Strength and Honor (47 page)

The sphere was the most heat conservative shape possible, giving the highest survivability rate to the swarm’s members.

“No! They haven’t learned skat!”Tactical cried. “That’s not a Hive sphere! That’s
Mercedesl”

A
scan revealed a ship at the core of the sphere. The scan also alerted the gorgons that
Merrimack
was here.

The sphere was a writhing nest of black tentacles. Monster crawled over monster trying to get to the core where
Mercedes
was encased in their hunger. The outer tentacles now lifted toward
Merrimack
like hesitant squirrels, gauging whether they could make the jump.

Commander Dent called
Merrimack
to battle stations. Mister Hicks at the Com could not establish contact with
Mercedes.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Hicks. The young man sounded as if he might cry.

“That doesn’t mean he’s dead,” said Farragut.

It mustn’t mean he was dead. It only meant Jose Maria was not answering, or the Hive had overwhelmed
Mercedes’
com system. “Those Star Racers have strong force fields,” said Systems.

There was still hope. He might still be in time. This Hive might not have figured out insinuation yet. The ability to slowly penetrate an energy field was one of many exotic characteristics of the parent Hives.

“We do know Jose Maria will have put full power to his energy field,” said Farragut. Gypsy picked up that cue. “Fire Control, power up hydrogen jets.”
Mercedes
with her field at full could withstand a hydrogen jet. “Fire Control, aye. Powering hydrogen jets, aye.”

Mister Hicks sent another tight beam to
Mercedes.
“Doctor Cordillera, this is
Merrimack.
Can you respond?” Receiving nothing but silence, Mister Hicks turned to the XO and shook his head.

“Command. This is Fire Control. Hydrogen jets powered and standing by.”

“Fire!” said Gypsy.

Merrimack,
like an enraged archangel, hurled pillars of purest hellfire on the sphere.

Gorgons burned, peeled away, layer on seared layer to reveal an intact energy screen underneath.

But there were gorgons within the shield itself, distorted, impossible, squashed figures, slowly insinuating their way through the energy barrier in toward the ship.

“They’ve learned insinuation!”

Worse. A jagged hole showed clearly in
Mercedes’
hull. The gorgons had already eaten through the hull. The monsters were on board
Mercedes.
One man could not stand long against a swarm. There was no telling how long ago the gorgons had gained entry to the ship, how many gorgons were already inside.

One more gorgon, preserved from the hydrogen blast by being inside the force field, oozed itself free on the inside of the field and scuttled into the ship through the hole in the hull.

“Get an energy lever through that field and spread an opening for soft dock at that hole,” Farragut ordered. “All possible haste. Colonel Steele! I need a boarding party, suited for potential vacuum and armed for Hive. Yesterday!”

John Farragut had to believe they were in time.

Never say die.

Never say die until you’re dead.

Time that could be clocked in seconds passed in abysmal slowness before soft dock was achieved and Marines charged through the flexible tunnel to board
Mercedes.

Armed with swords, the Marines slashed off any tentacle that pierced the flexible docking tube, and they boarded the yacht through the gorgon hole. The Marines found the ravenous enemy on board and engaged them at once.

Several Marines stationed themselves at the hole to hack down flankers that were still emerging from the force field. Other Marines on
Merrimack
stood by for boarders coming back their way.

Colonel Steele was in the fore of the boarding party, Captain Farragut bringing up the rear, sword in hand, a second sword in a hanger at his side.

Gravity was rock solid and uniform on the Star Racer.

Farragut ran down a side corridor. He kicked open a compartment. Found masses of monsters within what looked like a bedchamber, chewing on leather and wood and linen with all their mouths.

Oh, God. Too late.

So close. Oh, for Jesus. Late by how long? Minutes?

Farragut cut down gorgons in a fury.

Then the full import of the scene before him caught up with him. There was a lot in here left to eat. A lot left to eat. And Jose Maria would not be standing still. Farragut shut the compartment, tore his helmet off and bellowed:
“Jose Maria!”

No answer. Yet Jose Maria must be here. Alive. An experienced gorgon fighter, Jose Maria would be the very last thing on board to get eaten. Certainly there were a lot of gorgons inside the ship, but their numbers were not yet overwhelming.
Mercedes’’
force field must have been only recently penetrated. Jose Maria must be alive.

“Jose Maria!”

Farragut opened another hatch. He could not possibly have arrived here just seconds too late. God would not allow it.

Then again God often called the best people home early.

“Jose Maria!”

No one answered.

Dammit. Dammit Dammit.

Farragut whirled and slashed down a gorgon that intruded on his damnations. He raced forward to the cockpit. He found a sight that made his flesh creep.
Mercedes’
res chamber was active, sending a resonant pulse. The ship’s resonance would be drawing the gorgons to her.

Horror gave way to puzzlement. Jose Maria knew the effect resonance had on the Hive. Jose Maria would know what he was doing.

Jose Maria, what are you doing?

Farragut tried to back figure what had happened here.

Jose Maria found gorgons on
Sulla.

He had ordered the Vatican ship to run.

And where did Jose Maria go?

Farragut spun away from the console.

He never left
Sulla!

Farragut opened his com link with
Merrimack.
“Gypsy! Hook
Sulla!
Get a Marine detail on
Sulla
yesterday!”

The instant that soft dock was achieved, John Farragut charged on board
Sulla.
He was in the fore this time. He hacked through the gorgons that met him at the ragged opening.

Were gorgons still here because they were still hatching? Or were they here because there was still one thing left on board to eat?

Farragut barreled through the tight, ravaged corridors. “Jose Maria!” And from somewhere he heard the jet of a gas torch and a muffled voice,
“Aqui!”
Farragut dashed to the head of a ladder, looked down the hatch.

Jose Maria, on the deck below, backed against the bottom rungs of the ladder, wielded a failing blowtorch against a mob of gorgons.

“Jose Maria!”

Jose Maria looked up through the hatch, saw what Farragut had, reached up. Caught the sword—his own El Cid colada—as it dropped into his hand.

38

^J
OSE MARIA SALVAGED
a few bottles of aged wine from
Mercedes
and set those on the captain’s table at dinner on board
Merrimack.
Jose Maria was in good spirits but moving gingerly from multiple burns, cuts, and gorgon bites.

Chef Zack was thrilled to be creating dishes for
Don
Cordillera’s palate again. Not that John Farragut lacked refinement but Jose Maria’s taste was extraordinarily subtle, not one of the top fifty words ever used to describe the captain.

They had left
Sulla
behind in a dead calm, the galactic coordinates of her location recorded, and a finder beacon activated on board.
Sulla
could be collected after the Hive emergency passed, //the emergency ever passed.

Merrimack
now raced back toward Near Space at flank speed with
Mercedes
in tow. The sturdy little Star Racer was in good working shape. Her amenities however were a bit ragged.

Earth’s state of emergency shocked Jose Maria. “How did gorgons get to Earth so fast? Was the outbreak on Thaleia that much worse than we ever thought possible?”

“No,” Farragut told him. “The gorgons attacking Earth didn’t hatch on Thaleia. They came from the planet Xi.”

Which meant that a dormant gorgon egg, or whatever the next generation Hive sprang from, could remain coherent longer than most rocks.

Xi was the site of the galaxy’s most ancient civilization.

The Xi civilization had fallen to an unknown catastrophe an unimaginably long time ago. It was clear now that the mysterious catastrophe had been the Hive.

Agent of entropy, Augustus called the Hive. Entropy was a constant throughout the universe. From the first instant of the Big Bang there had been entropy. Entropy governed all things from the turning of leaves, to coffee growing cold, to iron rusting, to objects breaking to pieces rather than piecing themselves together, to all human things turning to dust and ash.

“Xi was Origin,” said Farragut.

Jose Maria tilted his head quizzically. “Origin?”

Farragut gave his head a wake-up shake. “I don’t know why I keep forgetting you weren’t with us at the Myriad.”

In the globular cluster IC9870986, a/k/a the Myriad,
Merrimack
had encountered a race of beings from a distant planet known as Origin. Origin turned out to be distant: in time rather than space. Origin was Xi a long time ago.

“The Mj’riadians tried to go back in time to their Origin and change their history.”

“Of course they changed nothing,” said Jose Maria.

“How do you know?” Farragut asked. “How do we know this isn’t an alternate timeline?”

“Now you are being fanciful, young Captain. The Xi civilization is still extinct. Chaos changes the details, but in the grand design the end is inevitable.”

“Except that it hasn’t ended yet,” said Farragut. “Extinction of everything may be inevitable, but it doesn’t need to be now. Even someone as fatalistic as Augustus fought the Hive.”

When John Farragut first met Augustus, they did not meet face-to-face. Augustus had come in his Striker to the Myriad, where he was presented with a clear shot at
Merrimack’s
stern. And Captain Farragut made no move to defend his ship, because it meant dropping hold of a lifeline to two of his Marines in a small craft. Had he dropped his Marines, the encounter could have been a battle. As it was, the Striker had a simple shot at a foe who refused to defend himself.

“Augustus never told me why he didn’t shoot me at the Myriad.”

It had been a defining moment, when Augustus had John Farragut’s back and did not take the shot.

Jose Maria said, “He told me.”

“He
did?”
Farragut stared at him, astonished. And asked at last, “So
why?”

“Because he wanted you to exist. Augustus did not believe in John Farragut. And he wanted to.”

“I don’t understand.”

“A parable, young Captain,” Jose Maria proposed. “Once upon a time, a great hunter came upon a tigress with her cubs trapped in a ring of fire. Never mind the nonsense of how that situation came to pass, there it is. Put yourself there. The tigress can jump free. She has one cub in her mouth but she will not leave the other cubs. She is an easy mark. Does the hunter take the shot?”

“No,” said Farragut.

“You say that without the hesitation of even a moment. Did you mark that, young Captain? Romulus would take the shot. A lot of men would take the shot. And a sensible tigress would have jumped out, saving one cub.” A mild scold there.

“But the tigress was not sensible,” Jose Maria went on. “She was stupidly courageous, and you are correct, the hunter could not shoot her. You put it all on the line not to abandon your own Marines. Because you knew the good hunter could not take the shot. And you only knew the hunter was good because you are good and the thoughts of the petty and cowardly did not occur to you in the ring of fire.”

Augustus had not been able to shoot John Farragut in the back while he was trapped in the act of something nonsensically heroic.

“So I guess I really
didn’t
outdraw him at Palatine,” Farragut had to admit. Some not too deeply buried part of him had thought he was Superman.

“No one outdraws a patterner,” said Jose Maria. At Palatine, Farragut and Augustus had guns pointed at each other once again. No backs turned that time. No one else in the balance. The showdown at Palatine had been a gunfight in the street. A moment for choosing loyalty.

I chose country. Augustus chose me.

“Does he still need me to exist?” Farragut wondered out loud.

“I cannot say.”

“He was, without a doubt, the most obnoxious, cynical, abrasive, bad-tempered man I have ever known. I miss him.”

“Do we know what became of the mortal remains of Augustus?” Jose Maria asked, speculative.

“Except for the black box, which was man-made anyway, I think Romulus had Augustus atomized.”

“Something of his first incarnation I would expect to be interred at the Corindahlor Monument with the other two hundred and ninety-nine of the Roman Tenth,” said Jose Maria. “One only needs a finger to lay someone to rest.”

“And they had more remains than that,” said Farragut.

The brain and his spinal cord had been walking around in a second incarnation as Augustus. But there was more than that left of Flavius Cassius’ body, which had fallen over the side of the bridge.

“I believe he rests with his cohort,” Jose Maria concluded. “Though some souls spend time in purgatory before moving on.”

Farragut hesitated. “Augustus always claimed Flavius Cassius was not he.”

“And we both know he was—how do you say?—full of shit. Corindahlor is not far from here.”

“No, it’s not,” Farragut agreed, sounding wistful. “Be all kinds of irresponsible to take a quick detour to Corindahlor with Earth under siege.”