Shiva In Steel by Fred Saberhagen

Author:Fred Saberhagen [Saberhagen, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 1998-11-21T07:00:00+00:00

Once the emperor asked: “Am I correct in thinking we are about eight hours in flightspace from berserker territory?”

He had begun to take an interest in the berserker situation some time ago. His interest had grown, until now he saw it not only as a menacing problem, but as a great solution to some of his other problems.

The commander’s situation holostage was in her office, some distance away, and she wasn’t about to bring this visitor there; no telling how many questions such a display might provoke. But she tried to be helpful. “From here to the berserkers’ nearest known base is eight standard hours in flightspace, given favorable conditions. Unless that’s recently changed.” A flange of dark nebula creeping in between would be one factor that could drastically slow things down, and there were several others. Here was where a little more genuine weather forecasting would help.

The emperor persisted in getting a direct answer to his original question. “Which means, I take it, that they’re only eight hours away from us as well?”

“In flightspace, it doesn’t necessarily work that way. But yes, in this case that’s approximately right. And we must assume they know we’re here.”

Over the last year or so, the berserkers had mounted some probing, harassing raids within the sector. Until recently, the Hyperborean system had been spared. Of course berserker recon devices might have come and gone at any time, managing to escape detection. “If they’ve come near, they never got close enough to this rock to activate our ground-based shields and weapons.” Berserkers, like Solarians, or like any other force waging war, had to budget their available assets, concentrate their efforts in the areas judged to be of the greatest importance.

The commander went on: “So far, they haven’t made any serious move against this base. Maybe they intend to do so soon. Or maybe they’re content for now just to maintain an outpost on Summerland, while planning their next offensive somewhere else.”

“Well, if we know they’re there-?”

“Yes, they likely know this base is here.” The commander wasn’t going to spend any more time in explanations than she had to. She didn’t want to tell these crackpot cultists any more than they needed to know to do whatever job she was going to assign them.

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