Part 42 (2/2)

”Please elaborate.”

”Tarlog has been found in a rescue pod. He's injured. But he'll live.”

”Any word about Rawlon's s.h.i.+p?”

Silence.

”Yes. Hull debris has been identified as that of the Thunderer, his flags.h.i.+p. It has just been confirmed by Zara, the acting First Captain for the Kraaqi aboard his battle cruiser, the Powerful. The Thunderer is no more, and no sign of any survivors among its officers.”

Minstrel made a note to write a special song for Rawlon and to find out more details of his great attack.

”How many Kraaqi s.h.i.+ps have survived?” Minstrel asked.

Silence again.

”Twenty-seven. Including Zara's s.h.i.+p and one other cruiser. The rest are fighters, and a couple of frigates.”

Almost all gone. Minstrel's thoughts were further burdened and subdued by the immense destruction that surrounded its own s.h.i.+p. It was as if the entire universe had been the battlefield. And in a way, it had been. For the eternal war of the T'kaan had finally ended.

Still, Minstrel pressed on.

”No word of the humans-or the Mothers.h.i.+p?” Trakam asked again, already knowing the answer.

Jaric and Kyle's fighters had been in the group attacking the Great Horned s.h.i.+p of the T'kaan First Fleet. Minstrel's wide area scans had shown no active s.h.i.+ps, no communication signals of any kind fromthat area, at least from this range.

”None,” Minstrel said.

The seconds and minutes stretched for an eternity. Minstrel's sensor sweeps reached to the edge of its capability, but still no life-signs.

There were also no signs of life pods. Hope was growing dim...

Suddenly, a light began pulsating. Minstrel worked feverishly, locking onto that weak beacon. That faint, scrambled signal slowly became discernible, and finally became a comm signal.

Minstrel hurriedly fixed on the weak signal, amplifying it, holding it, caressing it until it grew intelligible.

”This is Jaric. Repeat, we are in need of a.s.sistance. Our systems are down except for life-support. We are drifting. Repeat, this is Jaric...”

Minstrel's engines surged and the Circle s.h.i.+p, scored and damaged, leapt forward.

In minutes, the darkened fighter appeared amid the dense, swirling pieces of floating debris that surrounded it. Targeting the tractor beam on the damaged fighter, Minstrel began pulling Jaric and his damaged s.h.i.+p inside.

Before the next hour had pa.s.sed, a dozen other fighters were rescued in the same fas.h.i.+on; all that had survived the vicious explosion of the Great Horned s.h.i.+p of the T'kaan First.

Kyle and Rok were among them-battered, bruised and bloodied.

But alive.

Jaric stumbled into the main room. ”Where's Mother?”

”I have not ascertained her last position,” Minstrel reported.

Jaric clenched his eyes shut as he searched his memory. ”She was inside the T'kaan s.h.i.+p.” He opened them. ”Did she get out?”

”I do not know,” Minstrel said.

With a sudden burst of energy, Jaric ran over and sat at Minstrel's main console as he began working the controls feverishly. Across their customary comm channels, he sent a message for Mother. If she were listening-if she could listen-she would hear it.

”Try your sensors across this sector,” Jaric ordered.

Minstrel complied.

But no s.h.i.+p registered. At least not one still functioning.

A limping Kyle suddenly appeared next to Jaric. ”Anything?”

Jaric shook his head and kept working.

”Let me try.” Kyle sat down at the console. He stared at the controls, thinking. Closing his eyes, his mind went back to the last moments before the final explosion. He concentrated.

He remembered the frigates that had followed Mother; they would've blocked her easiest escape route back out. Still....

In his mind's eye, he saw Mother's super-weapon suddenly erupt and tear at the Great Horned s.h.i.+p, sending a huge chunk of the s.h.i.+p's outer hull flying away with the violence of her shot. Perhaps Mother had found a way out through the exit wound of that first shot-it would've been her only chance.

He nodded, smiling. Staring at the viewscreen, he mentally calculated.

”Try here, Minstrel.” Kyle's finger found the last position of the Great Horned s.h.i.+p and then drew a line away from it. ”From here to here. She's drifting, if she's alive at all.”

Kyle and Jaric looked intently at the display as Minstrel focused her sensors.

The area was a good distance away from the current battlefield of dead s.h.i.+ps. The sensor sweep began, but there was nothing, not even debris.

Suddenly there was something-a debris field still traveling slowly away from them and on out into deep s.p.a.ce.

Kyle focused and magnified the image. It was part of the T'kaan s.h.i.+p Mother had destroyed; part of its outer hull sent out from the explosion.

”I'm thinking that Mother got out through the first hole she put in the s.h.i.+p,” Kyle said.

”But still, she wouldn't have escaped the full force of the final explosion,” Jaric said.

”True. But if she had any s.h.i.+elds at all... maybe. Just maybe.”

A tiny light began flas.h.i.+ng on the sensor console. Minstrel magnified it. A dark hull, blackened and damaged and completely covered with the effects of carbon-scoring, materialized.

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