The colonel looked at her aide, who only raised her eyebrows. Colonel Hodges faced Lara again and said only, “We’ll see.”
We’ll see. The words meant what Lara thought they meant. The marines rejoined their fleet. Lara went back to studying recorded Scorcher interactions and to rehearsal simulations with her pilots and crewmen, who were all still on the surface. Lara’s own fleet of ships waited in low orbit, empty except for maintenance workers. And two days after the Sword demonstration, Fleet Intelligence pinged her. “Scorcher fleet emerging from the Hawking radiation,” the officer said. “They have formed up at 19 AU, but they aren’t moving. We’ve scrambled your crews.”
Lara sub-vocalized the commands that would take her into the sensor net. Black silhouettes of Scorcher ships stood out against the Hawking glow. She said, “The marines?”
“Gone,” said the officer.
“On their way to intercept?” Damn. She sensed for them. Where were they?
“Gone, I don’t know where,” the man reported. “They were in high orbit, and then they weren’t anywhere. We don’t sense them, but they must still be in system. It’s only been a couple minutes. No red flash.”
“They may not make one, with their stealth,” Lara said, though she doubted that the marines had gone more than a few AU from the sun. “Civil defense has been alerted?”
“The alarm is going out. Citizens are taking shelter.”
Except for the ones who aren’t, Lara thought. But most people would obey the order to go inside and opaque their windows, or even get underground if they could. “I’m on my way to the flagship.”
She called the president, told him what she knew so far. He said he’d be watching.
Fleet Commander Nikkono Chuen was waiting for her on the shuttle pad.
“Everything on schedule?” she asked him.
“Crews are on their way. We’ll be the last ones up.”
During the noisy, vibrating climb into orbit, Lara called Fleet Communications. “I want to broadcast a message to the marines,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. Uh, Madam Chief, we don’t know where the marines are.”
“I know. So if I can’t squirt to them, I’ll broadcast. Squirt my message to the sensors and let them broadcast it as radio.”
A pause. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so, won’t that tell the Scorchers where all of our sensors are?”
“I’d be very surprised if the Scorchers wanted to hit our sensors.”
Dim letters formed in the middle of Lara’s visual field. Don’t bother.
The comm officer couldn’t be accessing Lara’s text channel, and the president hadn’t pinged her ...
Who the hell? she messaged.
Colonel Hodges, here. No need to broadcast from your sensor net. What can I do for you, Defense Chief?
“Belay that,” Lara said. She disconnected from comm. Where? She was sure the marines were headed toward the Scorchers. That would preclude lightspeed communications. Where are you?
Can’t say.
How can I be squirting you, unless I know your location?
We have all the best gear, Madam Chief. It would knock your socks off. Wait until you see our other toys.
Stand down. Are you going to stand down? Give us a chance!
Let’s say your plan works, Madam Chief. We’ll never know if we’ve finally matched the Scorchers. Relative strength is important information for either side, the weak or the strong.
Colonel, if you attack them, they may consider the interaction completed. If the battle doesn’t go your way, we may not get a chance to ... perform.
I hope to hell that it does go my way. But if not, I wish you luck. Sorry I won’t be around, in that case, to see your show.
Fleet Commander Chuen said, “Sensors are getting an analog broadcast from the Scorchers.”
“Let’s hear it.”
The Scorcher music thumped and grated. Lara started to tap the dominant beat on her leg.
Ugh, messaged the colonel. Can’t dance to that.
We can.
The colonel’s text said, Ha. Bet you can. We’re not that different, you and I . . . That’s a compliment, if you’re not sure.
Lara laughed.
“What?” said the fleet commander.
“Nothing.”
The colonel’s last words were, Tally ho! Then an end-of-transmission sigil appeared.
“All right, then,” Lara said under her breath. “Give them hell.”
The Scorchers started to move sunward just as Lara and the commander transferred from their shuttle to their flagship, the Alpha. Lara called up the sensor data. She could still feel the gentle tug of her seat restraints as the crew took the ship out of their planetary orbit and into a solar one. She still smelled the ship’s interior, the air that was always a little stale in spite of the scrubbers. But what she saw was space. Blackness. Stars burned bright and steady. And far away, still at the distance of the gas giants, the Scorchers continued sunward. Data squirts from the sensors were letting her see all of this in real time. It would be more than two hours before ordinary light and radio signals made it this far sunward from the Scorcher location. Much of the crew saw some version of these images.
“Chief,” said Fleet Commander Chuen, “with the marines out there, do we stick to the script?”
He didn’t have to defer to Lara, now that they were launched. She was, technically, a political office holder along for the ride. But the plan was Lara’s, and she was glad that the commander wanted her advice.
The Scorcher ships formed an undulating line, a wave form that moved in time with a rising and falling whistle in their music.
“It’s going to take a while to close with them,” Lara said. “The marines have a head start, maybe a big one. I doubt we’ll cramp their style at our speed.”
“Form up all ships,” ordered the commander. “Helm, take us out.”
“Lights!” said a crewmember.
The Scorcher ships were flashing lights in time with their music.
“That’s something we haven’t seen them do before.”
“No surprise,” Lara said. “They like variety.” Every interaction, every Scorcher attack, had been different.
Lara sub-vocalized for the spectral data. The Scorcher lights flashing on and off were intense, but their radiation fell mostly between infrared and UV. This was not a weapon.
Scorcher ships reformed into a square array, nine ships by nine. They flashed lights again, creating geometric patterns on the nine-by-nine grid.
“Think that means anything?” asked a crew member.
No one answered. Who could say?
“Ship’s artificial intelligence just mapped two of those patterns to the planetary scorch marks left in earlier encounters,” said someone else. The data officer, probably.
If the Scorchers had indeed written “You suck” in UV scorch marks on the surface of human worlds, they had just repeated the insult. If. So much was still guesswork.
The Scorcher ships contracted into a sphere, one of their favorite moves. Lara held her breath. This would be a good time for the marines to attack, if they were close enough.
The sphere expanded, flattened. The Scorcher ships moved in a way that reminded Lara of flocks of blackbirds, all ships changing direction and velocity at once, as if they had been printed on a turning page.
Then it was over. The analog broadcast stopped.
Still no attack. Either the marines had been out of range, or they had waited until the Scorcher ships had issued their challenge by playing their music and dancing their dance. For half a second, Lara thought that perhaps the marines would continue to hold back, would let Lara’s fleet close with the aliens.
Space erupted with white light.
“Lord of lords!” someone said.
“What in all the vastness ...”
The intense brilliance gave way to blackness. Not ordinary blackness. Black blindness. The web of sensors closest to t
he Scorchers had been fried. There was a hole in the data stream.
“What was that?” Lara said. “Ours or theirs?” She still saw only blackness. No stars, even. Then more distant sensors began to stream their data. The visual resolution was poor, because they were so far away, but Lara saw that there were still Scorcher ships out there. There was hard radiation, too. “Atomics?”
“Analyzing,” said a crew member. “The radiation signature is similar to a traditional nuke, but not spot on. Extra particles in the soup. It went off right in the midst of the Scorchers, so I’m guessing it’s not one of theirs.”
“Play,” Lara said. “Commander, give the order to the musicians. It might forestall retaliation. Something just hit the Scorchers, and we’re the only thing they can see.”
The fleet commander gave the order. Aboard other ships of the fleet, musicians at soundboards began to play. Lara heard the analog broadcast of her fleet’s own music. It had a beat like the Scorcher music, but more melody. She had guessed that the Scorchers would want some originality, but written according to what Lara’s composers had been able to understand about Scorcher music theory.
There was another flash like the first. Then another.
There was no blackout this time as the light faded. The sensors closest to the event had already been taken out. Lara’s visual resolution improved as more sensors redirected toward the empty area and contributed their output. In the dimming glow, Lara counted the Scorcher ships. Still eighty-one.
A beam of white light connected a Scorcher vessel to an empty spot in space. Lara couldn’t tell which way the energy was flowing. Was this a marine weapon hitting the Scorchers? Had the marines duplicated the Scorcher particle weapons?
Then a marine ship appeared at the end of the light, its stealth apparently disabled.
More rays of light connected Scorcher ships with invisible fighters.
“That marine ship is hot,” someone reported. “Cabin’s flooding with gamma.”
Get out, Lara thought to the marines in the dying fighter. Escape pods started to launch haphazardly from the hot ship. Beams of Scorcher particle weapons met them. The escape pods had even less shielding. They erupted and bled their atmospheres into space. Six escape pods. Six dead marines.
“Fish in a barrel,” someone muttered.
“Shut up,” said the commander.
That’s how it continued. The Scorchers killed the marine ships, then picked off the escaping crew pods one by one. In minutes, it was over.
“May all sentient beings attain enlightenment,” Lara whispered.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the fleet,” said Fleet Commander Chuen, “it’s show time. Hold positions. Close to one half AU. Throw some improvisation into that music. Let’s entertain these bastards.”
“And let’s hope that the marines didn’t screw up our opening night,” Lara said.
The Scorchers accelerated sunward much faster than the fleet traveled to meet them. Beyond the orbit of the system’s dead binary planet, the two fleets closed on one another.
“Point five AU,” reported the helm.
“Cue intro music,” said the commander. “A one and a two ...”
The music started up. Thump thadada thump. Wheeze.
Just like Scorchers liked it, Lara hoped.
“Flag undulation,” the commander said.
Lara refocused her sensor image to watch her own fleet. The human ships formed a plane that approached the Scorchers edge on. Then Lara felt the acceleration push into her seat, then shove her against her restraints. The planar formation began to undulate like a flag in the wind.
“Tempo,” Lara said to herself. “Let’s stay on the beat.” Actually, the pilots were doing a good job so far. But the hardest maneuvers were still ahead.
“Pinwheel coming up,” said the commander. “A one and a ...”
The human ships formed a spinning spiral. They elongated into a cone. Still spinning, they rotated the cone through all planes, like some geometry demonstration.
“Coaster,” the commander said, and again counted out the time as the formation changed. The ships lined up and followed one another as if they were the cars on a roller coaster track. The human fleet traced impressive three-dimensional outlines, then followed the same “track” again. And again. And again, throwing the crews left and right in their restraints. Up and down.
“Flock,” the commander said. In a move that looked a lot like the one the Scorchers had just performed, the ships turned in unison, swirled, and barely missed colliding. After that, some basic geometric shapes.
The performance went fast. The ships contracted into the rotating spherical formation that Scorchers seemed so fond of. The music stopped.
No one aboard the Alpha spoke. The two fleets had been converging all this while. They were only light seconds apart.
A particle beam sliced from one of the Scorcher ships and through a ship of the fleet, the Trillium.
“Damn!” the commander said. “All ships, acquire targets!”
“Wait,” Lara said. “Hold fire.”
Another beam hit Trillium.
“Commander, damage assessment?”
A pause. “Hull breaches. The ship is sealing itself.”
Lara said, “As we just saw with the marines, the Scorchers will hit the reactor when they want to kill.”
Another beam sliced through the Trillium.
“If they keep that up,” said the commander, “they’ll put more holes in the ship than she can seal. Or they’ll punch a hole through a crewman. What the hell are they doing?”
“Giving us a bad review?” Lara said. “Testing us ...”
“Signal Trillium,” said the commander. “Abandon ship.”
Lara thought of the marine escape pods tumbling free of their ships, taking fire. Dying.
“Commander, keep that crew in place. We’ve got to do this right, or they’re dead. If you trust me, give me a direct channel to the ship’s captains and musicians.”
“Channel open, Madam Chuen.”
Lara superimposed a 3-D grid over her sensor visuals. “This is Defense Chief Lara Chuen,” she said. “Attend my visuals, please. Pending approval of your commander, this is how I propose we evacuate the crew of the Trillium.” She highlighted the damaged ship’s position on her grid. “We’ll need up tempo music for the transit ...” She drew a line from the Trillium. “That’s the x axis.” She drew a perpendicular line intersecting it. “There’s the y. Recovery ships park at either end of y. Let’s make the positions of the Trillium and the two recovery ships the points of equilateral triangles.”
“Trillium is hit again,” said an Alpha crew member.
“Crew of the Trillium, your escape pods travel this line, one at a time. Park at the intersection of x and y.”
“They don’t have fine propulsion control,” said the commander. “Not in the pods.”
“So they do the best they can. Next pod starts down the x axis. The pod in front doesn’t leave the intersection until the pod behind is almost there. Fire and cut off your engines to the beat of the music.”
“There’s another hit.”
“She’s bleeding atmosphere.”
Lara said, “First pod goes left. Next one goes right. Third one left. Alternate recovery ships until everyone’s safe.”
The commander broke in. “Those are my orders. Where’s the music? Crescent and Rigel, you’re the recovery ships. Don’t just take your positions. Dance your ships to them. Let’s go! Trillium, abandon ship.”
Another particle beam sliced the Trillium’s hull.
An unfamiliar voice broke in. “Uh, Commander, the drummer is aboard the Trillium.”
“Improvise!” Lara said.
Pss-sst psaaaaaa, hissed one of the sound boards. Pss-sst psaaaaaa, pss-sst psaaaaaa. One by one, the other musical voices added their own hiss or moan. Jazz with a Scorcher flavor.
The Scorchers kept punching holes in the Trillium, but they did not fire on t
he escape pods. One by one, the pods moved according to Lara’s choreography. One pod didn’t move out of the intersection fast enough, and collided with the decelerating pod behind it. Travel along the axes was approximate, not the eight mirror-image flights that would have been ... beautiful.
It wasn’t a beautiful evacuation. But Lara didn’t think it was half bad.
As the last pod was recovered, the music stopped.
“They’re holding their position relative to us,” said the commander.
An analog signal sounded. A tone. Two tones, actually—a note and a dominant overtone. Another, similar tone sounded. And another. They harmonized.
The Scorcher fleet receded.
“They’re accelerating back toward the Hawking radiation,” said the Alpha helmsman.
Lara tuned her sensorium to home, to the blue and white globe of her world. There would be no scorching of its surface. No alien graffiti.
She shut down her visuals. The bright interior of the ship made her blink.
The harmonizing tones kept multiplying. The resulting sound was richer and richer, more and more beautiful.
Fleet Commander Chuen said, “I wonder what that is.”
Lara smiled a weary smile. “Do you mean to tell me,” she said, “that you don’t recognize applause?”
GEIKO
by Kerrie Hughes
Kerrie Hughes has recently learned that being a warrior is a challenge in daily life. She recommends chocolate to help take the edge off of ordinary life in a cubicle and a healthy dose of sci-fi and fantasy every evening. She is currently working on a novel cowritten by her husband, a fellow warrior, where Geikos will appear again.
REE-LIN watched as her young charge Jerio wandered from booth to booth at the festival of lights. At thirteen years of age, the girl enjoyed the rare freedom of an evening out with only her Geiko, or bodyguard, as escort. Today Ree-Lin wore the standard violet short robe and black pants of her profession. The sleeves of her robe were just wide enough to conceal a personal dagger on her left arm but short enough to show her dagger cuff on the right arm. Normally she would also wear high leather boots to protect her shins and knees and to carry her throwing blades, as well as a fitted leather vest holding a number of deadly secrets; but today was not a day for this warrior to be outfitted in fighting leathers.
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