Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

world’s
tectonic faults has given way, all at once.’
    Admiral Kard eyed me. ’You must forgive Commissary Xera. She does
think of the universe as a textbook, set out before us for our
education.’
    He was rewarded for that with a glare.
    I kept silent, uncomfortable. Everybody knows about the strained
relations between Navy, the fighting arm of mankind’s Third
Expansion, and Commission, implementer of political will. Maybe that
structural rivalry was the reason for this impromptu walk-through, as
the Commissary jostled for influence over events, and the Admiral
tried to score points with a display of his fighting troops.
    Except that right now they were my troops, not his.
    To her credit, Xera seemed to perceive something of my resentment.
’Don’t worry, Lieutenant. It’s just that Kard and I have something of
a history. Two centuries of it, in fact, since our first encounter on
a world called Home, thousands of light years from here.’
    I could see Lian look up at that. Two centuries? According to the
book, nobody was supposed to live so long. I guess at seventeen you
still think everybody follows the rules.
    Kard nodded. ’And you’ve always had a way of drawing subordinates
into our personal conflicts, Xera. Well, we may be making history
today. Neer, look at the home sun, the frozen star.’
    I frowned. ’What’s a frozen star?’
    The Commissary made to answer, but Kard cut across her. ’Skip the
science. You know the setup here. The Expansion reached this region
five hundred years ago. When our people down there called for help,
the Navy responded. That’s our job.’ He had cold artificial Eyes, and
I sensed he was testing me. ’And those Xeelee units are swarming like
flies. We don’t know why the Xeelee are here. But we do know what
they are doing to this human world.’
    ’That’s not proven,’ Xera snapped.
    Of course she was right. One of our objectives, in fact, was to
pick up proof that the Xeelee were responsible for the calamities
befalling the colonists on this battered world, Shade. But even so I
could see my people stir at the Admiral’s words. There had been
tension between humanity and Xeelee for centuries, but none of us had
ever heard of a direct attack by the Xeelee on human positions.
    Lian said boldly, ’Admiral, sir.’
    ’Yes, rating?’
    ’Does that mean we are at war?’
    Admiral Kard sniffed up a lungful of ozone-laden air. ’After
today, perhaps we will be, at long last. How does that make you feel,
rating?’
    Lian, and the others, looked to me for guidance. I looked into my
heart.
    Across seven thousand years of the Third Expansion humans had
spread out in a great swarm through the Galaxy, even reaching the
halo beyond the main disc, overwhelming other life forms as we
encountered them. We had faced no opponent capable of systematic
resistance since the collapse of the Silver Ghosts - none but the
Xeelee, the Galaxy’s other great power, who sat in their great
concentrations at the Core, silent, aloof.
    This had been the situation for five thousand years. In my officer
training I’d been taught the meaning of such numbers - for instance,
that was an interval as long as that between the invention of writing
and the launch of the first spaceships from Earth. It was a long
time. But the Coalition was older yet, and its collective memory and
clarity of purpose, all held together by the Druz Doctrines, even
across such inhuman spans of time, was flawless. Marvellous when you
thought about it.
    And now - perhaps - here I was at the start of the final war, the
war for the Galaxy. What I felt was awe. Also fear, maybe. But that
wasn’t what the moment required.
    ’I’ll tell you what I feel, sir. Relief. Bring it on! ’
    That won me a predictable hollering, and a slap on the back from
Kard. Xera studied me blankly, her face unreadable.
    Then there was a flare of plasma around the blister, and the ride
got a lot bumpier. The Spline was entering the planet’s atmosphere. I
sat before I was thrown down, and the loadmaster at last hustled away
the brass.
     
    ’Going in hard,’ called the loadmaster. ’Barf bags at the ready.
Ten minutes.’
    We were skimming under high, thin, icy clouds. The world had
become a landscape of burning mountains and rivers of rock that fled
beneath me. All this in an eerie silence, broken only by the shallow
breaths of the marines.
    The ship lurched up and to the right. To our left now was a
mountain; we had come so low already