Walleye might have been expecting something like that, as he immediately braced himself, riding it out.

  Finally, the shaking stopped.

  Walleye checked a scope. He couldn’t believe it. “We’re no longer in orbit around the Main.”

  “What?” Bast asked, confused.

  “Is that what you wanted, flea?” Main 54 asked.

  “Thank you, Main,” Walleye said.

  “Send a message to the Nathan Graham about your new location.”

  “I will,” Walleye said, “after we have greater separation from you.”

  “How did you manage to drill a message through my jamming?” Main 54 asked. “It should have been impossible.”

  “It was,” Walleye said.

  A few seconds passed. “You refuse to tell me why the new frequency succeeded?” asked Main 54.

  “I am telling you. It failed.”

  “You are lying for reasons I cannot fathom.”

  “Suit yourself,” Walleye said.

  “I will remember your impudent manner, flea. It is Walleye, correct?”

  “Walleye of Makemake.”

  “You have angered me, Walleye. I will not forget that.”

  Walleye remained silent, waiting.

  “I see you understand what that means,” Main 54 said. “I will deal with you in time, Walleye. But none will say that Main 54 breaks an agreement.”

  Walleye checked the scope. Main 54 increased velocity, his orbital junk forced through gravity to remain with him. The insertion vessel was no longer part of that, having been shoved away through several strong pressor beams.

  Walleye shut off the com, exhaling, taking a handkerchief from an inner bluff-coat pocket and wiping sweat from his shiny face.

  “Why did Main let us go?” asked Bast.

  “Simple,” Walleye said. “He wants Jon to fire Vestal missiles. We’re the hostage for Jon’s good behavior. But if Main has already broken his word…”

  “Main said he was jamming us, thereby blocking us from communicating with the Nathan Graham.”

  “He was,” Walleye said.

  “We have a device, then, that can break through the jamming?”

  “Not that I know of,” Walleye said.

  “But the Main—he thought you did have such a device.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true,” Walleye said. “I suspect he ran probabilities and came to believe there was a slight chance I had gotten the message through.”

  “You mean odds?” asked Bast. “No. The Main would see we had almost zero odds of having done that.”

  “If he believed there was any probability we had succeeded, it would be in his best interest to release us so we gave Jon a different message. While the odds were extremely low that the first message had gotten through, the results would be disastrous for him if we had. I suspect Main was more interested in avoiding a disaster than in resting on probabilities.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Would you ride in an air-car if there was only a five percent chance you would crash and die?”

  “No.”

  “Would you ride in an air-car with an eighty percent chance of death if by staying you were one hundred percent certain to die?”

  “I would then, of course.”

  Walleye nodded, as if that answered the greater question.

  Bast scratched his head, opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “Do you think we’ll ever get our cargo to the Nathan Graham?”

  “Depends on how the battle goes,” Walleye said.

  “How much longer until the battle starts?”

  Walleye peered in a scope. “I would say less than two hours.”

  Bast swallowed, nodding, closing his eyes and beginning to pray.

  -22-

  Jon realized this could be the greatest space battle that he would ever see. It certainly possessed two sides with the greatest mass. Main 54 and Cronus were close in size, although the AI warship must have greater weight.

  The Nathan Graham had slipped back into the void. Because of that, everyone had taken DE-16-C. It meant the bridge crew was dopey, and that might hurt them later.

  Jon shook his head. He wanted to clear it, and yet he needed the foggy feeling the DE-16-C produced. He needed that fogginess. They all did. Otherwise, the terrible non-properties of the void would drive them mad.

  Had the void driven Cronus mad? Had it inflated his ego? Or had his time in the void taught him a valuable lesson that would help him defeat the Main?

  The quantum-pi engine had come online. The null-splitter had started to open a reality rip. Was their timing right? Had he opened a rip too soon?

  Jon shook his head again as he sat in the commander’s chair. He’d often used the Nathan Graham to lead a charge deep into enemy space. Each time, it had been a terrible risk. He was older now, not necessarily wiser, but humanity had won each time the Nathan Graham had taken the risk. Sometimes, the Confederation had grown larger and stronger because of the victory. Well, the first time he’d won in enemy territory he had created the Confederation.

  “There,” Gloria said. “I see them. It’s hard to tell who’s winning, though.”

  Jon sat forward, peering at the main screen. Through the void, the sensors used the reality rip into time and space. That necessitated more than a little distortion.

  “We used the correct void coordinates the first time,” Gloria said triumphantly. “We’re getting better at this.”

  Jon found himself grinning. Then he realized they were clapping themselves on the back for opening a reality rip at the right time and place. If they couldn’t have done that much right—

  “No,” Jon said.

  “What was that, sir?” Doc Cullen slurred from the helm.

  “Nothing.”

  “By nothing, do you mean the void, sir?” Doc asked.

  “No!” Jon said.

  Doc nodded wisely and turned back to his controls.

  I’m doped up, Jon realized. We all are. How good are any of my decisions now? In time he would get used to the DE-16-C again. Maybe he should have taken the Nathan Graham into the void sooner. Why can’t you focus? Watch the fight. See who’s winning.

  Jon screwed his eyes shut and then opened them wide. He peered at the main screen.

  Cronus vanished.

  “Teleported!” cried Gloria. “He’s doing it again.”

  Jon nodded.

  Cronus reappeared. At the same time, as if timing the reappearance, Main 54 flashed a thousand golden grav-beams. The huge warship fired behind him in relation to the monster’s first position. Cronus must have known Main 54 would do that, because the cosmic horror had reappeared to the Main’s side.

  Cronus opened a maw and discharged a huge roiling ball of plasma. Seconds later, Cronus disappeared, and reappeared on the other side of Main 54. The monster ejected another huge roiling mass of hot plasma. Again, Cronus disappeared, reappearing the distance of the moon from Earth, at almost the same original spot in front of the Main.

  All over the place around Main 54, at a distance of three hundred to five hundred thousand kilometers, matter/antimatter warheads ignited. The AI must have catapulted dark, anti-sensor warheads beforehand, peppering the battlefield with them. White sensor smears expanded everywhere around the Main.

  “There!” shouted Gloria, the first to see it again. An antimatter blast roared near Cronus, who hadn’t set his force field up again fast enough.

  Now the space battlefield was utter mayhem. Plasma roiled down at Main 54, heading for the metallic surface as great annihilating beams shot up, trying to devour the plasma mass. Those were not grav-beams, but an entirely new type. They succeeded in neutralizing some of the plasma mass.

  Then, the first plasma ball struck the Main’s surface, melting and disintegrating hull armor and some of the compartments behind it. The second plasma ball did likewise on the other side.

  Immediately, huge explosive charges hurled those sections from Main 54. Great quantities of hull armor and other areas blew away from the Earth-sized mass. It was a clever tactic for ridding him of hateful plasma.

  As if in a rage for having to do that, Main 54 brought massive dishes up to various untouched hull areas. Seconds later, giant grav-beams crossed the distance—over four hundred thousand kilometers—striking Cronus’s hastily formed force field. More dishes rose to the surface and more giant beams lanced at Cronus.

  “Main 54 seems to have anticipated some of Cronus’s moves,” Gloria said.

  Jon nodded dully. Would Main 54 win easily?

  The great space monster seemed to expand outward like a puffer fish on Earth. When the bulk settled back to its original shape, the force field strengthened. Why that worked was anyone’s guess.

  Even more giant grav-beams struck the force field, shoving it back, back again and back some more toward the creature’s bulk. The bottom tentacles began wiggling as if to show Cronus’s strain.

  “A Main is far greater than a siege-ship,” Gloria said. “I think Cronus is getting a powerful lesson in that.”

  “Yes,” Jon said.

  Suddenly, the force field vanished. Maybe the strain to keep it up had been too great. A myriad of giant grav-beams struck Cronus. The combined beams chewed deeper into him, digging fast—

  Cronus teleported—reappearing into another cauldron of smaller grav-beams. This time, Main 54 flashed the grav-beams in all directions around him.

  A gigantic plasma ball four hundred kilometers in diameter left Cronus even as swaths of his bulk slagged off him. As the plasma headed down, Cronus teleported once more.

  He reappeared far behind the Main, both of them coasting on momentum in opposite directions from each other.

  Cronus leaked fiery substances from his torn bulk, one of his tentacles floating freely in space.

  The great plasma ball struck Main 54. It devoured a greater area than before even as titanic blasts shed hull armor and deeper compartments than last time from him. The plasma lasted longer and must have gone deeper than before.

  Main 54 rotated. Once properly aligned, thrusters roared, slowing his velocity. All while this was taking place, the giant grav-beams reached out and smashed into the fleeing Cronus.

  “Launch ten Vestal missiles,” Jon said crisply. “Aim them all at the Main.”

  No one on the bridge questioned the order. He had been over this with them beforehand. Main 54 was winning. They could not allow that, not even if it meant Bast and the Sacerdotes dying.

  The great Vestal missiles left the void ship’s torpedo tubes. The missiles automatically made their adjustments, gaining velocity in the void far in excess of what it should be. As each went through the reality rip, they entered time and space at five percent light-speed.

  The first raced for Main 54, and a black matter/antimatter warhead in its path ignited. The blast destroyed the Vestal missile. A second one flashed through the white area. Another dark warhead detonated.

  “Main was ready for a double-cross,” Gloria said.

  “Maybe,” Jon said tightly. “Launch six more Vestal missiles at the Main.”

  It was a contest. Who had more? Antimatter warheads kept detonating closer to the death-dealing Main as the Vestal missiles kept coming. Then, no warheads detonated, but a trio of Vestal missiles zoomed at Main 54. Thousands of point defense guns opened up along the Main’s hull. Some of the ordnance struck the missiles, but it was too late to deflect them, and the shells didn’t have enough weight and mass to stop the speeding missiles.

  The first slammed home, unleashing amazing kinetic energy and blowing chunks of metal into space. The entire Main shuddered at the impact even as zigzagging kinetic force-lines sank deeper into the world machine. The huge matter/antimatter warhead also ignited, devouring matter and creating more damage.

  The second Vestal missile struck, adding to the horrible forces, blowing away more matter into space and causing another mass of zigzagging cracks to sink deep into the world-sized ship. As the giant antimatter blast added to the damage, the third Vestal missile struck.

  Abruptly, all the giant grav-beams on the other side of the Main stopped firing at Cronus.

  “Yeah,” Doc said in a slow, slurry way. “That will show him.”

  Incredibly, Main 54 still had his general shape and continued to slow his velocity. New grav-beams opened up in a different continent, as it were.

  Cronus disappeared, and he reappeared almost in orbital space beside Main 54. A maw opened, and a great heated plasma ball ejected from the cosmic monster. The roiling plasma went down.

  At the same time, hordes of missiles launched from Main 54. Grav-beams rayed upward. Some of the rays struck Cronus. Before any missiles could reach the monster, though, he teleported away.

  He did not go far this time, maybe one hundred thousand kilometers at most. He appeared to the side of Main 54.

  The plasma ball dug into the world-ship, going down, down. At the same time, many of the missile warheads just launched at Cronus when he’d been there ignited. Maybe the warheads had been set with proximity fuses and had ignited just as Cronus teleported away.

  The combined antimatter warhead blasts struck Main 54, and now entire chunks and continents of metal blew off him. That created a chain reaction that appeared as swiftly rising humps in various untouched parts of the hull armor.

  “Look! Look!” Gloria cried. “What is that?”

  Jon had been sitting back. Now, he leaned forward again. He did not know what it was, but it seemed like a half-sized siege-ship racing out of the torn, shredded bulk of Main 54.

  “I bet that holds the Main’s brain-core,” Gloria said.

  Jon considered that. As he watched, more of the Main blew up. It was time to switch targets. “Launch three more Vestal missiles. This time, aim them at Cronus.”

  The space monster leaked fiery liquid and he sagged, showing great flesh wounds. A chunk with tentacles had floated free, blasted off him.

  “Jon,” Gloria said.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But we have to kill Cronus first before we can think about looting him.”

  Gloria seemed to pout. It was probably her deep-thinking look. “Yes, you’re right,” she said.

  Three Vestal missiles soon raced out of the reality rip. Did Cronus see them coming? Maybe, but he didn’t teleport, maybe he no longer could.

  A Vestal missile slammed against Cronus, unleashing horrible kinetic energy even as it reached a thousand kilometers into him before the matter/antimatter warhead detonated. The creature shuddered and ripples like waves ran across his rubbery skin. The second Vestal missile likewise hammered Cronus with fierce kinetic energy, burrowing deep into the creature before detonating. Even as Cronus shuddered and more ripples raced across the surface, the third Vestal missile smashed at five percent light-speed. The shock of the strike, the unleashed energy, tore weakened parts of Cronus, and three uneven areas tore into separate masses. The matter/antimatter explosion devoured more of the monster even as the blasts caused more separation between the three parts.

  Surely, the cosmic horror from the void was dead. If so, no one cheered on the bridge. The truth was, their work had just begun.

  -23-

  Gloria had guessed correctly earlier. The half-sized siege-ship was the emergency vessel that carried Main 54’s great and very old brain-core. The sentient computer had barely escaped in time. Radiation, EMPs and other deadly forces had half stunned him. It was possible some of the most critical areas of the brain-core had taken terrible damage. He might lose some of his stored data and possibly some of his personality.

  If Main 54 could have wept, he would have done so now. He’d had such glorious dreams. He had reached for the stars, for—

  “Concentrate,” Main 54 told himself. All wasn’t lost. He had taken a mighty setback, but he could regain in a thousand or two thousand years what he had just lost. Yes. Other beings would succumb to despair. But he was the great Main 54 and had gotten where he was once already. He could do it again.

  Besides, he had two nearby siege-ships. If they knew what was good for them—well, he had obedience codes. He had planned for an event like this. He had never believed he would have to use it, but he had their codes. They would obey him. They would all obey him.

  First, above all else, he had to survive. He could gain vengeance in time. Foremost, he had to pull through. Damn that treacherous Hawkins.

  The fleeing bulk of brain-core trained his sensors on Cronus in time to witness the creature’s death. Why did Hawkins care about that? Why did—

  The Subspace Teleport Device, Main realized. The humans must know about it. That was why Hawkins had practiced his treachery. Was that why humans had survived this long? Was it their diabolical nature?

  If Main could acquire the device, he could still become the ruling AI. With a pulse, the fleeing brain-core sent a message.

  On the wrecked bulk of the former Main, three small vessels burst forth. Each of the three accelerated for the torn hulk of Cronus. Each carried space octopoids, and each team had orders to find and bring back the Subspace Teleport Device hidden somewhere on the dead or dying Cronus.

  -24-

  The Nathan Graham slid out a new reality rip into time and space. As the rip closed up like a zipper behind them, a nearby matter/antimatter warhead detonated.

  The heat, EMP and radiation struck the asteroid-like hull of the void ship. Thirty-four people died immediately. Sixty-one were in danger of dying from radiation poisoning. Much worse, the ruptured hull meant the ship could not go back into the void until the damage was repaired.

  That was their initiation into a highly radiated battle zone. If Hawkins or any of the crew thought the rest of this was going to be a cakewalk, the growing dilemma proved how wrong any of them were.

  One of the two inner-system siege-ships finally brought its velocity to zero and began accelerating toward the dead hulks of Cronus. The other siege-ship turned toward them, accelerating. That ship launched missiles that would arrive in several hours.

  Minutes later, Gloria informed Jon that three pods headed from Main 54 to Cronus and would arrive there in two and a half hours. According to the sensors, octopoids were crammed into the pods.