“The ogre is gone. Is that not what we wanted?”
“This nest has proven to be far more difficult to destroy than the first, old one,” Whitestar said. “That is what we want, but even without the ogre there, I am not sure that we can do it, and if we do not do it quickly, the ogre may return. And I still must meet Sharpwing in challenge.”
Scarbeak looked surprised. “Surely he will not want to press challenge, now that the ogre is gone.”
“The ogre is his key to a place of the honored dead,” Whitestar said, “but it is my blood that he truly wishes to spill. He will not care that the ogre is gone, and I will have to kill him. If I do that, neither my eldest nor my first-wife will forgive me, and the disgrace will cripple my ability to lead.”
“Then let your eldest lead. That was what you planned anyway. Refuse to fight Sharpwing. Dishonor is not such a terrible thing to live with. It might be your only hope to live as long as I have.”
“He has only begun to recover from the wounds I gave him. If I give Sharpwing honor by refusing to fight, the hatchling will try to take control. Before his brother is recovered, he may have already led our clan to ruin, that we may taste death and defeat at the same meal.”
Scarbeak put down his tools and looked up at his lord, gazing at him intently with the right eye of truth. “What if there is no future for our clan, my lord?”
“What foolishness are you talking about now, old man?” Whitestar demanded, staring at the old one.
“The warriors that carried the new weapons,” Scarbeak said, not backing down, “indeed, even those warriors that were close when the weapons fired, they sicken, my lord. Their fur falls out in clumps, and they cannot keep down their food.”
“We can make more eggs quickly,” Whitestar said. He did not like what Scarbeak was getting at.
“True,” Scarbeak said, nodding, “but the losses are staggering, far faster than even we can make eggs. So many die from the devil’s weapons, and now more and more die from our own as well. Sharpwing’s generation, or perhaps a few after him, could be the last.”
“First my wife, now you. If that is the plan that the Ones Above have for us, so be it. But consider this, which of my sons should be leader, if our people are to live longest?”
Whitestar didn’t wait for an answer, but instead kneeled next to the new weapon, a flattened disk half as wide as he was tall, with straps to hold it to a warrior’s back for carrying. “How powerful is this weapon, Scarbeak?”
“Powerful enough to pierce the skin of the ogre and strike his heart, if you can place it underneath, or perhaps just close to his body at any point.”
Scarbeak moved over and touched the weapon reverently. “Unlike the other Fists we have been given, this one strikes in one direction only, and the oracles tell me that it acts as a shield against the devil’s weapons.”
Whitestar stared at the object. It did have the appearance of a shield, but he didn’t see how it would stop the great firebolts that came from the ogre. Still, he had to trust the oracles, trust the Ones Above. Many things were still in their control. “Scarbeak, could this thing pierce the walls of the devil’s nest?”
“It might, my lord. In fact, I am almost certain it would. We have been able to damage those walls repeatedly, while we have barely scratched the hide of the ogre.”
“And if I could break open their nest so that our warriors could slaughter them, it would shorten this war, save countless of our people’s lives, and still serve the will of the Ones Above. Wouldn’t that be worth the life of a lord?”
Scarbeak said nothing for a while. Then, “I’m old, my friend. I had always imagined that you would outlive me.”
Chapter Seven
Donning could have had the new command and control center installed anywhere in the colony. It was self-contained, weatherproof, and could have communicated over an area many times larger than the colony. But he had chosen to have it set up just behind the southern ramparts, where it was still well protected, but close enough to the walls that he could easily climb up and visit the troops there. He knew that, as the siege dragged on, and a siege is what this was, the morale of the people manning the walls and defenses would be everything. So each morning he tried to make the circuit of those walls, to let everyone see him, to stop occasionally, ask people how they were doing, and offer a few words of encouragement.
The perimeter was too long to comfortably walk, and staying well behind the walls in a ground-car would have defeated the purpose, so he’d had a small electric scooter hauled up. Each morning found him on that scooter, zipping along the catwalks and weapons platforms built into its top and rear, making his rounds. It wasn’t terribly dignified or impressive, but he somehow thought that the people serving under him appreciated the effort.
This morning, his first stop was at a sniper platform a few hundred meters counter-clockwise from the C&C. Manning the post this day was Private Vetta Rampling. Donning had been keeping an eye on her. She had no military experience, but she’d lived on frontier worlds most of her life. She knew how to handle a weapon, and wasn’t afraid to use them with deadly intent. Given how many of his troops had started out as file clerks and machine operators, as afraid of their own weapons as the enemy, he wished he had a couple dozen more like her.
He rolled up and stepped off the scooter. “Good morning, Private.”
She gave him a sloppy salute. Rampling wasn’t much on military protocol, but that described a lot of the people under his command. Actually it wasn’t that, so much as that she seemed distracted, concerned with something out beyond the wall.
“Problem, Private?” He stepped up and looked out the gun slit. He wasn’t overly cautious, a shimmer field built into the opening made it almost impossible for an enemy sniper to target anyone behind the wall.
Things looked quiet outside. Below them, a remote-controlled construction machine was repairing wall damage from the last attack, a boom moving back and fourth spraying fast-hardening duracrete into the openings. Beyond that, a bit of low fog hung to the meadows, and the tree line seemed quiet.
“They’re out there, Commander, getting ready to attack again.”
Overactive imagination? But she seemed to be suggesting fact, and not just speculation. “Are your eyes better than mine, Private?”
“Maybe, but that’s not it.” She looked at him, as though wondering if he’d think her crazy. “I don’t suppose you can smell them, can you, sir?”
He chuckled in spite himself. “I don’t much want to smell them, Private.”
“No, sir, really. I can smell them out there, smell their mood, I think. It could be part of how they communicate, or how they coordinate their attacks. And what I’m smelling today, I smelled before the last two attacks started. I think they’re massing out there.”
Donning considered for a moment. He’d read somewhere that women had much more sensitive noses than men. Maybe she was onto something. He touched his earpiece. “Peak.”
“Yes, sir,” the voice came back.
“Are you reading anything unusual on the perimeter?”
“I was just about to call you, sir. We’ve got a lot of movement beyond the tree line. Not as much as the last attack, but I think things could be heating up.”
“I’m on my way.” He put the headset on standby and climbed back on his scooter, turning it back towards the C&C. “Private, when you get a chance, see if any of the other women have been smelling what you’ve been smelling, and if you get any other insights into what’s about to happen, you send them up to C&C immediately.”
“Yes, sir!”
Despite his concern about the impending attack, Donning smiled as he rode back to the C&C. Every clue, every insight they got into the aliens, how they thought, how they operated, made them easier to fight. For the longest time it had been difficult for Donning to think beyond the next hour, the next day, the next attack. But now he could finally start to project beyond that.
The Concordiat wasn’t trying to keep them here to cower behind their walls forever. They were keeping them here to mine, and that meant leaving the relative safety of the compound. Houchen had told him about the Bolo mining machine on its way from the Odinberg Colony. Even if it wasn’t any use to them as a combat vehicle, they might be able to use it for its mining capabilities. Maybe they could be back in the mining business faster than anyone imagined.