The Sea is Full of Stars

powered crossbows and ultralight machine guns and billions of bolts and bullets for them, so that semi-tech and nontech hexes don’t need to make them. Cut all that off, and everybody can be absorbed at will. Those who won’t, fall into line and embrace the new conqueror and yell ‘Comrade! Lover! I was always with you!’ Then, with their agents mixed in with the real refugees and now well-established, they can reach out to the mainland.”

“But why not just go the other way?” O’Leary asked. “In a sense there are more prizes to his west and to his north in particular.”

“Because Chalidang is a water breathing hex, for one thing, and most water breathing civilizations are the other way—my way,” the Ochoan replied. “But, as important, when you run the hexes and the Overdark trade through the computer here you see how interdependent the whole region has become and how self-sufficient, say, the water hexes to the west are. The only major worthwhile target there is Czill, and it would serve Josich just as well if she could simply blow it up and deny its knowledge resources to the world. The rest? Well, in time, but those will be continental land campaigns. A different sort of fight with real extremes. No, she’s going east because that’s the only logical thing to do. She’s practically advertised her moves and they still don’t see it!”

“And you do,” Ari commented skeptically.

Core shifted in its bath. “The Ochoan is correct. Do not confuse the utter insanity of Josich with the Hadun capability to wage logical war. Even in Realm history, Josich’s campaigns were utterly ruthless, often genocidal, but brilliant. His failure then was in not reading other histories of conquerors, particularly those of other races. When you show this kind of genocidal lack of regard, then those who might normally turn and join you, or at least not oppose you, will fight to the death because they have nothing to lose. He lost almost a quarter of his fleet because desperate people of many races and from many worlds hurled themselves at them with total disregard for life or casualties. I believe he might have learned from that here, but it is difficult to say. I can say, Ochoan, that I believe I can help you.”

“You! You’ve never been in a battle or off a fixed structure buried deep inside a mountain on an isolated and barren planet,” Nakitti noted. “What can you do for me?”

“I cannot explain how Josich knew this world or how to make it all work to advantage,” Core admitted, “but I can already see how he will try and conquer your land. It is absurdly easy if a major first step, the kind of step you would never plan for, works out. Now that I know the broad outline and consider it logical, I would need to do some research to tell you precisely how Chalidang will do it, but it is more a matter of knowing the enemy’s strengths and limits than the actual method. That is obvious.”

“Yes? And what might that be?” the Ochoan prompted, as skeptical of Core as Ari had been of her.

“A siege. They will take the center of the country, keeping out of range of your coastal defenses but ensuring that you do not harvest from the waters. With the center, they will control the Zone Gate. If you attack them, they will slaughter you. If you defend only, they will reinforce until they can reach your fortresses on the mountains and on the coasts from above. It will be ugly and cost them a terrible number of lives, but that was never a factor to Josich, and those who survive will be rewarded handsomely. You will not be able to afford even lesser losses. They will starve you and bleed you and then, when you are weak and out of ammunition and low on food, your water poisoned, they will conquer.”

It was a terrible vision that stunned them. Finally, it was O’Leary who said, “So how are they going to take the center without a flying race? And seeing that the Ochoans are fliers, too, they’d be hard pressed to get a force down in the middle sufficient to fortify and hold. It doesn’t hold up, you see.”

“I believe it does and will,” Core maintained. “I simply need to do some more research to discover how it will be done. The races themselves are unimportant. Josich never could travel in air without a suit, none of us could be in space without an artificial environment, and we couldn’t get the resources to get at the Hadun for a very long time. Planetary invasions and planetary sieges were a part of his composition. He will do it. I simply need to fill in a few of the blanks. If, that is, the Kalindan government will allow me to do so.”

Nakitti looked at the High Commissioner. “I can use him, or it, or whatever. I don’t care about whether he has another agenda, he’s willing to look at mine, and I don’t have the time to be picky. I believe that bringing in an alien expert who knows Josich from before will carry more weight than I can, even if he winds up delivering my scripts. Can I have him?”

“I will see to it,” Dukla promised. “I know they will not like it, but after all, it is only here in Zone, and, of course, any attempt to go through a Gate will wind up with him back in Kalinda. It does not seem a great risk, and the Kalindan government is now demanding many resources to look into solutions for its problem, which is also serious. I believe a trade-off is possible.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Ari asked Nakitti.

“I—I can’t see it. I could use you all back home, but not here. Bird Lady, do you see anything any of the others could do? Or any reason not to borrow this one’s mind?”

Jaysu was actually meditating, the discussion having gone into areas she found boring and of no interest to her or her people, but she came out of it when addressed and looked at them. “The issue,” she said, “is in doubt. It will depend on your people most of all,” she told Nakitti, then looked at Core. “This one can help but there is something very wrong with it. It is an enemy of Josich, as are we all, but beware. You can win a battle and have no effect on the war. You may win a war, and lose worse than that which you defeat. Things are not as clear as they seem. And you will win no war without the Avenger and all of us gathered, and we will not do this soon again. I will pray for you all. It is the greatest contribution I can make to you for now.”

“Then it’s settled,” Nakitti proclaimed. “For now, if I don’t get by the devil I know, the devil I don’t is irrelevant.”

Ochoan Embassy, Three Days Later

“There is your answer,” core told them, pointing to the computer screen. The Baron and Nakitti stared at it and their jaws opened almost in unison in surprise. They had been unnerved that the creature had learned their language well enough to be understood in about a day and a half, while working on the problem.

The screen showed a photograph of a huge creature, sleek, glossy black, with a proboscis and two enormous, padded forward eyes on a small, rounded head that receded to form a near perfect triangular shape.

“What in all the Hells is that?” the Baron asked him.

“It is called a zi’iaphod. It is a native of a hex called Hovath, and is not sentient in the sense of being a dominant race. It is, in fact, domesticated. The nontech hex uses them to fly people and freight all over. You cannot get scale here, but one could certainly place a four hundred kilogram supply container on them plus, oh, fifteen or twenty armed creatures the size of the Baron here with full packs. That is a very light but incredibly tough exoskeleton; my data suggests that while cannons would get them in direct hits, gunpowder-based rifle and machine-gun fire would mostly bounce off it. The eyes are a weak spot, as is the center of the proboscis, and a very small spot in the rear, but the likelihood of hitting those before the creatures were down and their passengers and cargo disgorged is slim, and they certainly have some kind of armor rigged to make that even harder. The zi’iaphods’ range is close to two hundred kilometers if the winds are right, and that would certainly be sufficient to carry them from ships’ decks to the Ochoan center. Indications are that the Chalidangers have essentially rented them and their drivers for the duration and much promised wealth to come, and that they have or will soon have— let me see—close to two hundred aboard specially adapted ships. They will eat most anything, so provisions for four or five days is not nearly as much a problem as simply transporting them.”

“They’ve got those things? And they can transport a couple of thousand soldiers with added supplies?” The Baron was aghast.

“I believe it is at least that,” Core agreed. “I also believe they know that some will be killed and in fact are counting on it. They win either way. Once dead, they have a tendency to sort of crack open. Pressure internally, perhaps. The fragments of exoskeleton will make excellent armor for temporary fortifications, and if the invaders are Quacksans and Jerminians, as seems likely, the insides of one of these alone could feed a thousand for a few days. They are almost the perfect aerial assault device for this sort of operation.”