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thousands of deaths that single flex had cost.
Impossibly, the cybs re-energized those beams that tore at the defense
shields, and once more white lines jabbed and sucked at the silver barrier,
and link nodes, one after another, snuffed black.
"Lines three and four at eighty-five percent."
"Holding." We had no more link reserves.
"Target flex, Ecktor! Target flex." Elanstan's recommendation sounded as
though it had been flayed from her, but she was right.
"TARGET FLEX MARK! NOW!"
Another massive energy boost, and the shield flexed, then narrowed into a
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purple shaft aimed at the cyb fleet, broad enough to cover them all.
A sunburst flared where Gamma station had been, followed by Kappa, then Beta,
as each station surrendered all the power it had and more to throw that shaft.
As the shaft reached the first Vereal Union ship, space shivered, and so did
I, as adiamante fragments sprayed space, releasing more energy.
I ignored, heart-pounding, the slumped body that had been Crucelle, as I tried
to keep that energy focused into its destructive form.
A second cyb-ship went and a third.
More figures slumped around the control center, more souls backblazed into
oblivion as the shield energies coruscated across where the cyb fleet had
been and rebounded.
Elanstan and Rhetoral said nothing, screamed nothing, but their deaths were
like two black arrows through me.
My skull was flayed open, my eyes were blind, streaming tears of acid burned
my skin, and I sat there blind and deaf, dumb, for a time. My mouth was dry.
Let's see," murmured the fleet commander. "Weapons, hold ten percent of
busters. Hold ten, and release the rest."
"Ninety away, Commander."
Gibreal watched as the ninety torps with the tach-heads flashed forth. Sets of
white-dashed lines flared on the screens, like ancient spiderwebs dropping
down to bracket Old Earth.
"No!" protested the envoff too late, as the cyb commander hammered her into
mental jelly with his overrides.
Twelve purple-white globes flared into existence beyond Old Earth, and from
each stabbed lines of purple-white fire. Where each line intersected an
accelerating torp, a star-point of light, an instant mini-nova, flared.
"Helpless? Helpless demis? Hardly."
A single white-purple band appeared around the image of Old Earth held in the
ops and weapons screens and in the shipnet: a band like an antique halo,
except that it circled the planet beyond the atmosphere and directly above the
planetary equator.
"Analyze!" snapped Weapons.
"Systems unknown," answered MYL-ERA. "Energy output equivalent to . . ." The
exact number exceeded verbal translations and was projected directly to the
networkers.
". . . more than a dozen fleets . . ."
"Sanitize!" snapped Gibreal. The fleet commander scanned the screens before
him in his personal command center, and those he could touch on the net,
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dismissed both the backup visuals cursorily, and attempted to gauge the
enormous power represented by the single white-purple band that arced around
the globe that was Old Earth.
More torps flared into energy, but not all of the ninety launched initially.
"Dispersal one," ordered the fleet commander.
"Dispersal one beginning," confirmed Weapons, phasing the scout launches so
that only a single ship had open locks at one time.
The energy humming from the white-purple band around Old Earth seemed to
vibrate space itself, setting up a resonance in the Gibson that blurred
Gibreal's visual images on the net, where clarity was never lacking.
"Network at one hundred ten percent of capacity," announced MYL-ERA. "Dropping
non-ops nodes."
The net resonance decreased, but a fuzzy edge remained around the net visuals,
and hissing permeated every word and concept hurled along the energy channels
and even along the backup fibrelines.
"Power particle beams."
At Gibreal's command, the full output of hundreds of fus-actors within the
adiamante hulls of the Vereal fleet transferred pure energy into a dozen lines
of white hell that flared toward Old Earth.
With those energy lines appeared a second purple-white band, snapping into
place at right angles to the first, so that Old Earth beneath the energy flows
was divided into quarters.
Then came a third band, and a fourth, and the four bands created a shimmering
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