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someoneGemina did accept and recognize.
Perfect.
The Valerena went to work nagging about getting a replica of herself made.
Better than being invisible would be being invisible and being able to be two
places at once.
148
Eighteen days since the destruction of the first habitat. The Outsiders had
not regained contact with the Guardship, grace of Seeker and Amber Soul.
WarAvocat had gotten ahead of the habitat and its convoy. He placed a decoy
inside a swarm of cold matter, moved on to another swarm within a stream of
very active gas.
He launched secondaries, had them pair with rocks, vanishing in their
shadows. One from your book, Kez Maefele, he muttered.
VII Geminawaited.
The Outsider scouts spotted the decoy, darted back. The convoy stole into the
hyperactive gas stream. It would be harder to detect there.
It was not the perfect ambush. The Outsiders leading vessels tripped it too
soon.
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For those it was thorough and final.
The Outsiders did what they had to do.
When the shooting stopped, one of their heavies was out and the other was
crippled. Their secondaries had spent themselves in suicide attacks so
effective WarAvocat elected to slough the Guardship s two outermost layers.
The smaller Outsider ships all suffered. Three more perished. But the habitat
made its getaway, sustaining minimal damage.
It hurried toward the neutron star whose gravity had helped create the river
of hyperactive gas.
Plodding and implacable, Hanaver Strate went after it.
The habitat was down close to the neutron star.VII Gemina could not get into
decent range. Neither Guardship nor personnel could withstand the tidal forces
that seemed no inconvenience to the methane breathers. Their habitat was
nimble enough and shielded well enough to survive everything WarAvocat threw
down there.
Forty-two days passed. WarAvocat occasionally pestered the Godspeakers with a
shower of missiles and shells. Sometimes the bombardment went on for hours. It
did no good.
149
The Valerena was in her quarters with her replica when the alarm sounded.
That s Red One. They re going to do it. Head for WarCentral so you can be
seen with WarAvocat while it s happening.
She turned to her small info screen, glad Tawn was elsewhere and did not have
to be managed.
VII Geminahit the habitat with the heaviest and most prolonged bombardment
yet. It did no harm. That was not expected. The flash and crash was meant to
keep the Godspeakers blind to what was really happening.
WarAvocat had borrowed from Kez Maefele again.
The chunk of cold matter inbound was eight kilometers by three and was moving
one hundred twelve thousand meters per second when the Godspeakers detected
it. It was too late for the habitat to prance aside.
Asteroid and habitat met head-on.
The Valerena loped passageways as naked of life as any ofVI Adjutrix s had
been. They were identically constructed. She located the nexus of nutrient
delivery for the Core. It took two minutes to inject ten cubic centimeters of
sterile freon into each of two feed lines.
She raced back to her quarters, invisible to the eyes of the thing she had
attacked.
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The physical effects of the embolisms were trivial. But Gemina forgot how to
burn starspace drives and lost track of the critical function in calculations
of how to climb onto the Web.
The door to the Valerena s quarters smashed inward. WarAvocat entered behind
his living shadow, Colonel Klass, and her permanent sidekick. The Valerena
queried, Hanaver?
You overlooked one trivial technical detail when you sent your replica to
distract me. She was a virgin. All else could be reasoned back from that.
The Valerena shrugged. So I ve failed to achieve my personal goal. The House
is safe. The Guardship had started moving just before the embolisms struck.
Helpless,VII Gemina was drifting deeper into the waste space.
I wouldn t count on that, Strate said. We hold grudges forever. Colonel.
Klass fired one shot, through the Valerena s brain.
150
Provik found him tending Midnight s grave, which he still did after all these
years. Kez Maefele, this just came in on one of our Haulers out of the New
Presidencies.
Turtle glanced at the brief document. We were overly optimistic again.
The strong survive.
Turtle read the document again.
FLEET DIRECTIVE
The Dragon Never Sleeps
WarAvocatVII GeminaJo Klass
They do, don t they?
151
Guardship:VIIGemina
Off tag end 27P29Z6 awaiting Core restructure
assistance 2/17 shipsyear 3751; year 66 of the Deified
Hanaver Strate
Dictats: The Deified Hanaver Strate, dct. 7
WarAvocat/OpsAvocat Jo Klass, dct 3
Alert Status: Yellow One
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WarCrew sleeping [.18 duty section]
Surveillance Mode: Active
Table of Contents
Glen Cook
The Dragon Never Sleeps
About this book . . .
1
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3
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5
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