Belief in a thing is sometimes poor preparation for seeing the proof, and the proof threatened to deafen her. Courtier barges drifted past them, filled with cheering Quailu, all straining to see the Human who’d saved their lady, the Humans who’d brought back a lost ship.
She still half suspected the guns to come out and the point of the whole cruel joke to be unveiled but they kept walking and stepped up to a large circle in the tiled floor, ten meters away from a stately female Quailu sitting on a carved wooden throne.
Somehow, her brain managed to register that Gleb was offering a half-bow from the waist, one hand over his heart. It was the standard form of respectful greeting when a mushkenu greeted an awilu, though she’d never really expected to do such a thing.
She’d been grown to be a mushkenu but she’d never have dreamed, in the squalid conditions on the Deathstalker, that she’d need to use such knowledge. It was a massive step to adjust to, in so short a time.
She realized, just in time, that she was in danger of accidentally showing disrespect to one of the most powerful nobles in the empire and she bent, hand to heart, ears red.
“Gleb of Kish!” the Quailu lady said warmly and Siri, released by the words of greeting, straightened to see, with shock, that the noble was on her feet, approaching Gleb.
“I thank the gods,” she said, placing her hands on his shoulders, “that they chose to make us allies, rather than enemies!”
Siri was dimly aware of a small cloud of drones and realized they were probably holo-filming the encounter. Gleb’s role in the local pantheon of heroes was about to get a new chapter and she felt a sudden shock of realisation.
She and Mel were now joining that pantheon!
Mel leaned close enough to whisper in her ear. “You’re seeing all this too, right?”
She smiled, somehow reassured by his disbelief.
Bau gestured to the group by the dais and a creature with long limbs and wicked-looking teeth stepped forward.
“For only the second time in more than seven thousand years,” Bau said formally, “and in recognition of services rendered repeatedly to our noble person and to the people of our holdings, a person of non Enibulan origin is hereby invested as a Knight of Enibulu!”
The creature, evidently a native citizen of Bau’s home-world, stepped forward and draped a sash and star around Gleb’s neck.
A knight? Siri had only heard the word once before during her short existence but it had sounded like a big deal. Some sort of honor used to distinguish members of the non-slave classes from the rest of the horde.
“Thank you, Lady Bau,” Gleb said, sounding a little shocked. Siri was pleased to see this evidence that he wasn’t completely unflappable.
“I am deeply grateful and I’m aware of the great honor accorded to me by your royal person as well as by my Enibulan brothers,” he added, exchanging bows with the creature who’d draped the sash on him.
“I understand that time waits for no one,” Bau said. “I will save you the trouble of trying to politely point that out to an electress by offering to convey you back to orbit in my own shuttle.”
“You’re coming up with us, your grace?”
Bau turned to the side, gesturing to a door behind the dais. “I wouldn’t miss the ceremony for worlds,” she said, “even though it’s so quick and simple. It’s long deserved and I wouldn’t mind a look at her, before she has to leave.”
Ceremony? Siri wondered. What new surprises are waiting in orbit? She caught Mel’s questioning glance and shrugged.
“Time may wait for no one,” Gleb answered, “but I’m sure even time could use a short break, now and then.”
The door opened on a short corridor that led them onto an ornately appointed shuttle. Unlike most shuttles, this one had a raised passenger compartment surrounded by transparent armor plating that gave a view all around the occupants. A couple of officers were already waiting there.
Bau looked at Siri and Mel. “Are you crewmates of Gleb’s?”
The walls of the palace’s landing bay flowed past them and they glided silently out into the dark night of Enibulu.
Siri’s eyes grew wide as saucers. Being two meters away from a reclining princess of the empire was nerve-wracking enough but now she was expected to make small talk. Am I on somebody’s crew?
“They’re new recruits,” Gleb said. “They’re already proving very useful. Siri, here,” he added, indicating her with a wave of his hand, “was able to help your engineers find the enemy guards without having to go deck by deck.”
“Really?” Bau turned back to her. “How did you manage that?”
Siri gulped. “Well, your grace, I used the system that tracks EVA suits. It just needed a link to the holographic interface, so we could display the data.” Gods! She thought. I’m talking to an electress! I just managed to say a complete sentence without making a fool of myself!
“Very clever!” Bau said. “Gleb is very lucky to have you!”
Gleb is lucky? Siri wondered. Does she think he and I are…?
“You know,” Bau continued, “we really must expand on our exchange program. More officers and ratings, especially now that we’re exchanging so much technology. I shall have to suggest it to my royal cousin when next we speak. Ah!” she exclaimed. “We’re slowing. Are we there already?” She peered out the windows.
What are we doing? Siri wondered. There’s nothing but empty… Her mouth hung open, a shiver running up her spine. Directly ahead, where there had been nothing but blackness, a hangar bay was somehow sliding into view.
She could see crewmen moving around inside the strange window on what almost appeared to be another universe. As they passed through the strange portal, it became clear that they were inside a ship’s hangar, even though there had been no ship to see from the outside.
Two rows of crewmembers were lined up along the far side of the hangar and she leaned forward, realizing that they were all Humans.
“The Stiletto,” Gleb said softly, almost reverently. “Fast attack, Scorpion-class corvette.” He looked at Mel and Siri, eyes shining. “Her hull’s covered in carbon nano-tubules. She’s like a sponge for most of the EM spectrum. That’s why you can’t see much from the outside.”
They have invisible ships? Siri marveled. And they trust Humans to serve on them? For her, that was even more astounding. Such a technology had to be highly secretive. Noone aboard the Deathstalker even seemed aware such a thing existed.
The shuttle turned to face back out the entry portal and settled on the deck. Bau gestured to the descending ramp. “It’s your moment, after all,” she said.
Siri stood to follow Gleb, wondering why they were making such a big deal of his return. Bau moved to stand beside her and, when Siri looked her way, offered a friendly nod, something she’d never seen a Quailu do before. As far as she knew, the ruling species left physical gestures to the less evolved.
If not for the nod, though, she’d be horrified at the idea of walking off a shuttle beside such an eminent awilu. Instead, she was merely terrified. Mel moved to follow behind them.
They stopped when Gleb stopped, ten meters from the assembled crewmen, and a Human wearing the rank insignia of a master warrant officer stepped forward.
Siri felt immediate alarm. Things had been going so well and now they were confronted by a Human masquerading as a warrant officer! There was no way Lady Bau could overlook something like this!
But no angry words came, no recriminations.
“Computer,” the imposter said loudly and clearly, “recognize voiceprint of Meeshkennu, master warrant officer.”
“Voiceprint recognized,” the computer replied. “Meeshkennu, master warrant officer, currently commanding the Stiletto.”
“Lieutenant Glebkennu of Kish,” Meeshkennu said formally. “I am ready to be relieved.”
“In accordance with orders issued by our lord, Mishakwilu, Prince of the Empire, I hereby take command of the Stiletto. Computer, recognize vo
iceprint of Glebkennu, lieutenant, officer commanding.”
“Voiceprint recognized. Welcome aboard, Captain.”
A Human as captain? Siri thought her experiences up to now had been unbelievable but this made the rest seem tame. Gleb? Gleb commands a ship in Mishak’s house forces?
Gleb nodded to Meeshkennu. “You are relieved.”
“Oh,” The other Human grinned. “You have no idea! Congratulations!” He turned and bowed to Bau. “My Lady! It’s good to see you again! I was hoping you’d find time to take a tour?” he added hopefully.
“Of course,” she replied. “and I brought one of my weapons designers with me. I wonder if you might be able to walk us through the modifications your people have been making to our missiles.”
“Have there been new developments while I was away?” Gleb asked them.
“You could say that,” Meesh answered, gesturing to a large hatch. “I have a missile opened up in the engineering bay. If you’d like to come along, I can walk you through the changes.”
Siri and Mel, not knowing what else to do on this strange ship, followed the group. They filed into engineering behind the rest and tried their best to stay out of notice.
“The mass attenuation field is a brilliant piece of engineering,” Meesh began, looking mostly at the weapons expert who seemed to be taking it as a personal compliment, “but we noticed,” Meesh continued, “that damage from the missile body itself rivaled what the warhead was doing to the enemy ships.
“At those velocities, even a little mass made a hells of a mess, so we tried putting osmium inserts in the casing to increase the damage. That worked amazingly well. Even if the warhead proved a dud, your original design still proved a potent kinetic weapon.” He grinned. “And, when you add in all that extra mass…”
Meesh turned his gaze to include the rest of the group. “That’s when Noa and I started talking about the idea of reversing the field on your MA units.”
“Reversing?” the designer said, stepping forward.
“The science was simple enough, Doctor, after you’d blazed the original path for us. We just had to tinker a bit with one of your generators. Turning mass attenuation into mass augmentation was easier than we’d expected.”
The designer stared at the weapon on the table. “What effect does it have on impact?”
“The first time?” Meesh shrugged. “Not at all what we were hoping for because the field was cast too far out from the weapon. It ended up increasing the mass of the target’s hull just before contact.”
He pointed to the thick metal casing inside the outer shell. “We had to adjust the MA generator to project its augmentation field inside the outer boundaries of this osmium casing, with the power lines just inside the nose, otherwise the field would remain active for too long.”
“I can see how you’ve done this,” the designer said, “but what escapes me is why. The weapons we sent you are more than enough to destroy even a capital ship. Why the need for more power?”
“Because we rarely face a single ship, Doc,” Meesh replied. “The boost in initial penetration we get from mass augmentation usually leaves a lot more of the weapon intact by the time it reaches the far side of the target. That means decent-sized chunks of osmium travelling through a tight formation at nearly relativistic velocity.”
“Ah.” The scientist chuckled. “When you put it like that, it makes sense.” He stepped back from the weapon. “If you send me your data, I’ll get to work on a simpler way to switch between attenuation and augmentation using the same generator. We might even be able to send it out to you as a software change.”
Meesh nodded. “We thought a software method might work but we lack an underlying knowledge of the physics behind the whole concept, so we went with a simple hardware switch. We’ve been hoping we’d get a chance to talk with you ever since, so, when we heard Gleb had liberated the Harpy, we figured we’d bring his ship here and kill two cheevers with one boot. I’ll send you everything we have before we leave orbit.”
“Perhaps a quick tour My Lady?” Gleb suggested. “The crew would be thrilled to rub shoulders with an electress.” He grinned. “Seeing as you’re already here, slumming it…”
“Ha!” Bau held up her hand, middle finger extended, and Siri was suddenly certain this was all just a foolish dream and she’d wake up in her cot, still aboard the Deathstalker. She’d never seen the gesture before, but it just seemed so… un-Quailu.
Except Gleb’s face showed unmistakable alarm, so maybe this would end up making sense, somehow.
“Uh, my lady,” he began cautiously, “that gesture means…”
“I’m well aware of what it means,” she said, chuckling. “Or, rather, from talking with your lord recently, I’m now aware. I’m using it in the proper context this time, yes?”
Gleb breathed out a sigh of relief. “Yes, ma’am. I suppose it’s entirely appropriate, seeing as I was being a bit cheeky with a princess of the empire.”
“Lead on,” she gestured for Gleb to show the way.
Siri was about to follow, but Meesh stepped forward, catching both her and Mel’s eyes with a nod. “So you’re the two new crewmen from Melvin’s ship?”
She nodded. “That’s right, we’re both comms techs, so…”
“We have no real need for comms techs,” he cut her off.
Siri felt the bottom drop out of her world. What would they do now if they couldn’t join this ship?
“Now that Gleb’s back, I’m only double-hatted instead of triple,” Meesh went on. “I’m chief engineer for the Stiletto and also the XO. We don’t need a traditional comms team because we use our own coding to fix up the data automatically.
“No. Where I’m short-handed is right here, in engineering. You two want to work down here for me?”
The bottom returned to Siri’s world but she didn’t notice. She was soaring high above it. “I would love to work in engineering, Master Warrant!”
“Hells, yeah!” Mel added. “I was so sick of sitting in that comms suite.” He frowned. “We’ll get some training? We’ve both done some modules but we’re not seasoned, by any stretch.”
“That’s no problem,” Meesh assured him. “We’ve got a chamber on board. We’ll get you up to speed in no time. Gleb said you were both pretty sharp. Chim!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Show these guys to their quarters.”
The quarters were small. Chim led them to two doors, each opening on rooms that were two by five meters but, compared to the reeking bunks on the Deathstalker, this was an incredible luxury. There were additional doors on either side of the room that could be used to connect to adjacent quarters and she opened the one on Mel’s side to find him standing in his room, a huge grin on his face.
She returned to her own quarters and opened a sliding door on the hall-side of the room, staring in amazement at the three under-armor suits that hung there. She reached out and touched one. Is this supposed to be for me? She took it from its hanger and held it up. It was clearly meant for a Human.
“Hey!” Mel’s voice came through the door. “They gave us under-armor suits!”
She tossed the suit on her bed. A bed! She deactivated her EVA suit and stepped out of the footplates. Turning her attention back to the suit, she saw that it opened down the front.
Hopping first on one foot and then the other, she worked her way into the suit and closed it up. The fabric adjusted itself, flowing into a close fit that wouldn’t interfere with her armored EVA suit.
She stretched out her arms, marveling at how comfortable it felt. It provided support where needed but didn’t restrict movement at all. She turned to see Mel standing in the connecting doorway, a surprised look on his face.
“What?” she asked, dropping her arms.
“That suit,” he stammered. “On you, it’s…”
“Oh, come on!” she said, disbelieving. “You’ve seen me naked. You’ve done far more than just see me naked over the last few days.”
; “Yeah, but this is different,” he tried to explain. “It’s more exciting, somehow…”
“When I’m covered up?” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Thanks a lot!”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant! I don’t know how to explain it, but hinting at your shape while still concealing it… It engages the mind more.
“Remember how, on the Deathstalker, folks would cling to each other just to numb their minds? Here, I don’t want to numb my mind and it’s running wild right now…”
She was surprised to realize how much sense that made. She had to admit that first time, in their dingy apartment on Henx, had been unlike any experience she’d ever known.
Siri took the time to check out how his own suit fit. The way it clung to his shoulder muscles was surprisingly attractive. Her eyes traveled down his chest, over his flat stomach.
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh! You really weren’t kidding!”
“Yeah, it kind of caught me off guard,” he mumbled, “seeing you in that suit…”
“Well,” she said playfully, moving toward him, “we can’t have you wandering the corridors like that, now, can we?”
Debrief
The Dibbarra, Fleet R.V. point #233
Mishak looked at Eth, seeking some sign that he was joking. He could feel his subordinate’s emotions once again, though not as completely as before. Still, there was no deception in the Human’s mind.
He could feel Tashmitum’s skepticism but she seemed to be keeping an open mind or, at least, trying to.
He leaned on what Oliv had taught him about physical tells but that held no clues either. Eth seemed to believe what he was saying. He looked to the woman who’d come in with him. Scylla, he thought.
She was even harder to read. He turned back to Eth. “What?” He knew it sounded stupid but it was definitely appropriate.
“I know this is all hard to believe, Lord,” Eth said evenly, “but that makes it no less true.” He kept his eyes on Mishak. “Scylla,” he said quietly.
Humans Page 24
