Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9), Glynn Stewart [reading well .TXT] 📗

odds are fucked,” Morgan agreed bluntly. “But it’s the only chance I see.”

She gestured for Litcha to record and leaned into the microphone.

“I am Division Lord Morgan Casimir of the A!Tol Imperial Navy,” she told the Infinite firmly. “I am not and have never been a slave. The Nest Burners, the Alava, destroyed themselves fifty thousand years ago.

“We serve no one. We defend ourselves against you and the war you bring to us.”

She ended the recording and considered whether that was the right tack to take for several seconds.

In the end, she shook her head. It was what her stepmother would have done.

“Send it,” she ordered.

The response would be faster now. They were sliding closer and closer to the extreme range at which they could fire—and Morgan had few illusions. There were hundreds of bioforms pursuing her, including some of the largest she’d ever seen.

When their singularity teleporters came into range of her fleet, they were all going to die.

“We have a response, sir,” Litcha said quietly. “Playing.”

“TinyLife in DeadFlesh are ever slaves and ever bound. And you say this is no more?” The Queen’s voice was curious more than angry. “If not NestBurners, what did we destroy? Why do you fight?”

Every eye on Odysseus’s flag bridge was on Morgan as she breathed and thought.

“Range?” she asked.

“Nine light-thousandth-cycles.”

“All right. All non-Imperial ships will go to maximum velocity at eight light-thousandth-cycles,” Morgan ordered calmly. “The battleships will go to full sprint at seven light-thousandth-cycles.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t like leaving the Wendira and Laians behind, but what else can we do?” she asked rhetorically. “We buy time.”

Her task group began to separate on her screen as the Core Power ships pulled ahead by five percent of lightspeed.

“And the Queen?” Rogers asked.

“We keep talking,” Morgan replied. “Litcha, get ready to transmit.”

Everyone turned to their tasks and Morgan marshaled her thoughts, trying to find not just the words that would save her fleet…but potentially the words that could end the war.

The Queen hadn’t spoken to anyone else, after all.

“We came here with weapons of great power,” Morgan finally said. “We came here to destroy you and your nest, to save our children and our nests from the war you have brought to us.

“We did not choose this lightly, but your attacks upon our worlds left us no choice. We did not wish this war, but we will destroy you to protect our own.”

She gestured for Litcha to send the message before she could rethink it, and caught herself holding her breath as the lightspeed lag passed.

“Battleships are activating sprint mode,” Rogers told her. “We are now holding the range at seven light-thousandth-cycles.” The Staff Captain paused. “Do you think this is the right track to take, sir?”

“I don’t know,” Morgan confessed. “But I feel like lies might save us…but the truth might save everyone.”

They passed the twenty-minute mark and Morgan did hold her breath. No response came. Silence.

“Sir,” Ort said slowly. “The Infinite…they’ve cut their velocity to point-six-five. They’ve matched vee and course with the Wendira-Laian formation and are holding the range at seven light-thousandth-cycles.”

“What?” Morgan asked. “That makes no…”

“Incoming message.”

Litcha didn’t even ask. They played the message instantly.

“We… The Infinite know you, TinyLife DivisionLordMorganCasimir,” the Queen said. “You were the first to find us. When we were desperate. When we were mad. And you spoke then as you speak now.

“Those who came after you did not speak. They unleashed fire upon the Infinite. Only fire has passed between the Infinite and those we believed were NestBurnerSlaves since.

“And NestBurner weapons have been turned upon us, and you bore death into our very nests. We know you, TinyLife DivisionLordMorganCasimir, but no other TinyLife has attempted speech except the afraid.”

“Oh, good, they remember me,” Morgan said faintly. “Which Alavan weapon did we turn on them?”

“I don’t know,” Rogers admitted. “But that might fit with our original assumption that Swarm Charlie had been badly defeated. They might well have been relocating her and the Cat-Sevens when we started looking like a handy contained sample for a discussion.”

“Fuck.” Morgan looked at the main display. The Queen was holding position at seven light-thousandth-cycles—basically ten light-minutes from the closest of Morgan’s ships. The Infinite were clearly waiting for something. “Would you believe me if I told you that the people who shot at you were rogues, given that I don’t think we’ve tried to talk to them since?”

“To be fair, they shot first when they met Tan!Stalla,” Rogers pointed out. “Everybody has been real trigger-happy. Facing the unknown does that.”

“Fuck,” Morgan repeated. “And yet…she’s waiting because she wants to hear what we have to say.”

“Yep. All on you, Division Lord. Did your stepmother teach you how to handle impossible negotiations with overwhelming force?”

“Yeah. Have a trump card,” Morgan replied. “I don’t have one. All I have is the truth.”

“Then make that your trump card, sir,” Rogers suggested. “Because so far…it’s working.”

Morgan inhaled and nodded.

“Right. Litcha, record, please.”

She leaned into the microphone again.

“We met here, you and I,” she told the Infinite. “Among the ring of stars that trapped you for fifty thousand years. I offered peace and you fired on my ship. Those who came after were hunters, renegades like the ship I destroyed inside that same ring of stars.”

That she’d fought and destroyed a conspirator cruiser in the Eye before realizing the Infinite were there should help, she hoped.

“They came for the Nest Burner ships you destroyed fifty thousand years ago,” she told the Infinite. “To turn those ships upon our nests and betray their kin. As I suspect you know some Nest Burners did.

“I offered you peace once, and you unleashed fire upon me. When our ships met yours again, you unleashed fire once more without a word of warning. This is all the Infinite’s doing, and everything we have done has been to defend our nests.”

Morgan paused, breathing in as she reached for the right words.

“Is there another way?”

The message left, winging its way across ten light-minutes of the void as Morgan refused to even dare