In Main Command, Chu-sa Kosho watched the Prince and Doctor Anderssen discussing the attributes of the Chimalacatl on her surveillance cameras. Though her mien was impassive and controlled, she was deeply troubled by what she’d seen. A command sequence was waiting on her console, constructed in great haste during the scuffle and now refined, to vent the entire compartment to the void, and flood the evacuated rooms with hard radiation. Would that be enough to kill this “ambassador” with the self-generating combat armor? She was furious with herself for not attaching more security to the alien.
Susan had never encountered a “Hjogadim” before, and shipnet had nothing for her-no detail, no rumors, and no warnings-despite the fact that the creature spoke passable Nahuatl and was obviously well known to both the Prince and the nauallis. The thought of Hummingbird loose upon her ship made Kosho’s stomach twist. Brow growing thunderous, she tapped up the security cameras for the ship’s brig.
The remaining Jaguar had brought the old Nahuatl to a primary security cell and stripped him naked before locking him inside. Oc Chac, at Susan’s direction, had already scrambled the codes and reviewed the list of those crewmen with access to the compartment.
His kind will not remain contained for long, Sayu.
Alone in the bare room, the old man looked up into the cameras and the faintest hint of a smile crossed his lips as he lowered himself gingerly into a cross-legged position on the floor.
Kosho sneered back, wishing once more that her sensei Hadeishi were on hand to deal with his “old friend” and all these intrigues. I am not cut out for this, she thought darkly. We should flee this place, not stay, poking at a dark hole in the cliff with sticks… no matter what the Emperor demands.
ABOARD THE KHAID CRUISER
Hadeishi wiped a coating of yellowing foam from the captain’s console of the light cruiser. His armor was blackened and scored by flechette impacts and all of his grenades were gone. Cajeme and the other Team One survivors were dragging the last of the Khaid corpses away, for the enemy had tried to make a stand on the Command deck. The console was flickering in and out of focus-part of the glassite surface had shattered-and the Nisei officer shook his head in dismay. Disgusted, he shut down the entire console, then went to the Navigator’s station where he was pleasantly surprised to see the Fleet standard interface was up and awaiting input.
He clicked channel. “Found one working, Sho-i.”
Lovelace was still far down the ship, barricaded into the Engineering compartment, with the remains of Team Four as her guardians. Between them, the shipcore was momentarily in Fleet hands, but there were still gangs of Khaiden roaming the side passages, exchanging intermittent gunfire with the Team Three commandos. Locked out of all of the control interfaces, the enemy had little chance of mounting an effective defense, but the Khaid were nothing but persistent. In some places they had cut their own way through the internal doors-but none of them had any heavy equipment, which meant the frame bulkheads and the main hatches were a serious barrier. “Keying in.”
Got your login, kyo, she responded a moment later. Handing off shipnet on deck one to your console.
“Received.” Weary, he sat down in the chair, ignoring the foam which spilled onto the floor. His first thought was to check in with De Molay, so he activated the intership channels and pinged around until one of them locked onto the Wilful.
The freighter captain’s face appeared on the display a moment later and she brightened to see him. “Well, if it isn’t our Engineer’s Mate, gone missing the last day.”
“Fortune has smiled,” Hadeishi replied, glad himself that she still lived. “Did you take any damage?”
De Molay shook her head. “Your wounded have been coming over in a steady stream-didn’t someone tell you?” She looked off-screen. “There are at least a dozen more laid out in what space we can spare. But we’re entirely out of meds and ancillary supplies.”
Mitsuharu levered up his faceplate, scratching a terrible itch beside his nose. “The sickbay here is all Khaid supplies, but I’ll have Gunso Ad-Din peel someone off to search the holds-there may be useful meds somewhere…” A shipbug scuttled across the console, wearing a crown of foam. “Are you low on vermin? We have more than I can stomach over here.”
She shook her head. “I can live without them. How stands your new ship? Does she have a name?”
“The Khaid called her the Kader. I haven’t found a hull-plate or record to indicate the Fleet designation.” Mitsuharu rubbed one eye. Adrenaline was draining from his system, leaving only the ache of lactic acid buildup. “The Khaid failed to destroy the communications equipment and their sensor records. Sho-i Lovelace reports we have all of the telemetry of the attack on the Tlemitl, the Research Station, and the IMN escort fleet-if I understand her correctly. But she is speaking far too quickly today for me to follow. Can you come across and take over cleanup here in Command? I need to go back downdeck and make sure the Khaid holdouts are run to ground.”
De Molay nodded, pursing her lips. “You want me to break down the Khaid battlecast?”
“With Lovelace’s help, yes.” Hadeishi suddenly looked thoughtful. “Also, you will want to bring a cushion.”
“A cushion?”
He shrugged. “Khaid chairs do not fit us so well. There’s no sign any of the Fleet interior fittings survived, which is a great pity.”
De Molay laughed in delight. “You are having trouble sitting down these days. I will see you in an hour or two.”
Three hours later, after one of the burlier Team Four kashikan-hei had carried her up from the cargo bay where the Wilful was now docked, De Molay stared around at the wreckage of Kader ’s Command deck and wrinkled up her nose. The thick musk of Khaid blood was mixed with the astringence of fire suppression foam to make a particularly foul smell. Beyond that, the chair at the weapons officer’s console she’d been offered by a slightly built, worried-looking Sho-i gave her serious pause. “A beetle shell?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lovelace offered an apologetic smile. “Haven’t found anything better.”
De Molay shrugged and fitted an instafoam pillow into the peculiar dished chair back, then sat down gingerly. “We’re underway again? I felt the drives light up while that big fellow hauled me up ten decks on his back…”
“ Hai, Sencho.” The Sho-i called up a navigational plot, showing the past track of the Kader, as well as the projected patrol pattern. “I recovered this from one of the engine control nodes-when we flashed the whole ship, temporary storage went too-but some of the secondary systems had working copies, and this was one of them.” The route spidered out from the main Khaid elements near the Pinhole, covered an irregular section of the stellar vicinity, and then angled back to join the pack again. “The Chu-sa wants us to be as inconspicuous as possible-so we follow the ordered route, submit status reports at the requested times, and so on. I’ve already sent one, cobbled together from the last transmit from the t-relay system, but we’re due for five more before getting back to tau zero.”
“This course was intended to cover the area of battle?”
“ Hai, Sencho. The Khaid commander peeled off these three ships to mop up.”
De Molay smiled, tapping through the navigational interface. “Well, let’s press on then, shall we? I believe these three signals are Fleet evac capsules.” Her stylus sketched in a slight change in vector to overrun all three icons on the plot.
Mitsuharu frowned, reviewing a comm-system composition pane. The Monkey of Fate, he thought with considerable irritation, is laughing. Now I have to submit status reports to some Khaid overlord! He looked over at Inudo, lately of the Scout Corduba, who was now sitting pilot for the Kader. “How many men have we recovered in
