This is a fan translation of Counterstrike (Ответныйудар) by Mikhail Akhmanov, currently only available in Russian and, because of the author's passing in 2019, unlikely to ever be published in English. This is the second book in a six-book series called Arrivals from the Dark (Пришедшие из мрака), which also has a six-book spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission (Миссия Тревельяна).

I claim no rights to the contents herein.

Epilogue

The enormous Ship was overcrowded: they had to not only evacuate the fully-sentient beings from Ro'on, T'har, and Aezat, but also many tens of thousands of t'ho. All the assistants from the higher castes, all the olks and the pilots and, naturally, all the females, so that the damned Bino Tegari would not try to cross-breed their genes with those of the Faata. There were too many females, and Waira had ordered the less valuable specimens put to death. They had been turned into biomass, and then into a protein concentrate, as it always happened during long journeys through space, when there were insufficient food sources. Waira felt sorry for these females no more than for the millions of t'ho workers and tiny quasi-minds, who had stayed behind in the New Worlds.

The aliens had suggested that they return for them, and he, Waira, would do that. He would return. Him and the other Pillars of Order, Foyn and Yass from Ro'on, Ein from T'har, and Neyho from Aezat. All of them would return, and they would bring Ships, pilots, and battle modules. They would come back not only for the insignificant t'ho, but to burn the aliens, and spread their ashes in the emptiness. The Third Phase did not forgive debts, and these Bino Tegari were big debtors: for Yata's destroyed Ship, for the attempt to take the New Worlds, and for the obliteration of the shipyard, and Dyte and his quasi-sentients. As for the t'ho workers, those imbeciles left behind on T'har, Ro'on, and Aezat, their cost was small. In a few cycles, the small brains would send a signal, the lives of the t'ho would end, and the three planets would be covered in bodies. Millions of bodies! Mountains of bodies! The Bino Tegari would like that. Their leader had told them that Yata was guilty of the deaths of people on his planet. Well then, millions had died there, millions would die here… The Bino Tegari would have to spend a long time burning the bodies. Or clone more p'hots, so that they ate the carrion…

Had Waira known what laughter was, he would have burst out laughing. But such emotion had atrophied among the Faata long ago, just like many other feelings: love and attachment, gratitude, faith and mercy. But they knew how to hate. The hate for the Bino Tegari was, probably, the strongest feeling in their range of emotions.

Standing by the Ship's Observation Sphere, walling off his mind from the quasi-mind and the minds of the pilots, Waira was nurturing his hatred. He would pass this feeling to the other Pillars of Order like a drive for action, like a sign of danger, and they would respond, for Waira's age and the power of his psychic call had made him a leader. He knew that he would live for another century or two, and that would be enough to return to the New Worlds and even to go farther, to the aliens' homeworld. He would find them, wherever they were hiding! The search would not take long: no one had heard of this race: not the Haptors, not the Dromi, not the Kni'lina, which meant that it had no remote colonies or subjugated worlds. Their homeworld was close to Ro'on, and it would be easy to find: all they had to do was follow Yata's route. And he, Waira, would do just that!

The brain controlling the Ship, reminding him about itself and urgent matters, touched his mind softly. The brain, the pilots, and Those Who Stand by the Sphere were waiting for his orders, and that filled Waira with a sense of power and his own importance. Glancing at the Sphere, at the barely visible dots of the stars of Ro'on and Aezat, dimly lit in its depths, he said goodbye to them and sent the necessary telepathic signal.

A ghostly glow flashed in the acceleration shaft, energy splashed out into space, and the Ship performed a jump, one of the many that would take it to the stars on the other side of the Void.

Another ship, extremely tiny compared to the Faata starship, was also preparing to jump. It would take place in four hours, at the end of the Captain's watch, when the awakening crew would get to their battle stations. Now, all the people, except for the officers of the watch, were sleeping and dreaming; some were seeing their homes and the faces of their loved ones, others were seeing those who had gone into the Emptiness, who would return only in memories. Sad dreams, happy dreams…

Corcoran and Bai Ling were sitting on the bridge, one was in the seat by the pentalion that would activate the interstellar drive, the other one was by the pilot's console. Besides them, Sigurd Linder was also awake, who was in the med-bay, by the cybersurgeon and the sarcophagus of the resuscitator. Cro's body was lying under its transparent lid, and there was still life within him; the beeping of the biosensors and the occasional pulses on the monitors were confirming that his heart was beating and his brain activity had not dropped down to zero.

There was an alcove with a narrow shaft in the med-bay's wall, the one that led to the ship's outer hull; the shaft led to the airlock. There were four cylindrical containers in the alcove, which were exactly the size necessary to fit in the shaft and slip into the outer airlock. Two of them held the bodies of Yamaguchi and Siebel, the third had Santini's burned bones and the remains of his implants, while Robert Wentworth's dress uniform was located in the fourth one. In accordance with tradition, the uniform was placed in the coffin, if there was nothing remaining from the person who had worn it, not even ashes. By the same tradition, the four containers would be ejected into the Emptiness, to fly through the galaxies and the nebulae, until the last stars burned out, and light dimmed, and the universe ended.

Linder was half-asleep on the couch, listening to the beeps of the biosensors. The sensors were beeping less and less, which meant that Cro Light Water was preparing to depart on his eternal voyage. Technically, he was already in the Great Emptiness, and only the computer controlling the resuscitator continued to maintain the illusion of life, forcing his heart to beat and his lungs to work. But, like all illusions, this one could also not go on for long, and Linder bitterly realized his helplessness. No one could resurrect Cro Light Water: not the doctors on the Europe, not the medics on Earth, not drugs or ingenious devices, for he had already crossed the threshold, where life was replaced by death's eternal silence.

The sensors beeped one last time and feel silent, immediately followed by the resuscitator's alarm chime. Linder wanted to get up, knowing that Cro could not be helped, only following his duty that called him to the dying patient. He wanted to get up and even managed to sit up, but he was suddenly gripped by strange sleepiness, forcing him to lie back down on the couch. Perhaps there was nothing strange about that: he had not slept in three days and was holding on only thanks to medicine.

The chiming of the alarm stopped, and silence fell upon the compartment, broken only by Linder's snoring. Five minutes had passed, ten, then a nude figure appeared next to one of the containers: a thin, short, and grey-haired man. The containers were sealed tight, and the cryogenic systems were on, but the grey-haired man easily slid the lid. The coffin was empty.

Leaving it open, the man silently slipped to the resuscitator and stood there, looking at Light Water's dead face and the monitors with the running flat lines. It seemed as if he was waiting for a sudden pulse or a sound that would hint that Cro was still alive, but the biosensors remained silent, and there were no waves or peaks on the screens. Shrugging, he muttered, "Forgive me, friend. But this is a very convenient opportunity," and began to free the dead body from the resuscitator's suckers. Then he carried him to the coffin, raised his hand in a farewell salute, and sealed the lid.

To get into the resuscitator, he did not make a single gesture, only suddenly ending up in the transparent sarcophagus, and the suckers with the tubes and the wires suddenly moved to the appropriate places. The vocoder of one of the sensors beeped, followed by a second, and a third, the lines on the monitor came alive, echoing occasional surges, then the pulses turned into a confident palisade. Simultaneously, the man in the resuscitator was changing: his skin had attained a bronze hue, his grey hair became black and shiny, his muscles expanded, his limbs grew longer, while his right hand disappeared, becoming a stump covered in vitaspray. He now looked exactly like Cro Light Water, and his wounds, broken bones, and burns looked identical. But his heart was beating more confidently and stronger, his chest was rising and falling in infrequent but uniform breaths, and the healing solutions, injected by the resuscitator, the electrostimulation, and the radiation therapy appeared to be working: he was definitely alive. Maybe even getting better.

Awakening from his brief nap, Sigurd Linder stared at the equipment in pleasant surprise. At the same time, Paul Corcoran, who was sitting on the bridge, felt the desire to visit the med-bay, so powerful, irresistible, and sudden, that shivers ran down his spine. He rose, nodded to Bai Ling, exited into the hallway, went through the wardroom with the portrait of Commodore Litvin hanging there, and stepped across the threshold of the med-bay. Linder, studying the biosensor readings and the dancing curves on the screens, turned around.

"Good news, Captain! Cro is coming back to life… Well, at least, his condition has stabilized."

"Those Native Americans are tough fellows," Corcoran muttered and stepped to the sarcophagus. "Sons of Manitou, wolves of the forest, bisons of the prairies… The Faata have nothing on them. Right, Cro?"

Cro said nothing; he was lying as before, motionless, wrapped in a web of wires and tubes.

"You know, sir," Linder admitted with a penitent look, "I almost dozed off. Only for a second… And it looked like Cro… well, you know… as if the sensors had zeroed out, and the monitor showed a clear background, and the sarcophagus was ringing… And I couldn't move. Not my arm, not my leg!"

"Must be glitches from the fatigue. You need to get some sleep, Sigurd," Corcoran said, peering into the face of the man in the resuscitator. Then he bent over and whispered quietly. "Welcome back, my friend. Eit t'tesi. I'm glad."

Light Water's lips quivered, and Corcoran thought he saw him smile.