Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) by Glynn Stewart (best e book reader TXT) 📕

“My old foes,” she said quietly, and gestured to the tiny moving stars out the window, not answering the question. “This fleet was gathered to fight my people. It is…strange to look at them and attempt to think of them as allies.”

Rin was silent. He couldn’t say much to that.

“I will shortly speak with the Voice and your First Fleet Lord,” she told him. “I have finally convinced my Queens. Two hundred and fifty star hives and their escorts will arrive here in ten cycles.

“If we can manage a peaceful rendezvous and cooperation, we will assemble a force such as has never been seen in this galaxy before, Professor. And yet I fear for my children.”

“You and the Republic have never stood side by side,” Rin finally murmured. “There are few forces in the galaxy I would expect to stand against you.”

“But these Infinite are not of this galaxy. They are of the galaxy that came before, the one of the Alava,” Oxtashah said softly, using that name instead of “Those Who Came Before” for the first time in Rin’s memory. “Against gods, they were victorious. Who are we to hope for victory?”

“They don’t know us,” Rin told her. “They don’t know our nations, our peoples, our ships or our strengths. As we have to learn about them, they have to learn about us—and they fell with the Alava, Princess Oxtashah. They are closer to the Mesharom than the Alava, I think.”

The Mesharom were the only survivors of the Alavan subject races. Smashed back into the Stone Age by the failure of Alavan technology, they had clawed their way back to the stars when most of even the Core Powers were figuring out how to control fire.

“And we have seen that Mesharom can die,” Oxtashah said calmly. “Thank you, Professor. I think that is what I needed to hear.”

“I’m glad to have been of help?” Rin said. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d have found that reassuring.

“There will come a time, Professor, when we may be called upon to break strictures of oaths held for a thousand turnings of the suns,” Oxtashah told him. “When the Infinite challenge all that we are and all that we hope ourselves and our children to be, we must reconsider all that has been held as decided.

“Do you understand me?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Good.” The Princess’s wings fluttered in amusement. “I hope it does not come to that.

“You will be advised of the conference, I presume,” she told him. “We will speak again soon.”

She walked away, leaving Rin Dunst staring out at the massive gas giant ahead of him and softly shaking his head. He had spent his entire adult life among nonhumans, but he still occasionally felt weirded out by aliens.

His only reassurance was the certainty that he was often just as disconcerting to them as they were to him.

Chapter Twenty-One

The final hyper transition into the Tohrohsail System released a knot of tension in Morgan’s left shoulder that she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Several other humans on Jean Villeneuve’s flag deck gave audible sighs of relief, and she suspected that most of the other crew members were giving their species’ equivalent.

Tohrohsail was safe—for now, at least. If they didn’t manage to pull together something capable of slowing the Infinite quickly, even the heavily fortified fleet base might have to be yielded while the galaxy found some scrap of unity.

“We are receiving orbit instructions from Storm Sentinel,” Nitik reported. “Grand Fleet Command is advising that orbits provided are extremely tight—we are apparently clearing space for…”

“Commander?” Tan!Stalla asked into the silence as Nitik trailed off.

“Apologies, sir,” the Ivida woman said after a moment. “Grand Fleet and First Defense Fleet are clearing space in preparation for the arrival of the Wendira Eighth, Ninth, and Fifteenth Battle Hives. Current estimate is fifteen hundred Wendira capital ships, and Tohrohsail Control doesn’t want them within three hundred thousand kilometers of the Laian fleets.”

Morgan whistled silently.

“I bet they don’t,” she said aloud. “That’s a recipe for a messy fight. Three Battle Hives… That’s at least seventy more star hives than the Laians thought were facing them across the Dead Zone.”

“And suddenly I am even more grateful that we didn’t get dragged into an ice-cursed stupid war,” Tan!Stalla agreed. “With the Grand Fleet and First Defense Fleet combined, we’d have had the edge, but it would have been much thinner than we thought.”

“Or nonexistent,” Ashmore said. “A Battle Hive can be seventy star hives…or anything up to a hundred. War-dreadnoughts are expected to reliably fight them at even masses, but three hundred star hives would be over half again Voice Tidirok’s strength.

“And the Grand Fleet isn’t that big.”

“True,” Tan!Stalla said. “Let us simply be grateful that we swim in waters where that war never happened—and those star hives and their escorts are now on our side.”

Morgan’s computer chimed as new data began to pour in.

“I’m receiving intelligence updates from Grand Fleet Command,” she reported. “Including scan data from the scout screen Sokotal left behind.” She skimmed through the data, looking for her worst possible nightmare.

It wasn’t there.

“There have been no further encounters with Infinite forces in the twelve cycles it took us to get here,” she reported. “On the other hand, they have not relocated the force that killed Pincer Korodaun. They may have returned to the Nebula, or they might be out wandering around and seeing what they find.”

“Data is what they’re finding,” Tan!Stalla said grimly. “They know as little about us as we do about them, Staff Captain, correct? Every cycle there is a bioform outside of the Astoroko Nebula, they learn more about the state of the galaxy and therefore make better plans.”

“Thank god for lightspeed delays,” Morgan muttered, looking back at her screens. “They can only learn so much.”

“That is true,” Tan!Stalla agreed. “Let us hope it is not enough.”

“Sirs, we have new orders from Storm Sentinel,” Nitik announced. “Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh has requested that Squadron Lord Tan!Stalla and Captain Morgan Casimir