'Just before collision you must brake,' said Hatch, allowing himself to admire his own calm, his own sense of timing.
Not just after. Just before. When the ships collided, Lupus's ship would soak up some of the momentum of Hatch's ship, and thus the Startroopers would be swept past the tangled wreckage. By braking beforehand, they would be able to close with Lupus's ship more quickly. Hatch was looking for the edge. Hatch wanted to get on board Lupus's ship as soon as possible. To take Lupus by surprise, if Lupus hadn't already worked out what was going on.
– Has he worked it out?
It was basic. Or was it? Maybe Lupus was still sitting inside his glorified tin can trying to work out what had happened.
Maybe Lupus thought Hatch had devised some miraculous way to kill the asmas on Lupus's own ship while preserving those aboard his own vessel. Maybe Lupus thought that this was a repeat of their last battle scenario, and that Hatch was trying to hide himself somewhere in the hope that his enemy would quietly expire of starvation.
'Sir,' said San Kaladan.
Hatch resented the interruption. He was about to tell San Kaladan to shut up – when he caught himself. There had been something not quite right in Kaladan's voice. Something sickly.
Fear?
'Switch to intimate,' said Hatch.
'Switching,' said San Kaladan.
'Can you hear me?' said Hatch, broadcasting in the intimate mode, which involved sending out electromagnetic signals too weak to be picked up by ordinary suit receivers at any distance greater than thirty paces.
Both men could, however, hear anything broadcast at full power by the Startroopers floating with them out in the vacuum.
'Yes,' said San Kaladan. 'Clear if not loud.'
'Then speak your mind,' said Hatch.
There was a pause. Hatch wished he could see San Kaladan's face. But instead there was only the armored suit and the big bulbous faceplate. The faceplate was black, and reflected the lights of the big sliding MegaCommand Cruiser, and the ignition of a flare. Holding a conversation like this was grotesque. It was more like a seance with the dead than a consultation with the living.
'Sir,' said San Kaladan diffidently.
And Hatch wished they were free in the flesh so he could place one of his big hands firmly on San Kaladan's shoulder, establishing physical contact, abolishing the inhibiting effect of his captaincy. But all he had to negotiate with was this effectively disembodied voice.
'Sir,' said San Kaladan. 'I've been thinking.'
'Speak,' said Hatch.
'I have a wife and children on Borboth.'
Borboth was the home planet of the Nu-chala, the servant of the great lord who was the spiritual leader of the congregation of Nu-chala-nuth.
Of course, a wrecked MegaCommand Cruiser floating helplessly in deep space would in due course become a coffin for all its crew. San Kaladan would never see his wife and children again.
That was no great tragedy as far as Hatch was concerned, for San Kaladan was in truth nothing but a transitory software artefact, an interactive feature of the wargaming environment of the illusion tanks. Nevertheless, the software artefact named San Kaladan behaved like a human being and could only be effectively managed by treating it as if it was in fact possessed of full humanity.
'I share your sorrow,' said Hatch. 'I too have wife and children.'
'But,' said San Kaladan, 'we – we – we might still – '
'What are you thinking of?' said Hatch, starting to get seriously alarmed.
'If we made peace with our enemies, if we – well, we could rig the ship for survival – maybe there'd be rescue, someone must know – the Nexus could rescue us, we could – I mean, if we make a peace we've got a hope, but if we break both ships in battle there's nothing, it's all over, we're finished.'
Hatch listened to this badwork babble, this panic-speech. San Kaladan did not exist, was no more than a software phantom. But this software artefact could cause the logical equivalent of panic amongst other software artefacts if it was not settled down promptly. Or – or, in the worst case, it could kill Hatch.
And Hatch, if killed in this illusion tank battle, would lose the competition for the instructorship of the Combat College, and would be exiled, forced out into the streets of Dalar ken Halvar, there to die for real at the hands of his Free Corps enemies.
'We all must make our sacrifices,' said Hatch. 'Like me, for instance. San Kaladan… do you know where I came from?'
'You came from the planet of Olo Malan, a planet in the Tulip Continuum, in the Permissive Dimensions. You – there was a city, Dalar Dalvar.'
'Dalar ken Halvar,' said Hatch.
'Ken Halvar, yes,' said San Kaladan, accepting the correction. 'Your home cosmos was cut off from the Nexus for twenty thousand years, but you had access to a tutorial facility, a Combat College. You were a Stormtrooper when the Tulip Continuum was reunited with the Nexus. That's all I know.'
'Then know this,' said Hatch. 'I brought the Way to my planet. I wrote a thesis which taught my city of Nu- chala-nuth.
But that was not enough. To secure our freedom to follow the Way, we – there was oppression, religious oppression. So we had to stage a revolution. I was one of its leaders.'
'I didn't know that,' said San Kaladan.
'But that's what happened,' said Hatch. 'For the sake of our religion, I had to help lead a revolution. Unfortunately, my brother – my brother, Oboro Bakendra, he was bitterly opposed to Nu-chala-nuth and all that it stood for. He was a priest of the Great God Mokaragash. In the end – in the end I had to kill my brother. I had to cut down my brother. Then – then kill and burn an old man, Sesno Felvus, the High Priest of the Great God Mokaragash. I renounced the traditional god of my people and I killed the High Priest of that god.'
Hatch said this, then fell silent. He experienced a wailing desolation. He had now cut himself off from his people.
Irrevocably. He had denounced his brother, his god, his high priest – in front of the witnesses in Forum Three. He would never be allowed to forget it.
There was silence from San Kaladan.
'That was the measure of the sacrifice I had to make,' said Hatch. 'Will you make a lesser sacrifice?'
'It is an honor,' said San Kaladan slowly. 'It is an honor to die in the company of a martyr.'
It was a quote from the Ezra Akba, the holy book of Nuchala-nuth, and Hatch answered in kind, matching this quote with a quote of his own:
'Blood answers to blood, and that which was speaks now to that which is, and so we hold the sun, and find the sun sufficient.'
In this context, 'the sun' designated a killing blade, a blade bright with sunlight. Hatch had given voice to a part of the Martyr's Creed, and San Kaladan answered in kind:
'We find the sun sufficient.'
'Then let us switch to the broadband and speak to our troops,' said Hatch. 'It's time to brake, time to fire rockets.
Give them the order.'
Obedient to this command, San Kaladan switched from the intimate mode to broadband broadcast. He gave the necessary order, speaking brusquely, harshly:
'Collision shortly. Prepare to fire braking rockets. I count.
Nine. And. Eight. And.'
The enemy MegaCommand Cruiser loomed huge ahead. Somewhere in that ship was Lupus Lon Oliver, the enemy whom Hatch must seek out and kill.
'And. Seven. And.'
