“I’m not asking you to.”
“What about … the weapon?”
“It’s mostly external. And I don’t think they’re going to be bouncing around in vacuum skins.”
“It’s not all external. There are several components in the mechanical caverns that could be visible to—”
“Yes, yes, I agree.” Thuk faced the recording alcove. “Susan Kamala. My harmony and I are … reluctant to allow armed warriors into our home.”
“Not negotiate, [Derstu] Thuk. I want/desire help you, but safety people mine prioritize.”
“What assurances do I have that your warriors won’t try to capture the Chusexx or her harmony?”
“I limit number/size. Takeover impossible. Only protect our attendants. Must respond mayday by corporate space law.”
“Those laws only extend to other human vessels, do they not?”
“Law essence, then. Say you what, goodwill token, I join warriors, self.”
There was an inaudible sound from the background, followed by the muffling sound of someone covering an ear. Thuk, Kivits, and Hurg looked at each other anxiously.
“Is she sun-stroked?” Kivits asked. “Coming over here herself?”
“Well, it does give us pretty good collateral, don’t you agree?”
The scratching sound happened again as Susan Kamala’s voice returned. “Forgive interruption, Thuk. My dulac misunderstand/disagreement. Now straight. So, we deal?”
“Your offer is acceptable, Susan Kamala. For reasons of sensitivity, there are places your warriors cannot be allowed to venture. I’m sure you would have similar concerns if we were visiting your home. You will be informed of such places politely, but firmly. I ask that you respect our privacy.”
“Our attendants not unescorted. If warriors not allowed, none of our people help those areas.”
“That is understood, Susan Kamala.”
“Then agreed. Our bird inbound. [ETA] forty-seven [minutes]. Being clear, take hostages/captives, my weapons attendant stand order cut through Chusexx as ripe [banana]. Kamala, out.” The link went silent.
“What’s a banana?” Hurg asked.
“I have no idea.” Thuk ran “forty-seven minutes” through a conversion tab. He had just enough time to get back to his room and put on formal dress before heading to the nest. The circumstances seemed to call for it. Thuk stood up from his chair and headed for the door.
“Wait, where are you going?” Kivits called to his back.
“Down to the bird nest to greet our ‘guests.’ Never seen a human in the skin before. I wonder what they smell like.”
“What, and leave me here to blow up the ship if they get by you?”
“You’d rather go grovel for aid from our enemies?”
Kivits’s thorax constricted. “I suppose not.”
“As I assumed. Try to keep the lights on. Diplomacy in the dark often leads to light in brief, violent flashes.”
SIXTEEN
“This is the single goddamned dumbest thing I have ever seen, heard, or read about,” Miguel said. “Mum,” he added.
“Noted, XO. Now hand your old lady her sidearm.”
Miguel obliged, but didn’t stop talking. “I mean, we just spent more than a month trying to shoot holes in them, they’ve already violated the Red Line twice and blown up our drones, and now we’re not even going to try and take them as a prize? What changed?”
“Everything, Miguel.” Susan pulled the Glock M73 from its holster and hit the magazine release: Full load of 10 mm armor-piercing fléchette cluster rounds meant to penetrate the Xre’s natural armor plating and tumble around in the goop. Each round held a bundle of six darts inside a sabot. Killing Xre was notoriously difficult. Most of the last war had been fought ship-to-ship or through orbital bombardments. Actual ground engagements or boarding actions had been exceptionally rare. Few humans had ever seen a Xre in the flesh. Fewer still had lived long enough to share any details. What little they knew about Xre physiology came mostly from dissecting cadavers recovered from shattered warships.
Susan slapped the magazine back into the pistol and racked the action to chamber a round before putting it back in its holster.
“We were shooting at them because they were an aggressor and a threat. Now, they’re not. If we blow up a defenseless ship, it could start a war. If we try to board, they’ll probably fight and we’ll have to kill them all and it could start a war. But, if we help…”
“We hold out an olive branch,” Miguel completed her thought.
“Exactly. Maybe this is the moment we finally put our dicks away, zip up our trousers, and start actually talking to one another.”
“I wish I shared your optimism, mum.”
“Optimism? That’s the first time I’ve ever been accused of such a terrible thing. I think they’re probably just as afraid to die needlessly as we are. Do they even remember why we started fighting in the first place? I don’t.” Susan turned to walk down the flexible accordion tunnel to the waiting shuttle, but paused at the threshold. “But I wasn’t kidding before. If they try anything, you tell that high-functioning psychopath Warner to cook them like a bug-zapper. Admiralty House can always find another recklessly naïve captain for the Ansari.”
“You don’t think they’d just let me keep her, mum?” Miguel said with a smile.
“Goodbye, Miguel. See you soon.”
“Good luck, mum. I’ll keep your seat warm.”
Susan nodded and spun the hatch tight behind her. It was a short walk from the hatch to the shuttle, but somehow it seemed like a kilometer. Susan swallowed hard. Miguel was right about one thing, this was the dumbest idea she’d ever heard of, too. Nothing for it, girl. You’re committed now.
She stepped away from the small platform inside the transfer tube and across the bright red line that delineated the last little piece of Ansari real estate, and moved across the jointed, shifting grates loosely attached to the floor of the transfer tube. The shuttle, one of the marines’ two assault birds that had been selected, was matte black and almost perfectly smooth. Like the Ansari herself, it had no portholes or windows, save for a gun slit windshield made out of twenty centimeters of laminated transparent aluminum that was probably stronger than the armor plating surrounding it, a compromise the designers had only made in the exceedingly unlikely event all of the shuttle’s optical feeds or
