Read Online Extremis by Charles E. Gannon, Steve White - Free Book Online

But in doing so, she also fell back well inside the system’s Desai limit. Beaumont itself was suspended like a brownish tennis ball between the heads of two glowing green tennis rackets—the two human screens. Meanwhile, the red motes kept pouring into the system from their entry warp point at six o’clock, spreading out into a single but much larger screen that approached the Desai limit slowly, inexorably. And doubtless would press on toward their ultimate objective: the warp point into Suwa, located at twelve o’clock—directly opposite their entry portal.
    “Well, this is new.” Captain Watanabe leaned back, rubbing his chin.
    “Isn’t it? Usually, once the Baldies acquire a toehold in a system, they charge straight in. Here they’re coming on slowly, cautiously—probably uncertain what to make of Yoshikuni’s ceding the warp point so readily.”
    “Yeah, about that—why did she give it up?” And as soon as he had asked the question, Watanabe called up a replay, which he watched carefully before looking at Krishmahnta. “So, you decided against building warp-point forts in Beaumont?”
    Krishmahnta nodded. “It wasn’t even a decision, really. We couldn’t get them built in time—same as here.”
    “Well, that’s because we lost ours when the Baldies hammered Raiden last time. Beaumont’s never been under the gun before.”
    Krishmahnta shrugged. “True, but Yoshikuni didn’t have any extant forts in-system. And given our inevitable withdrawal back to Achilles, it seemed a waste to rush forward fort modules and all the associated construction auxiliaries. Which, it turns out, wouldn’t have had the new forts ready in time, anyway.”
    “So all that gear is—?”
    “Still in the rear, back beyond Suwa.”
    “Added to the defenses in Achilles?”
    Krishmahnta nodded. “I mean to hold that line in the sand.”
    “Erica, we may not be able to—”
    “I know. I can count, too, Yoshi. We just may not have the weight of metal to stop them there. But we have to think and play to win. And even if they push us back from Achilles, every extra day we buy for the industrial sites in the Odysseus cluster is a victory. The longer they have to pump out the ships and crews and forts that we need, the more likely that we will be able to hold—really hold —the Baldies somewhere farther down the line.”
    “From your lips to Vishnu’s ears.” Watanabe smiled.
    Krishmahnta looked over her fleet captain’s shoulder. “Mr. Wethermere.”
    He stood immediately. “Sir!”
    She smiled, saw his blue eyes—and was suddenly struck by two very different sensations.
    Firstly, she had seen those eyes somewhere before. Very light, pure blue. There was even something familiar about their expression: amiable, ready to be amused, but unable to fully mask the ferociously active mind behind them.
    But secondly—and more disturbing—was a recollection of her great-grandfather that seemed, at first, completely, even insanely, out of place: it was a tidbit of his old-school Hinduism, which she had largely dismissed as an endearing preoccupation of his dotage. “My child,” her paradada had said, “you will know when you look into the eyes of an Old Soul. You will know what they are, perhaps before they have discovered it themselves. As children and young people, they play and distract themselves with the same sweet frivolities as their peers—but there is in them a way of seeing, and a depth of vision, that comes from having lived many lives. Which you can see looking out through their eyes. I tell you this, little dhupa ”—for that was his own pet-name for her—“that they will be drawn to your bright karma as surely as flowers turn to the sun. And it may be that the greatest weight of your own karma will be to help them, for before they know what they are, they may be uncertain in their paths. Old Souls are no different from others in how they begin their life journey, dhupa —only in how they might end