Vatsha tried not to show her concern. Do not wreck this for us, brother. “You have a plan, then?”
“The huge mobile armored units the Humans call `Bolo’ have been a great problem, but if nothing else, the last attack revealed to us their number and maximum rates of fire against space targets. It was just barely enough to overwhelm the Blade of Kevv and its kaleidoscope device. But they will not surprise us again, and we may yet surprise them. Can the kaleidoscope system on Blade of Kevv be modified to create more sensor echoes?”
Vatsha felt a flash of annoyance. That had been in her summary report on the building of the ship, if only Rejad had bothered to read it. “It can be done, my brother. Doubling the power will square the number of images. They will have a hundred and forty-four targets instead of twelve. The problem is that the kaleidoscope already draws much power. While the kaleidoscope is active, the ship’s main batteries will not be able to fire. Moreover, once the conversion is made, it is not easily undone. Once the kaleidoscope is off, it will require some time to restore weapons, and we can not simply drop kaleidoscope back to lower power without a refit.”
“That will not matter. Our batteries are ineffective against the Bolos anyway. What we need is concentrated and well-directed spearfall. That is what has proven to damage the great machines. But they are agile, and difficult to hit. See that the conversion is done before Blade of Kevv leaves port. Remove the main batteries if you must. Just be sure it is equipped for a massive and sustained rain of spearfall. We will not bring the ship back here until we are ready for the offensive.”
Vatsha ducked her head and clicked her beak to show agreement. “I will begin at once.” But she could only think that the fool was taking her balanced and elegant Blade of Kevv design and turning it into a patchwork.
* * *
Despite overwhelming odds I have established a link with my Commander, only to learn that he is incapacitated. I have been given proper command codes to allow communication and command by an unknown third party identified as “the boy.” I search my fragmented memories and find multiple related cultural references including a familiar honorific, a kind of hamburger sandwich, an ancient steam locomotive, and an ancient racial slur. None seem appropriate to the situation, and I suspect that the usage may be the obvious one, based on my relatively intact linguistic database, a young human male.
This is confirmed when “the boy” speaks into the command link. My audiometrics routines are degraded, but I estimate his age in the range from seven to twelve standard years. A human in this age range is unlikely to possess proper military training.
What purpose did Lieutenant Orren have in mind when assigning command to this child? Could it be the result of delirium or reduced capacity?
Yet at this point, I have no other avenue open to me. This child is my only hope for rescue, repair, and an eventual arrival on the battlefield.
My first step is to request a recovery ship and transport to a repair depot. I do not know my position, but do know my distance from the planet, based on light-speed delays in the transmission. I also can provide relative angles and movements for the sun and Delas. Hopefully, given this information, my location can be determined and rescue will arrive shortly.
Five
Bendra shuffled across the sandy floor of the Iskaldai’s apartments, the hobbles chaffing at his legs. The high-born guards on either side of him were a head taller and carried ceremonial spears, and wore long blades equipped with venom triggers and shock generators. He tugged at his wrist bindings and felt incredibly naked without his humble blade. Still, this was the only way that someone of his low standing could be allowed in the presence of one so high born.
They halted before a heavy curtain, purple and embroidered with silver thread. One of the guards slipped through the curtain. He emerged a moment later, and Bendra was pushed through. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the relative darkness. The fire-pit in the middle of the room startled him, until he realized that it was only a holographic projection.
At the rear of the room, Sister-of-the-First-Blood Vatsha stood, almost lost behind a huge holographic projection of a ship. The projection was transparent, highlighting the various systems in different colors, making it difficult for him to recognize, but he assumed it was Blade of Kevv. There were rumors that Vatsha had actually designed the ship, and was not merely supervising its construction.
As he watched, she gestured, and the projection moved, systems internally changing color and configuration in a dance of splendid light and complexity. Vatsha’s bright red eyes, a trait she shared with her brother, seemed to follow every movement, every change. It was only Bendra that was invisible to her.
Finally he felt compelled to announce himself. He stepped forward, stumbled on the hobbles, and almost fell. “Blood-of-my-Is-kaldai, I beg audience.”
She shot him a glance of annoyance, then returned to her task. “So my Arbiter tells me, low-blood. What matter is it that you should soil my chambers so?”
“I am a monitor for the fleet. I track the battle wreckage and other deep-space navigation hazards.”
“Trash responsible for trash. I should have my Arbiter flogged for this lapse in judgment.”
She seemed ready to eject him. He bowed his head in submission. “Please, high-blood, hear me out. I have detected an unusual object that may be of danger to the fleet. So unusual that I can not warn of it through usual protocols. None of my direct superiors will take it upon themselves to break protocol, and to trouble the Is-kaldai would surely mean my death. You are my one hope.”
Vatsha stepped through the hologram. She seemed slightly intrigued by the mystery, and slightly amused at his predicament. “Small burdens for small minds. Still, I am in need of a respite. Perhaps your tale will amuse me.”
She sat on a pile of cushions next to a tray of delicacies, many of which Bendra had only seen in holos. She stabbed her fingertip into a dried etsha-fruit and lifted the greenish orb to her beak. It popped when she bit into it, and a trickle of acidic smelling juice ran down her beak. She wiped it away with the back of her forearm.
Bendra described his chance observation of the object’s strange behavior. “Now it is emitting an encoded transmission beamed at the Human world.”
This raised some small interest in her. She looked up from a platter of crisp-fried grubblings. “Is this transmission broadband data?”
“You suspect a device to spy on the fleet? That is most clever. But no, the transmission is narrowband, and most of this seems to be used in some very complex encoding scheme that is beyond my understanding. It might carry slow-scan data, a few still images, or an audio channel. Not much more.”
“And this object, it floats among wreckage you are tracking, but did you observe how it got there? Did it jump into the system, or was it launched from the planet?”
Bendra was slow to answer. He knew she would not like what he had to say. “Neither, high-blood. It is part of the wreckage from the freighter convoy that the Humans fired upon. We have tracked it from the beginning.”
Vatsha hissed with a combination of amusement and surprise. When she spoke, it was in the tone one might use for a hatchling, or an idiot. “Low-born, these are aliens and it is difficult to ascribe any purpose to what they do, but is it not reasonable that such a limited transmission from a piece of wreckage might be a distress beacon, a salvage beacon, or a navigational warning to steer other ships away from the wreckage?”
“Perhaps, but I don’t think so.”
Her tone turned to annoyance. “You think yourself wiser than one of my blood? You imagine things, low-blood. Perhaps your position challenges you too much. I can find one more suited to your talents. Cleaning the waste pits perhaps?” She made a loud clacking with her beak, and the guards appeared from behind the curtains. “This mystery of yours is a minor menace to navigation, nothing more. I should have you flogged for bothering me, but it isn’t worth the trouble. Do not speak of this again.” She looked at the guards. “Remove him, and throw away this food. I have work to do.”
One guard took the half-empty trays while the other pushed him out into the hall. The guard with the trays stopped outside the portal long enough to dump them into a recycle slot. It was another thirty spans down the corridor to the security gate where, finally, the hobbles and wrist restraints were removed. A third guard examined Bendra’s surias with amusement before returning it to him. “Do not stick yourself, low-born.”