The Phébus abruptly exited Drift into the orbit of Camerone-1, a large pale orange planet streaked with ribbons of clouds, its bright color standing out against the backdrop of billions of stars. There, the meager fleet of the Resistance had gathered: two Endymions, one Invictus, and several warships that looked like insects beside these three giants.
Ada wasn't very good at piloting-in fact, she pushed the controls as if she were fighting them and snapped at the onboard LE systems. The Wau offered to transmit piloting data to her telepathically, but she leapt up, shouting:
- "Keep your hands off my head, Wau!"
He limited himself to giving her basic advice-but she learned very fast. She was very intelligent. If I had her brain at her age, I would have already found a way to counter Aleph.
The Wau announced a recognition code, and the Adventura clumsily entered a hangar, scraping the metal floor. The door opened, and crew members rushed toward the newcomers. They looked at the Wau with hope, holding their breath: perhaps he was the true secret weapon that could change the course of the war.
One of them, Lene, stepped forward and saluted:
- "The Androids have been sent, but I'm not sure the situation has been restored on the Alecto."
- "I have the situation under control, officer. Could you give your best FAM to my companion?"
- "Uh, the best one? Is she part of the Fleet?"
- "She's Gorylkin."
- "The Gorylkin who slaughtered our people on Orion Prime?"
- "The same. Lucky she's on our side now. Where is Tohil?"
- "On the bridge, Wau."
He headed to the bridge. Lene, an older officer with a long, straight beard already turning gray, bowed without saluting Gorylkin, finding it hard to believe that this young woman was the legend. Later, they would become friendly, because she was attentive and reserved like any good student, and obeying orders, he gave her his best FAM-his own-a model from two hundred years ago, back when they were still experimental, and when a daring engineer had fitted it with a mini Transient universal fabricator. Thus, it no longer needed to be loaded with mercury or other liquid or liquefied metal to form a propelled sphere-it created one on its own by drawing in the air around and inside the barrel, making it almost completely silent. This weapon of death had a name, engraved in Arabic letters on the stock: Ezrail, Lene told her. The Angel of Death.
At the same time, the Wau appeared on the command bridge of the Endymion, a vast bay that opened onto the six cardinal points of space, the last, the nadir, being projected on a massive screen at the ten o'clock position. The bridge was bustling with crew tracking ship movements, Drift signatures, and projecting simulations. Tohil, standing on a platform above the chaos, spotted the Wau and declared:
- "Thanks for launching the assault, old man. I was itching to go at them!"
He shouted, and most of the crew on the bridge perked up at the sound of the giant warrior's neutral voice:
- "By the Blind Gods," swore the Wau, "tell me you did send the message explaining this was an act of the Brotherhood."
- "Of course I did. Stroke of genius. They've lost one Endymion, and they'll go after the Brotherhood. They've got a fleet, right? With some luck, those half-baked pirates will damage one or two more."
- "Those half-baked pirates," the Wau replied coldly, "have a fleet a hundred times larger than ours, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of men, entire planets, and at least six chimera protea I've seen with my own eyes."
- "Even better!"
- "Why, Admiral, why did you destroy the Endymion Hades when I explicitly ordered you not to?"
- "Well, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Do you think you're the great strategist of the Stellar Fleet? We have a chain of command here, and you've been an intruder from your very first intervention!"
- "Admiral, you have a narrow-if not petty-view of a war between the 'good guys,' which you think you represent, and the 'bad guys,' those supporting Aleph. But on the other side, they won't surrender. They won't switch sides. They'll fight to the last. And on the other side, they are men, who like you, are convinced they're on the right side-men who, a few months ago, were under your command and will see your aggression as a betrayal. You can't win by killing them! How many sailors here have a brother, sister, father, or mother in the Stellar Fleet? Will your men open fire, knowing they might kill their kin?"
- "They'll do it because it's their duty, or because I'll put an automag on their necks."
- "Such words, Admiral, are worthy of the blood-soaked strategies of the pre-stellar era."
- "We are at war, for God's sake! And they know it better than I do!" Tohil shouted.
He gestured to the crew on the bridge, who then stiffened and watched the pair-far too transparent about the nervousness behind the Resistance's strategies.
- "You can win battles without fighting them. Next time, Admiral, use electromagnetic weapons if I ask you to. Praise the Blind Gods, this bloody, even bloodthirsty, attack is supposed to be the Brotherhood's doing. And when it comes to war, I'm sorry to say, but I'm more competent than you. Don't take it personally-I'm aided by numerous AIs that surpass all military ones. Every time you doubt the Wau Order, remember Lennox."
He turned to leave, and Tohil called after him, slapping his back:
- "And where exactly do I find those EM rounds, big guy? Pull them out of my ass? Because I don't know if you've noticed, but these last months, the entire fleet's been busy planting goddamn tomatoes in rock-hard soil to avoid starving to death!"
- "You had no EM rounds? You should've started with that. In that case, we'll share the responsibility for these deaths."
A few steps later, he crossed paths with the other Admiral in a corridor.
- "I'm leaving for a month, Ravzan. Count five weeks, even. Admiral, the Brotherhood might contact you. Make allies of them," said the Wau.
After a few preparations, Gorylkin, the Wau, Ravzan, and even Tohil-grumbling-said their farewells. Ada left with her Xenos aboard the Adventura, and the Wau took flight in his unique Halcyon model, heading for a distant, unexplored galaxy, until now guarded by the Transients-and perhaps guarding, in turn, the Rifle he had always been searching for.