The Blind Gods
Copyright© 2025 by Wau
Chapter 98: Amor Fati
The captain had passed along the instruction: that those who could rest should do so during the next two days. Officially, they were ascending, system by system, along a fifteen-day route toward Earth.
At the end of the two days, they cut all Drift communication and used, between the two Endymions, an old-fashioned radio link.
The fleet had reached a point called Omega, located in the immense empty interstellar plain. From the special operations tactical room of the Endymion, Andreï had one of the three Exocets they had left among the Wau’s gifts sent out.
The Exocet, invisible, had Drifted to Caliban, collected information, and was now displaying it on a screen. In addition to Tohil and Pallas and two security officers from the Alké, there was Judea, an exceptional tactician with red hair in a bun and eyes replaced by steel who, legend said, had stood against the Aleph out of a taste for challenge.
“Let no information leave this room,” Andreï had murmured as he requested the report to appear.
Caliban was surrounded by sixty-one Endymions, including the Gilgamesh, famous for housing a Chimera Protea and nuclear fusion bombs capable of leveling a continent. Informally, the Gilgamesh was considered the flagship of the Stellar Fleet. Small luminous sticks on the radar report, they encircled the entire planet evenly, perpendicular to the surface, thus able to project collected asteroids both onto the surface and onto any approaching ship.
Only the Gilgamesh wandered around the equator in high orbit.
The silence that followed the collected information was eloquent. But since someone had to state the obvious, Tohil spoke.
“We’re done for.”
“Perfect,” Judea said with an icy smile. “Earth is no longer under the protection of the Gilgamesh. Let’s Drift and crash our frigate onto Origin.”
“So that the Aleph saves Earth from its attackers and becomes an even greater Messiah?” Pallas asked.
“To show that the Resistance exists and can strike at any moment,” Judea replied firmly.
Andreï was scribbling on a piece of paper. As they looked at him, he stood up, folding the paper in question.
“Uh, all right,” he said.
“All right what, Captain?” Tohil asked.
“We’re going to attack, aren’t we?”
After a silence, Judea asked, spacing her words:
“What is your plan?”
“Don’t be frightened by the number of sixty-one ships. They are very far from each other. They are slow. They believe, rightly, that our forces are reduced. They believe Ravzan is ready to overturn the situation. And we have major advantages. Surprise. Our Drift calculations on the fly. And our courage.”
“Our courage?” Tohil repeated incredulously.
“Yes, that’s a way of saying we do not work for a half-mad guy. (His eyes drifted into the distance.) This is not won. It is not simple. But I see a path. If only we had the Wau. Or one more little wild card ... any one. So that we’d have our hands free to demand their surrender ... but here is the pure exercise of war: we go from desperate situations to desperate situations. Come on, officers, all hands on deck.”
Tohil summoned the entirety of the Resistance Fleet’s forces for an address. He simply said:
“You must know Captain Andreï of the Alecto. I appoint him Admiral of the Stellar Fleet, meaning he is now my superior, and the one responsible for all our forces. I now give him the floor.”
Captain Andreï, for those not directly in front of him on the officers’ deck of the Alké, appeared on all screens. He looked neither tired nor in shape, neither combative nor fearful, rather ordinary.
Everyone-former members of the League, partisan Xenos, defiant or admiring officers, weary or terrified sailors-stared at him in silence.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.