
He signaled his bridge crew. "Link with all warliners. Inform me when our ships are prepared." The crewmembers took only moments to inform the Adar that everything was ready. Staring hard at the screen, Zan'nh narrowed his eyes. "Execute your instructions. Now!"
Except for the flagship, the engines burst to life in all of the Ildiran vessels, ramping up in an extreme spike. Massive work crews had disengaged the safety governors before the two cohorts departed from Ildira, adding other modifications. Right now, with no concern for material tolerances, six hundred eighty-five individual warliners turned about in a single perfectly coordinated movement. Their engines built to greater and greater power.
Before the hydrogues could react to the unexpected move, before they could take any sort of evasive action, all of the Ildiran warliners slashed outward. Each heavily armored battleship had a specified target, determined by calculator kithmen in the Adar's command nucleus.
Accelerating with full stardrive thrust, the warliners slammed directly into the diamond globes. The cascade of impacts happened with astonishing speed, and it was all perfectly choreographed. Shattering flashes erupted as hundreds upon hundreds of suicidal warliners obliterated the hydrogues.
A few enemy warglobes lashed out with blue lightning bolts to defend themselves, but only five of the programmed warliners were destroyed prematurely; all of the others annihilated their targets. A chain of explosions blossomed, as if all the stars in a globular cluster had simultaneously gone supernova.
With a powerful sense of finality and satisfaction, Zan'nh nodded at the forty-nine crewmen in his own command nucleus--the only crewmen aboard all six hundred and eighty-six warliners. The rest of the ships had been completely empty. Remote-controlled.
With the assistance of the human engineers and the inexhaustible manpower of the Ildiran Empire, all those warliners had been reworked to accommodate automated systems. Zan'nh's single flagship had guided every vessel in the two cohorts. In only a few moments, nearly seven hundred warglobes had been obliterated, and not a single Ildiran had lost his life. Yet.
Zan'nh wondered what General Lanyan thought of him now.
But the Mage-Imperator had never anticipated that Zan'nh would face so many enemy ships. Despite their coercion, the hydrogues had not trusted the Solar Navy to carry out its promised betrayal. Now that the battle was engaged, the hundreds of remaining hydrogues began to open fire on the EDF ships.
Taken by surprise at the turnabout and unexpected firefight, the robot-hijacked EDF ships also launched their