“Just wanted to say hello. It’s been a while.” She motioned for Ginger to end the connection and then turned the seat around to face the others. “Let’s move. We need to drive back to our rear phase line and get as much unloaded as we can.”
“We aren’t going to just leave the rest are we?” One soldier whose arm was in a sling asked spontaneously.
“Unless you have a way to get it all transferred over, we’ll have to leave some.”
“Can’t we bury it and come back later?” he asked.
Sajani thought about it for a moment and then answered, “We’re pirates. Of course we can.”
Major Gena LeBene had always been fascinated by electronics—something that was doomed to become either obsolete or completely evolved in the next decade or so. It had been very difficult to get the parts she’d needed and even the copper wire and solder hadn’t come as quickly as she hoped. Parts like she was using were kept in a heavily guarded warehouse in Therfass and each request was thoroughly scrutinized. She knew that General Sestus had to have signed off on her purchase order at some point, but she also knew that he had risen to his rank as a tank commander, not a communications officer.
The tiny parts she was placing were not intended to be set by hand. Someone with less fine motor control would have been hard pressed to get them into place, let alone soldered down. But Gena LeBene was well known and respected inside and outside the elven military, as a very skilled and knowledgeable electrical engineer. Prior to her arrival in Terah, she had worked on the extraordinarily top-secret project known by the code name Cricket as the advisor to none other than Tesser himself.
Now, she repaired radios and advised a ruthless career officer.
She took her drill and created yet another tiny hole in the circuit board. It was hardly a good practice, but the machinery to make such boards was a low priority to whoever decided what to bring over and now there were none. One less behemoth and one more machine would have done a lot to keep them running at their old technological level.
She placed the wire with a pair of tiny plastic tweezers and then soldered it into place. Rising from her seat and taking the completed circuit board with her, she walked a couple of steps over to a metal tank with an attached hose. LeBene used the tank and hose to wash the board in Freon.
Reassembling the radio didn’t take too long, since she didn’t have to bother putting it back in its case. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t have fit anyway. Next, she turned on both the newly modified radio and a standard, unmodified one next to it. She turned towards the changed radio and spoke into the mic a single word: “Test.” Her voice could be heard on the other radio.
She made a few adjustments to the screen on the modified radio so that only two icons remained there—the one that represented itself and the unmodified one right next to it. Turning to the radio that was still in its case, she made a few more adjustments to the screen, but no matter what she did, only one icon appeared on it—the one that represented the radio itself. There was nothing to show that another radio was sitting just a few feet away.
So, with a lot of thought and time, she’d been able to produce a system that could track all other systems, but be completely unseen by everyone else—a stealth system. With a radio like this, it would be possible for someone to track everything the elven army was doing without anyone knowing about it.
Up until this point, there hadn’t been a need to create a radio that couldn’t be seen by any of the others. Their mortal enemy from the other world wouldn’t touch their technology, even when they were able to capture it. They had other ways of listening in and other ways of tracking them.
But this, Major Lebene was sure, was how the Copper Wolf was tracking them—using their own system. Up until this point, they thought that she had been using a very effective method of scouting them out, but the reports that the major had been seeing showed something odd—the Lady of Rust only had, at most, six transports. No other equipment that could move her troops had been seen on any of the raids.
There was also something else interesting—all the raids were led by one of only three leaders—her, a much smaller female with gray fur, and the huge wolf creature the elf forces had nicknamed, “the monster.”
The most anyone reported seeing at any time, if their numbers were seen at all—they liked to hide them—was fourteen. If that was right and they left some to guard a rear detachment, the most she could have was thirty. To Major LeBene, that didn’t seem like enough for the type of scouting they’d have to have been doing to find every perfect convoy to raid. They managed to always avoid the ones with behemoth escort. And the only “magic” that had been reported so far was for healing—nothing like the complex incantations their old enemy had been able to perform.
No, she was now sure that they had someone who was very smart working on her team and that person had figured out how to change a radio the same way she just had. It was incredibly unlikely, but it was the only explanation so far that fit the facts. Even Sestus wouldn’t call it an assumption.
A polite knock came from the pole next to the flap of her tent and she leaned over and nonchalantly turned off the modified radio.
“General Sestus demands to see you immediately Gena,” the voice of her friend and fellow major, Kree Zelarga came through the opening. He was being as mocking of their commander as any of them dared and trying to make light of the order without directly saying that it’d been clear she needed to be at the command tent as close to instantaneously as technology and muscle would allow.
“Thanks, Kree,” she answered. It was the few people like him that kept her going in her thankless job.
“Where was that transport?” General Sestus said with a calm he hoped instilled its usual fear in his subordinates.
Major Zelarga, the fire control officer he’d summoned earlier, answered him. “It hasn’t moved since it reported the firefight fifteen minutes ago.”
“What artillery is in range?”
“None. We can get an air strike there, now that we know our people aren’t present, but it will take a half hour.”
“To get where she is, she had to have taken out four behemoths and she’s probably still very much on alert. I’m not sure I want to risk that. What’s the ETA on our artillery?”
“Ten minutes from now. I ordered them to intercept the transport convoy once the attack was reported. They were in position to intercept incoming hostiles. The behemoths were supposed to take care of any direct threat.”
“Indeed, major, and I’ll forgive you the oversight on that this time.” He could afford to be somewhat calm for the moment. There was nothing he could do for another ten minutes and it was important that his underlings see him contemplative and fair from time to time—so long as they didn’t feel like it was anything they could count on when they made mistakes.
What changed? Why had that blasted Copper Wolf decided that she could take on four behemoths? More importantly, how had she been able to do that? True, the attack had happened at night, like most of what she did, but four behemoths? The report from the transport had said that the behemoths had been destroyed and that was the first they’d heard from them tonight.
And how did she know what it was hauling? She had to have known. She’d been able to get most other supplies from less armed convoys. His eyes drifted to the console in front of him and the images slowly moving across the screen. It told him everything he needed to know about where his people were and what they were doing—everything.
“Sir?” Major Zelarga prompted. “Am I ordering an airstrike?”
“No, major,” Sestus said with a hint of triumph in his voice. “You’re bringing Major LeBene to me immediately.”
The fire control officer returned immediately and it didn’t take long, the general was glad to note, before LeBene herself entered. He’d had reason to worry about the major’s conviction lately. He’d have reassigned her, but she was perhaps the only person in his immediate command whe
re a move or dismissal would be scrutinized, possibly even overruled—and he supposed that she knew it. Famous people had no business in his army.
Major LeBene was wearing a barely distinguishable smug smile on her face. Most wouldn’t have noticed it, but it was slightly different than her normal demeanor and although he often pretended to not read body language well, the truth was, at least in his own mind, Sestus was a master at it.
“Major LeBene,” he said with more grace and admiration in his voice than he’d given out in the last month, “Your knowledge of frequency and sub-particle physics is, notably, unmatched on this primitive world.”
She looked slightly confused by the compliment, just as Sestus hoped she would be, but she managed a well-intended, “Thank you, sir.”
“Are you aware of what just took place here?” he said and then added, “and I mean just took place here.”
“No sir.”
“I’d have thought that Major Zelarga would have filled you in about it.”
“No sir. He mentioned that you wanted to see me immediately and then left.”
“You are aware of the quarterly pay shipment?” He watched her response closely, but didn’t notice anything unusual about it.
“I know that it left Therfass a couple of days ago and is due to arrive here for distribution in another couple of days.”
“It won’t be arriving here, major.” Again he watched carefully, but the only thing he noted on her expression was honest confusion.
“We’ll be distributing it from somewhere else?”
Sestus noted that apparently the thought of it going missing was not occurring to her, just as it hadn’t occurred to him or any of his other officers.
“No, major,” Sestus said with an exasperated sigh. “The Copper Wolf has your pay, as well as everyone else’s.” Again, her response seemed just like any of his other officers.
“But it had multiple behemoths?” she said.
The general could hear the disbelief in her voice. “It had four,” he said. “If you want specifics.”
Again there was a long pause as the elf military commander allowed LeBene time to assimilate what was happening.
“I’m as disappointed and upset as anyone else here,” LeBene said and Sestus believed she was telling the truth, “but I’m in charge of communications—not supply or armor.”
Ah, Sestus thought to himself, there’s a little bit of the defiance I was expecting—although, not much more than what it takes to be able to work with me. “Very astute of you to notice, major, that I obviously didn’t call you here to discuss military tactics.” She didn’t respond to his mixed compliment, instead, she waited patiently, like a good soldier. He continued, “I’m curious how she happened to know what shipment to attack.”
LeBene just stared at him as though waiting for him to say more. He wondered from that if what he was thinking hadn’t even occurred to her. After a moment though, she spoke. “I’m sorry sir, but that still seems like something outside of communications. It sounds like a counter-intelligence thing to me.”
Again, she seemed to be missing the point. “You don’t think that perhaps they’ve figured out a way to see our tactical display?”
The major seemed to take some time to ponder it before she answered. “Impossible, sir.” She said with noticeable conviction. “We’d be able to track them as well. If they have their radio on more than thirty seconds, we can place them.”
“Couldn’t it be rewired to allow them to track us, but not see them?”
A look of amusement crossed her face and she said with a laugh, “They wouldn’t be able to figure out how the frequencies work, let alone rewire some of our technology.”
“You’re sure of this Major LeBene?” He’d hoped to give her enough rope to hang herself, but it looked like his noose was hanging from the wrong tree.
She shrugged. “I can go over the schematics for it if you want, sir, but the two things aren’t wired separately. If the unit is receiving then, it’s also sending. I’ve never seen a broken unit that was doing only one and not the other—if one goes, they both go.”
“Could one be built that worked like that?”
Major LeBene let out a burst of laughter, but quickly quieted herself and regained composure. “Sorry, sir, but that struck me as being somewhat funny.”
General Sestus frowned. “I hardly think it’s something humorous, major. Our enemy managed to know exactly where and when to strike a very important convoy.”
“Then, as I said before general,” she said with even a small amount of respect in her voice, “your best bet is with counter intelligence. The primitive locals here don’t even have radio, let alone the sophisticated system we use.”
The clearing was far from peaceful. Near its outer border, four large vehicles sat in complete ruin—somehow the metal that made up most of them was burning in high flames that let off a pale aqua light and cast eerie shadows over the corpses of dead soldiers left strewn around what had obviously been a battlefield. All of these bodies were facing outward.
In the center of the smoldering remains of what had been four elven behemoths sat a communications console attached by two huge copper wires to a plain looking black box. It was difficult, but not impossible to read the screen in the bluish green light from the nearby fires. Foreign symbols moved rhythmically from one point to another, sending a slight illumination and pulsating glow onto the grass beneath it.
And then the quiet and simple scene was shattered by ten explosions in quick succession that lit up the night and added to the smoke and debris that was already heavy in the air. The flaming masses shuddered and extinguished under the force of the artillery shells. As quickly as it had come, the night again fell quiet. Now, however, the only glow was the hot metal of the behemoths that somehow had not yet cooled.
Chapter Nine:
Pacing
Doc motioned to Ghenis to let him know that it was time to make another round. The old ambassador got up slowly and walked carefully, but at the moment was more mobile than half of the crew. The healer waited patiently while the older vykati carefully placed the large satchel back over his head and motioned that he was ready.
The two began with the cot of their star patient. She’d been very moody the last couple of days and kept trying to get up on her own—an action that on one occasion ended with her landing hard on her cot and breaking it into pieces. Doc noted wryly that with the way the splint on Sajani’s lower leg was currently sitting, she’d no doubt tried to get back up on her own recently.
“My lady,” he chided, “Just one or two more days and you’ll be fine moving around on crutches. You need to stop trying to move around on your own. Trust me.”
The Copper Wolf let out a loud humph and crossed her arms in front of her, pulling out part of the splint on her upper right arm. At least with her there was no more blood. Her healing had been enough to close her own wounds over the last couple of days. Starting tomorrow, he’d bring some of his worse off patients over to her cot for her to heal and Doc was grateful for that extra help. The only reason she hadn’t already been doing that, was because Doc kept her isolated from the rest—something that she loudly let him know multiple times that she didn’t like.
She was mostly in her own tent for the good of the troops. Doc and Ghenis agreed that they didn’t want the others to see how badly she was hurt. Tess had told them that she thought it was a stupid idea and even Chass had lodged a polite and somewhat firm complaint, but both allowed Doc control over his patients.
Sajani and Chass were in the same tent, the three wounded petty officers were in another, and the remaining troops were housed in three other tents. This allowed Doc and Ghenis to say that they were separated by rank. Most believed them, despite the fact that occasionally Sajani’s shouting could be heard throughout their camp, calling out Doc and demanding she be able to see her soldiers.
“I’ve agreed to your request that I mend the bones of your soldiers bef
ore yours,” he said gently, “but you need to allow me to help you heal on your own, if I’m to do that.” He was carefully rewrapping her leg splint as he said it. She responded the same way she always responded to him saying that—she ignored him, but allowed him to place whatever bandages he needed.
He took a bandage from the case that Ghenis was carrying and used it to try and make Sajani’s arm splint harder for her to move around in. He’d done this many times before, multiple times a day and she still refused to keep the arm still. Even other military healers he’d worked on in the past, were not as difficult of a patient as she was. It was something that he’d heard about before, in both textbooks and from older doctors who had been in combat in ages past. Some soldiers developed a mentality in order to deal with the stress of exposure to a life-threatening environment—they viewed themselves as immortal. Not to the point of doing stupid things, but just enough to come to terms with the constant threat they were living with. Sajani obviously thought her wounds weren’t enough to keep her down, despite the fact that they always were, every time she tried to get up on her own.
That cheerful patient taken care of as best as possible, Doc and Ghenis turned their attention to Chass. The second mate was much more amiable than their captain. He was sitting up reading a book on chemistry that Tenner had provided for him and even had a smile on his face. The healer’s spells had already been exhausted for the day, so there wasn’t much else to do for the huge vykati other than change out the bandage around his chest. The wolf put down his book and cooperated as much as possible. There was a lot less blood on the gauze than the last time and Doc felt like Chass would be able to be up and about with the next round of spells. That would be a relief. ‘fang kept asking about him two or three times a day, but between him and Ghenis, they were able to keep her out of the tent.
The only ones who knew how close they’d come to losing Chass, outside of the vykati himself, and those who had directly treated him or moved him were Ginger and Tenner, who came by each day to report directly to Sajani about enemy movements. The old healer sent up a silent prayer to Indira that they wouldn’t have to move his patients any time soon. The tents were mostly under tree cover, so fast moving elf airships weren’t very likely to see them. To be extra safe, either Ginger or Tenner watched the display constantly, making sure that nothing came close to them.
Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1) Page 19