“Any comments about it, Father Captain?” said Admiral Aldikacti.

De Soya hesitated a moment. “We burned an orbital forest ring,” he said at last. “There was no resistance.”

Hoag Liebler thought that the father-captain’s voice sounded vaguely ashamed.

Sati nodded as if satisfied. “That’s what we hope will be the case for this entire mission. Our intelligence suggests that the Ousters have deployed the vast bulk of their defensive forces along the sphere of the Great Wall, leaving very little in the way of armed resistance through the heart of their colonized areas beyond the Pax. For almost three centuries they have positioned their forces, their bases, and their home systems with the limitations of Hawking-drive technology as the primary determining factor.”

Tactical holos filled the conference blister.

“The grand cliché,” continued Sati, “is that the Pax has had the advantage of interior lines of transport and communication, while the Ousters have had the defensive strength of concealment and distance. Penetration deep into Ouster space has been all but impossible due to the vulnerability of our supply lines and their willingness to cut and run before our superior strength, attacking later—often with devastating effect—when our task forces venture too far from the Great Wall.”

Sati paused and looked at the officers around the table. “Gentlemen and ladies, those days are over.” More holos misted into solidity, the red line of Task Force GIDEON’s trajectory out from and back to the Pax sphere slicing between suns like a laser knife.

“Our mission is to destroy every in-system Ouster supply base and deep-space colony we encounter,” said Sati, his soft voice taking on strength. “Comet farms, can cities, boondoggles, torus bases, L-point clusters, orbital forest rings, birthing asteroids, bubble hives… everything.”

“Including civilian angels?” asked Father Captain de Soya. Hoag Liebler blinked at his CO’s question.

Pax Fleet informally referred to the space-tailored DNA-altered mutants as “Lucifer’s angels,” usually shortened to “angels” in an irony bordering on blasphemy, but the phrase was rarely used before the high brass.

Admiral Aldikacti answered. “Especially angels, Father Captain. His Holiness, Pope Urban, has declared this a Crusade against the inhuman travesties the Ousters are breeding out there in the darkness. His Holiness has stated in his Crusade Encyclical that these unholy mutations are to be eliminated from God’s universe. There are no civilian Ousters. Do you have a problem understanding this directive, Father Captain de Soya?”

Officers around the table seemed to hold their breaths until de Soya finally answered.

“No, Admiral Aldikacti. I understand His Holiness’s encyclical.”

The briefing continued. “These archangel-class cruisers will be involved,” said Sati. “His Holiness’s Ship Uriel as flagship, the Raphael, the Michael, the Gabriel, the Raguel, the Remiel, and the Sariel. In each case, the ships will use their Gideon drives to make the instantaneous jump to the next system, will take two days or more to decelerate in-system, thus allowing time for crew resurrection. His Holiness has granted us dispensation to use the new two-day resurrection-cycle créches… which offer a ninety-two percent probability of resurrection. After regrouping the attack force, we will do maximum damage to all Ouster forces and installations before translating to the next system. Any Pax ship damaged beyond repair will be abandoned, the crew transferred to other ships in the task force, and the cruiser destroyed. No chances will be taken with the Ousters capturing Gideon-drive technology, even though it would be useless to them without the Sacrament of Resurrection. The mission should extend some three standard months. Any questions?”

Father Captain de Soya raised his hand. “I have to apologize,” he said, “I’ve been out of touch for several standard years, but I notice that this task force is made up of archangel-class ships named after archangels referred to by name in the Old Testament.”

“Yes, Father Captain?” prompted Admiral Aldikacti. “Your question?”

“Just this, Admiral. I seem to remember that there were only seven archangels referred to by name in the Bible. What about the rest of the archangel-class ships that have come online?”

There was chuckling around the long table and de Soya could see that he had cut the tension much as he had planned.

Smiling, Admiral Aldikacti said, “We welcome our prodigal captain back and inform him that the Vatican theologians have searched the Book of Enoch and the rest of the pseudepigrapha to find these other angels which might be promoted to “honorary archangel,” and the Holy Office itself has authorized dispensation in Pax Fleet’s use of their names. We found it… ah… appropriate… that the first seven planet-class archangels built be named after those listed in the Bible and should carry their sacred fire to the enemy.”

The chuckling turned to sounds of approval and finally to soft applause among the commanders and their execs.

There were no other questions. Admiral Aldikacti said, “Oh, one other detail, if you see this ship…” A holo of a strange-looking starship floated above the center of the table. The thing was small by Pax Fleet standards, was streamlined as if built to enter atmosphere, and had fins near the fusion ports.

“What is it?” said Mother Captain Stone, still smiling from the good feeling in the room. “Some Ouster joke?”

“No,” said Father Captain de Soya in a soft monotone, “it’s Web-era technology. A private starship… owned by an individual.”

A few executive officers chuckled again. Admiral Aldikacti stopped the laughter by waving her thick hand through the holo. “The father-captain is correct,” rumbled the Lusian admiral. “It’s an old Web-era ship, once owned by a diplomat of the Hegemony.” She shook her head. “They had the wealth to make such gestures then. Anyway, it has a Hawking drive modified by Ouster technicians, may well be armed, and must be considered as dangerous.”

“What do we do if we encounter it?” asked Mother Captain Stone. “Take it as a prize?”

“No,” said Admiral Aldikacti. “Destroy it on sight. Slag it to vapor. Any questions?”

There were none. The officers dispersed to their ships to prepare for the initial translation. On the wasp-shuttle ride back to the Raphael, XO Hoag Liebler chatted pleasantly with his new captain about the ship’s readiness and crew’s high morale, all the while thinking, I hope I don’t have to kill this man.

It has been my experience that immediately after certain traumatic separations—leaving one’s family to go to war, for instance, or upon the death of a family member, or after parting from one’s beloved with no assurances of reunion—there is a strange calmness, almost a sense of relief, as if the worst has happened and nothing else need be dreaded. So it was with the rainy, predawn morning on which I left Aenea on Old Earth.

The kayak that I paddled was small and the Mississippi River was large. At first, in the darkness, I paddled with an intense alertness that was close to fear, adrenaline-driven, eyes straining to make out snags and sandbars and drifting flotsam on the raging current. The river was very wide there, the better part of a mile, I guessed—the Old Architect had used the archaic English units of length and distance, feet, yards, miles, and most of us at Taliesin had fallen into the habit of imitating him—and the banks of the river looked flooded, with dead trees showing where the waters had risen hundreds of meters from the original banks, pushing the river to high bluffs on both sides.

An hour or so after I had parted from my friend, the light came up slowly, first showing the separation of gray cloud and black-gray bluff to my left, then casting a flat, cold light on the surface of the river itself. I had been right to be afraid in the dark: the river was snarled with snags and long fingers of sandbars; large, waterlogged trees with hydra heads of roots raged past me on the center currents, smashing anything in their way with the force of giant battering rams. I selected what I hoped was the most forgiving current, paddled strongly to stay out of the way of floating debris, and tried to enjoy the sunrise.