Nothing. The sky was empty. The sky that should have been filled with the Equatorial High Crystal and all the tens of thousands of beating wings and happy faces and … all of it gone, leaving a soul-hollowing emptiness in the sky.
The ship turned away, reluctantly it seemed to me, though of course a crystal, even the EmCee, has no life, no emotion.
We raced along at supersonic speeds toward an intercept with our sister, Equatorial High Crystal Two. We slowed in anticipation and found nothing but empty sky.
Another vector, another slow realization that where a thriving crystal should be was nothing but empty sky.
Around the planet. Station after station. Orbit after orbit. Race, then slow. Search an empty sky. Accept the unacceptable with mounting horror.
Twelve crystals gone. How many lives lost? Was anyone alive? Was anyone left alive anywhere?
We hit a cloud bank, a three-day bank where our recent dance partner, Polar Orbit High Crystal, should be. Maybe the cloud bank had hidden them, saved them.
We eased our way forward. I knew every eye was straining, searching. Surely if they knew of the alien attack the Polars would kill momentum and stay within the cloud.
We emerged into an oasis of sky. One of those wonderful clear holes that the bigger cloud banks sometimes develop. Polar Orbit High was there. It was moving as fast as it could, every wing beating, racing to cross the oasis and find shelter in the far towering cliff of clouds. But the airfoil was more a concept than a reality, and the Polars moved no faster than any crystal could.
The Capasin ship was two hundred yards above. Watching. Waiting.
“Why don’t they attack?” I demanded. “Why do they wait?”
“Some creatures enjoy the hunt,” Lackofa said with professional dispassion. “Some take pleasure from the kill.”
Just do your slaughter, I raged impotently. Was it funny to them? Were the filthy aliens laughing as they watched the frail-winged creatures trying to move their home away at a fuzzball’s pace?
Suddenly the Crate’s sensors came alive. Farsight had lowered the force field and the Crate’s sensors, liberated, were picking up data from the surrounding environment.
It was our signal. Our signal to … to do what, exactly?
I swallowed stale air and said, “Lackofa. Thrust.”
“What?”
“Thrust. Fifty percent.”
The result nearly crumpled us both. The Crate kicked forward. The dead alien rolled onto his belly. We blew away from the EmCee and shot toward Polar Orbit High Crystal.
My turn. I worked the controls with my two hands and very quickly discovered that my guesses about their function had been wrong. We arced downward at an airspeed just below supersonic.
“Pull up!”
“I know!” I yelled.
I twisted the stick and with a death shudder the Crate bottomed out, took the gees, and blew skyward again. I trimmed and we were aimed for the Capasin ship, still going way too fast.
No. I was thinking like a Ketran, not a Capasin. Engines not wings. A box not a body. More speed, not less.
“Increase to seventy-percent thrust.”
“Are you crazy?”
“DO IT!”
Faster! Up and up and was I right about the weapons controls? Was I going to annihilate my own ship or, worse yet, hit the poor, fleeing Polars?
I squeezed a finger around a protruding ring.
The beam drew a perfect line through the air and hit the Capasin ship. There was a small explosion on the steel surface twenty feet back from the dagger’s point.
I twisted and bellied the Crate out to zoom along the spine of the Capasin ship.
A shameful part of my mind thought, Now, this is a game!
It was a game. Like nothing I’d ever played. But it helped to think of it as a game. Don’t think of it as lives, actual lives. It’s only a game. When it’s all over Inidar and I will laugh and …
Only Inidar was dead, wasn’t he? And everyone … everyone.
I took my momentum and held it through a turn, making unchecked leeway that carried me a mile before I could engage thrust again. The leeway was a surprise. Not like winged flight.
I zoomed back, but the Capasin ship wasn’t going to give me another free move. It was turning to meet us. Its much more powerful beam would soon be trained on us.
And yet, in this game perhaps the edge went to the smaller target? No way to know. I was guessing. Intuiting. Large, slow ship with powerful beam versus small, more maneuverable ship with a stinger. Who wins that game?
I fired. Missed!
“Take your time, aim carefully,” I said.
“Do what?” Lackofa cried, hands clutching, blue-knuckled at the controls.
“Reverse thrust! Now!”
The alien body slammed into the back of my pods. But I kept my eyes on the window and saw the pale beam lance harmlessly by. I had made them miss!
Okay, then. That was the game. If my edge was maneuverability, I’d better maneuver.
The Capasins were surface dwellers, had to be. They flew their ships like surface dwellers, more in two dimensions than three.
“Up thrust. Twist it right and … yeah, like that!”
The Crate moved straight up, breaking free of the Capasin ship’s plane. I tilted the nose of the Crate down and fired. A hit!
An engine. I’d hit an engine. Sizzling sparks and burning gases blowtorched from the hole. The engine pod blew apart. The Capasin ship spun, wild, out of control.
“They’re disabled!” Lackofa cried triumphantly.
I fired again. Not thinking. Not intellectualizing the decision, just knowing. I fired and the beam missed.
“What are you doing? She’s disabled,” Lackofa said.
Careful aim this time. I fired and held the ring down. The Capasin ship blew apart, a thousand small fragments.
“Now she’s disabled,” I whispered.
I glanced and saw Lackofa’s horrified stare. I couldn’t share it. It wasn’t coldness on my part, I just knew the game and he didn’t. The Capasins could have fired again and killed us. They could have fired flechettes at the crystal.
“The only win is a kill,” I said. “That’s the game. It’s their game.
