Petra established a communication link between the Wau and Andreï. The images were striking, for the Wau transmitted what he was seeing even as he spoke: he had just smashed through the upper hull of the Sedna, carving himself a straight path through the cruiser by breaking down walls, passing sailors with terrified expressions, guards unable even to react given his speed. With every impact, the image flickered, and a loud noise could be heard.
- "Are other Waus going to come?" asked Andreï. - "No." - "You have a plan?" - "At most a vague objective: saving your skin." - "Are you the Wau I know?" - "Yes." - "I thought… you had been killed on Camerone." - "Indeed. Hence my delay."
The Wau had reached the main generator of the Endymion - a large spherical room, usually hermetically sealed by welds to prevent accidents or sabotage. At the center of the sphere lay the secret heart of the immense cruisers of the fleet: another sphere of metal, of an absolute black, where antimatter, nanogram by nanogram, fell into a magnetic hourglass to meet matter and produce an energy unlike any other.
The Wau wrapped both his arms around the sphere - he was four times smaller than it - and pulled. Terrifying screeches echoed, and the image became covered in artifacts, then whitened. The intense radiation of the reactor was beginning to interfere with communications.
Andreï looked at his hands. Were they burning? No. They hurt. But it was only a bit of stress. The cancer would come later. Except for the poor sailors aboard the Sedna.
The Sedna, moreover, faded out, becoming a dark grey shape in the obscurity of space - now just a drifting block of metal without purpose. There it was: like a murmuration of birds, a hundred escape pods deployed laterally and shot into space. The image returned, and the Wau struck a lateral bulkhead to reach the exterior. With a carefully calculated push, he gathered tremendous momentum and leapt toward the next Endymion, the Eos, which had already understood the problem and had just disengaged its grappling system.
By pushing the Sedna, the Wau had induced a very slight rotation in its immense hull, a rotation that would align, in about twenty minutes, directly in front of the Alké - with the Perun and the Amaterasu, it was now shielded on three sides.
- "You took eight minutes to disable the Sedna," said Andreï. "Even if the whole fleet returns here, in half a day, it's over."
- "I won't hold indefinitely, and certainly not an hour at this pace, Andreï. I'm going to have to slow down. Negotiate a surrender."
Andreï requested another communication with Gulmira, who accepted immediately. The gaze of the Admiral of the Stellar Fleet was not fixed on the comm-screen.
- "I propose a cease-fire," declared Andreï, to the officers' astonishment. "All I require is to land a ship on Caliban safely."
- "You think your little metal soldier is going to change the course of the battle? You know perfectly well that if I place all my Endymions at equal distance around the Alké and send them all at once, he might disable one or two before we crush you. We are conducting the positioning maneuvers right now, and the Eos has been evacuated."
An aide-de-camp approached Gulmira and murmured something to her; she nodded, then cast a weary glance toward the communication feed.
- "Give me your surrender, I beg you."
- "More Waus are coming, Gulmira."
This time it was Pallas who came to whisper in Andreï's ear. She spoke too quietly to be heard, but conveyed the information psychically:
"My Admiral, security has found eight intact fusion bombs aboard the Perun."
Andreï nodded, and Gulmira continued:
- "Other ships are coming, Andreï, but not Waus. Call me back when you are ready to surrender. In the meantime, I am counting carefully the number of deaths caused by your stubbornness."
She cut the communication. Andreï requested a radar map of the system. Yes - there was a swarm of ships emerging from Drift at the Jerimadeth waypoint, meaning from the far side of the Caliban system. At first, Andreï thought it was a missile deployment or an error from the LE control systems, but the dots grew, and there were hundreds… more than that, even…
- "Approximately two thousand seven hundred ships," declared Milovan over the comm. "But what fleet is this?"
- "They're small… Tygers?" asked Pallas.
- "No," answered Andreï. "Ozys, of course. The Brotherhood."
The Wau had pushed the Eos as he had the Sedna toward the Alké. He now stood, outside, on the hull of the Endymion, one knee on the metal, as if catching his breath.
A universal broadcast began. On screen one saw the interior of a luxurious Ozymandias, lacquered wood. In the foreground, beside a helmsman, draped in an open emerald kimono patterned with dragons, stood a man who seemed young in years but old in the trials he had endured. He was missing one or two fingers. His blond hair was encircled by a crown of hyperchalk, and he had undoubtedly been very handsome.
- "I am Dorian, Sovereign of the Planet Royale, Lord of the Far Throne, Commander of the Fleet of the Brotherhood of the Two Worlds… and servant of the Aleph. To Captain Andreï: we have two thousand seven hundred and twenty-one Ozymandias ships, counting my own, all loaded with missiles. We request that you surrender unconditionally, or we will proceed with a coordinated assault."
Once again, Andreï remained silent. A part of him noted that he had been right about the Brotherhood, and that thousands of Ozys did, in fact, weigh heavily in a battle - contrary to the beliefs of the dinosaurs of the Stellar Fleet, who thought that the larger the ship, the greater the leverage.
Rascar, an android officer returned from the After, declared that Dorian's fleet would be within missile range in twenty minutes. Higher above the system's orbital plane, the Endymions - being closer - could have charged, but Andreï estimated that Gulmira, already somewhat battered by her many losses, intended to let Dorian take priority in the assault and its potential risks.
In twenty minutes, one could negotiate. The admiral opened a channel:
- "Your Majesty Dorian, could you enlighten me as to why you have aligned yourself with the Aleph? Don't tell me he bought you with thalers."
- "Talking is not going to stop our advance, Captain Andreï."
He spoke with the accent of Earth's elite dwelling in places of opulence - a gentle-eyed aristocracy.
- "I am personally grateful to the Aleph, and I acknowledge his benevolence."
- "Your Majesty Dorian, am I to understand that you support the conquests of the Xeno planets, even their extermination, the toppling of the government, and the summary executions? Carpe Universum?"
Pallas jolted. He knew the motto. But of course. Andreï had once had a first and last name; he had belonged to a great Terran family; he must have known the Emprise on the Universities of Earth or Prospero.
- "My heart is gentle. I do not aspire to conquest, nor even to power. I refused the position that is mine. I am a King in order to serve the Aleph. I know that HS expansion never occurs without prior diplomacy. I know that the former government let me rot for years. Gorylkin, your heroine, delivered me to torture."
Andreï flinched in surprise.
- "And as for the summary executions, I could not deny them, for I saw one with my own eyes. But the man summarily executed by the Aleph was the most appalling, most sadistic, and most vile tyrant in the history of humanity. The Aleph is a savior, and I will not hesitate one second to launch all my missiles at those who oppose him, and oppose HS."
Andreï cut the communication and exhaled. So much for negotiation. He suffered somewhat from this speech - not because he doubted the Aleph, but because it reminded him of the boundless devotion Garen Antor once inspired in his followers before driving them mad until they killed themselves.
- "I suppose you cannot hop from Ozy to Ozy with your Halcyon?" Andreï asked the Wau.
- "I can, but unlike the Endymions, ten will pass every time I stop one."
- "What about placing high-magnitude explosives inside their formation?"
- "What kind of weapons are we talking about, Admiral Andreï?" asked the Wau, his voice slower than usual.
- "We have eight nuclear fusion bombs and a ton of antimatter."
The Wau remained silent for a few seconds. His voice, when it returned, sounded sad but firm.
- "Admiral, the Wau Order protects humanity. I cannot use a weapon of mass destruction against humans in its service. I heard Dorian's answer, Andreï. I know exactly what kind of man Garen Antor is, but if you atomize two thousand ships, from a semi-civilian fleet, I am sorry, but I will see no difference between him and you."
- "Thank you, Wau, for resetting the clock. Sometimes I get lost in my tactical games and forget the essential. You just saved them."
- "You are making the right choice, Admiral. Are you going to surrender?"
- "Wau, if things turn bad, could you go to Caliban?"
- "Find the Empyrean Gates?"
- "You know everything. Yes, find the Empyrean Gates. And counter the Aleph. Do a Wau's job, basically!"
- "Sorry for being less efficient than expected. But I am back. You've done a great job, Andreï. Who knows… maybe I'll be your lawyer at your trial? When the Aleph is no more. You may safely submit to their terms of surrender. The Order will request good treatment for you."
- "Death has softened you, my old friend. Wau… you know me… we will not surrender!"
And, before the astonished eyes of the metal giant, the immense cannon of the Endymion hurled the eight nuclear fusion bombs toward the fleet of the Brotherhood.