by Wil McCarthy
Marshe waved an arm impatiently. “What's a pipe-shooter?”
Josev turned and looked at her. “Didn't you ever build pipe-shooters? Don't they do that on Earth? You cap a piece of tubing and fill it with monoprop gel, then set it off with a heating element. Zoom! Instant starship. If you're clever, you drill angled vents around the center of mass, so the whole thing spins around its long axis. Goes straight that way. Otherwise it ziggles all over the place. I knew a kid one time drilled the holes wrong? Cracked open his father's telescope shack. Damn lucky he didn't get killed.”
“Limited range,” Roland said. “Very, very limited. Your monoprop burns maybe twenty seconds.”
“Not literally pipe shooters,” Josev said, waving his hands up and down in front of him. “Come on. I meant, like, something nuclear-powered.”
“Fission?” Sipho Yeng asked skeptically.
“No, maybe it is fusion after all. You could have a bomb and a drive motor at the same time, just a little tank filled with tritium-helium. You see what I'm saying? Build it light enough, it could fly like a scandal! Ten, twenty gee's, sustained!”
“Sit down, Josev,” Marshe said. “I like your idea, but let's not get carried away. How close are those things getting before they detonate?”
“Ten kilometers, maybe,” Josev huffed, taking his seat again. “Will you read the monitor, please?”
“More than ten,” Marshe observed. “Look, they're falling behind the fleet. Damn. We're getting wise to these human tricks. How many bombs are we dealing with, here?”
“Thousands,” Josev said, his eyes on the screen. “Just thousands. Those pickets must have been filled to bursting.”
The tiny flickers reminded Ken of the Flyswatter, each pinprick of light the death of a human soldier. FlaflaFLASH! FlaflaFLASH!
Like Ken, Marshe watched the holies for a few quiet seconds. “A swarm of tiny rockets,” she mused. “There's a crude elegance to that. Not the kind of thing a Waister would think of. Jonson, would you say something, please?”
Ken paused, momentarily bewildered. The Standard language seemed gluey and strange, and it took time for him to realize the sound he'd heard had been his own name. Mentally, he slapped himself awake. “#I/I express lack-of-surprise#” He said finally. “#Stupid-lings and bugs do-possess/did-possess similarity They spit and bite When I/We do-disturb#”
Marshe looked angry for a moment, and then suddenly she was out of her chair and leaning over Ken, her fists slamming down on the armrests of his chair. “Damn it!” She screamed. “Will you stop with the God-damned play acting and answer my God-damned question?”
Question? Question? Ken thought hard. She hadn't asked him a question, had she?
Marshe leaned in close, her face contorted and purple. “ANSWER ME!”
“I,” Ken said, forming the sound with his human mouth. “I... Marshe I...”
Drones swarming through the corridors, leaping wall-to-wall through the shifting gravity.
She reached toward him, pulled the voder off his mouth. The strap pulled at his hair, pulled at the strap of the goggles, then pulled away altogether. Marshe held the voder up in a fist, shaking it in front of his face.
“I,” he said again. It seemed to be the only word he knew.
“What are they going to do, Corporal? Tell me what they're going to do.”
“They,” Ken said. His head was nodding up and down, spastically. “They, are, not really too surprised by this attack. It's... pretty similar to the Flyswatter. Swarm attack. Overwhelm their defenses. They'll spread the fleet out, to loosen up their fire patterns. Uh... Uh... It's Neptune they're really looking at, right? Fixed targets. You. God. Damn. Bitch.”
Who did Marshe think she was, getting in his face like this? He put a hand on hers, pushed it off the armrest.
Marshe staggered back from him, a look of surprise on her face. Ken started to rise... and something pushed up against his knees, something warm and furry. “#Not-do#” Shenna's Waister-Dog voice advised. “#Queen strong-is strong-is Drone yield-before-strength does#”
Ken froze, and the dog put her chin on his leg, and stared prettily up into his eyes. Her tail wagged a little, left-right-left-right. “#Drone not-yield-before-strength stupid is#”
Josev grunted, then began to laugh. “Did you hear that?” He asked Ken. “'Surrender to the Queen, stupid'! Hah! She's right, chum. You know Marshe could rip your arms off.”
“Aren't we getting a little sidetracked, here?” Sipho Yeng inquired.
Marshe whirled on him, pointing the voder mask as though it were a weapon. Her mouth, still twisted with anger, opened. Then something seemed to run out of her. Her shoulders slumped, her pointing arm relaxed. “Yes,” she said. “Yes we are. Let's, ah, not let the tension of this situation get the better of us.”
“Well said, Queen,” Josev drawled, sarcastically.
Without turning, Marshe handed the voder mask back to Ken. He took it, and replaced it over his mouth.
“Any more hits?” Marshe asked Josev.
“No. The skirmish is over. Will you look at the screen instead of asking me?”
The Waister ship continued on its straight-line course, drawing further from the body of the armada. Crippled? Perhaps. But Ken wouldn't bet on it.
Marshe moved back to her seat, turned and nestled down into it. “Don't tell me how to do my job. Sipho, will you pull up a star chart, please?”
~~~
Ken jerked away from the wall as its gravity tugged at him. Wireguns empty. Wireguns empty. His hands were covered with blood.
“Jonson, you godda wake up now.”
He turned, startled by the voice. “WHAT!” He shouted. Echoes ran down the corridor and were lost.
“Jonson.”
A human figure stood before him, clad in the smooth gray of navy fatigues, wreathed in pulsing light.
“No mercy,” Ken said.
“Jonson, you dreaming,” the figure replied. “Come on, wake up.”
Ken blinked his eyes. He was in his bunk, in his room. And... and... The figure before him was Roland Hanlin, backlit by the fluorescent panel in the ceiling.
“#I/I not-sleep-do#” Ken said, sitting up. Beneath the voder mask, his mouth felt dry and foul, like a cave full of stinking bat-shit. His eyes were sticky beneath the goggles.
“You sleep with that stuff on,” Roland observed, without amusement.
“#Yes#”
“It help?”
“#Yes#”
Ken ran a hand through the stubble of his hair. God, he felt awful. How long had he slept? Surely not more than four hours. Inanely, he glanced around at the walls, as if there might be a window somewhere with sunlight streaming through it.
The walls.
Through his Waister-vision lenses, the purple-gray paint looked soothingly cream-colored, and the clear coat of varnish on top of it seemed to smooth out the grooves and scratches that plagued all other surfaces. It was a pleasant sight to awake to.
Yes, Roland, it was indeed helpful to sleep with one's “stuff” on.
“Marshe says you and I godda be awake now,” Roland told him.
Ken nodded, swinging his feet down onto the floor. Still wearing his shoes, he noted. He'd been exhausted the night before, had dropped into his bunk fully clothed and fallen instantly asleep. Sighing now, he stood.
“#What is/are circumstances this-time/wide-focus#” He asked.
“No change, I guess,” Roland said. “Armada still heading toward Neptune. That one ship still coasting. Josev says it going to miss the planets if it don't get fixed.”
Ken nodded again, then made a gesture with his hand, pointing to the mask and goggles that hung from Roland's neck as if forgotten. He waved his fingers as though they were a mass of wriggling worms.
Roland appeared to understand the gesture, and he frowned. “I hold rank on you, Corporal. We all of us do.” But the Cerean man pulled the goggles up over his eyes. “Come on, Marshe wants to sleep.”
The holie displays were alive with tactical schematics, views of planets, moons. Familiar views, this time, views of Sol system. There were still millions of Lalandeans, no doubt, but with the fall of Astaroth they had become strategically irrelevant. They were simply victims, now, waiting for the Waisters' mopping-up operations to wipe them off the charts.
Marshe stood, her face blank behind mask and goggles. “Sipho. Josev. Go get some breakfast. Shenna, you and I are going to sleep.” She turned to Ken and Roland. “You two keep watch. Wake me if anything happens. The outliner is running full time, so all comments are fed directly into the reports. Say everything that comes into your head; every thought, every impression. The stuff Jhee considers irrelevant gets filed in the appendices, but I think he does skim it, at least.”
“Translator rigged up, too?” Roland asked.
Behind her equipment, Marshe seemed taken aback, as if a response from Roland Hanlin were the last thing she'd expected. Then her expression seemed to narrow. She leaned forward a little. “Yes it is,” she said.
Roland nodded once, and pulled on his voder mask.
Marshe seemed about to say something, but fatigue appeared to win out. She turned and strode toward her quarters. As if that were a signal of some sort, the Six burst into motion, with Sipho and Josev rising from their chairs, Ken and Roland moving to their own seats. Shenna, her tail dragging behind her, followed the captain.
“I may be a bit late from breakfast,” Josev said, looking at Ken as he moved toward the door.
“#I/I acknowledge#” Ken said. “#I/I query regarding you/your circumstances#”
“Just an errand,” Josev said. Then he and Sipho vanished around the corner, and there were door noises followed by silence. Neither of the two had been wearing their gear.
Ken looked to Roland, who looked back at him. Unlike most Belters, the man was short and thick, his brow beetling heavily above his eyes. A high-gravity look. How did the story go, again? The Cereans, in a century-long fit of isolationist anger, had increased the spin of their moon-sized asteroid until its gravity reversed, then more-than-reversed. They had continued until the outward centrifugal pull at Ceres' equator was nearly two gee's, making landing on the surface nearly impossible at any point not close to the rotational poles. Any ship attempting it would be centrifugally flung back into space, unless it could match speeds and anchor deeply, right away. Even then, such a ship would be clinging to a world-sized ceiling, helpless, unable to tax or conscript or otherwise harass the citizenry. The Cereans had gone on to fortify the poles, ensuring that nobody would land without invitation. And such invitation was rare indeeed.
Of course, all that had happened before the Clementine Monarchy, back in the heady Colonial days when power and raw materials were tossed about like New Years' confetti. The world-shaping anger of the Cereans had faded half a millennium ago. And yet, their world spun on, as it would until the end of time, and near the equator their children grew up stocky and strong.
A flashing of red lights caught Ken's attention. He turned to the holie screens.
Flashes around Neptune. Somebody was dying.
“#What is/is that#” Ken asked.
He tried to interpret the displays. The armada was far away, still, but a piece of it seemed to be projecting forward like a claw or a tusk. The spur had formed quickly, the ships that composed it accelerating full-throttle at 90 gravities or more. The point of it was now within a light-minute of Neptune, but as Ken watched, the projection flattened and shrank, folded back toward the body of the armada.
“#What is/does happen there#” He asked Roland.
The man shrugged uneasily. “#We/We move more-close to Stupid-ling world We/We turn/reverse-direction We/We activate drive-motors-as-weapons Drive-motors-as-weapons push us away again#”
Ken chewed at his lip. It begins, he thought.
“#I/I will-do Queen of awakening#” Roland suggested.
“#No#” Ken said. “#It/it does-being merely before-attack of attack Before-attack requires finesse This will take some time#”
No, he thought, there was no need to wake the Queen just now. She needed to rest far more than she needed to watch the probing, taunting attacks that would precede the sterilization of Neptune. She would be furious, but functional, when she awoke. Ken would watch the holies for her, and take the heat when it came.
~~~
After a while, the changes on the screen stopped being subtle. The Waister threat stopped being theoretical.
“Get the Queen,” Ken said, momentarily lapsing into Standard.
Roland turned a blank, goggled gaze upon him and stared for several seconds. It occurred to Ken, suddenly, that he'd given an order to a sergeant. A Worker, his mind corrected.
“Do it,” he said, in the obey-me-I'm-not-kidding tone he'd learned in the Flyswatter.
Roland got to his feet, turned, and walked toward the sleeping quarters.
Ken looked back up at the holies. Marshe had had barely thirty minutes of sleep, but that would have to do. With surprising swiftness, the armada had moved to form a hollow globe around Neptune and its moons, and now that globe was visibly shrinking, tightening in. For Sol system, the war was about to begin in earnest.
He watched the green trails that marked Human ships, moving out from behind the moons, engaging their enemy at last as the Waister fleetships moved into range. For several minutes there seemed to be no pattern, the green lines simply spreading out like wiry hairs springing from Triton and Nereid and scores of smaller bodies. Here and there the lines flashed white and vanished. Then, all at once, things seemed to fall into place. The human ships, at least a hundred of them, formed an enormous cone, nearly a million kilometers long and wide. Its tip pointed sunward.
The end of the cone flashed, and flashed again. A pair of ships destroyed. The Waisters seemed to perceive a threat in that formation. Perhaps Josev would understand what was happening, if he were here. Frustrated, Ken stood, leaned over the holie to peer at a stack of icons and numbers. He needed to see through the numbers, to what was really happening.
“Jonson!” Marshe's voice snapped behind him. “Report!”
“#Fighting has-begun#” Ken said without turning. “#We surround Stupid-ling world We attack Stupid-lings have-formed sunward-pointing formations/formation It does-move slowly It does-move slowly But it does-move We shear off its tip#”
“Take your seat,” Marshe ordered.
Ken complied, and saw that Marshe was already sitting in the chair beside his.
“Where are Sipho and Josev?” She asked.
“Still at breakfast,” Roland said, sliding into his own chair. “Like I said, you ain't been asleep too long.”
But Ken had heard the sound of the outer door opening and closing, and presently Sipho Yeng's voice called out: “I'm here. What's happening?”
“Battle at Neptune,” Marshe said tersely. “Take your seat. Is Josev with you?”
“No,” Sipho replied. “He said he'd be late.”
“Late!” Marshe shouted as Sipho sat down. “Has he got more important things to do than fight the God damn war?”
“He didn't eat with me, Captain. He said he had an errand.”
“Names of God,” Marshe cursed. But the holie displays seemed to draw her gaze. “Human casualties?” She asked.
“#Twelve I/I do-think#” Ken told her.
“Waister casualties?”
He shook his head.
On the screens, the tip of the human spear continued to flicker and erode.
“#Fourteen#” Ken said.
The globe of Waisters started to break up, the fleetships moving off on independent errands. Soon, they were like a cloud of gnats buzzing around the great blue-white head that was Neptune. The human ships seemed barely to move. Another dozen of them vanished from the displays.
“What is this cone formation?” Marshe asked. “What's it for?”
“Damn it, where the hell is Josev? Kenneth, what's the cone for? What are these humans trying to do?”
“#I/I can-think no purpose of no purpose of#” Ken answered.
“Roland?”
“No idea. Look useless to me.”
Marshe tapped her hand nervously against her voder mask. “#I do-wonder Does/is possibility exist of penetration through My/Our forces?#”
“It doesn't seem likely,” Sipho replied. “A reverse cone formation could be used to concentrate firepower in a single spot, but these ships couldn't do that without hitting each other.”
“So why the God damn point?” Marshe demanded. Ken thought her masked and goggled face looked very tired.
“I can't imagine,” the astronomer said. “I really can't. It looks very purposeful, though, doesn't it.”
Ken watched Marshe watch the holies. Three more explosions flashed at the tip of the cone. Marshe tensed suddenly, and tore off her goggles.
“They're drawing our fire!” She cried. “Pulling us in! Look at this!”
The gnat-buzzing of the Waister ships had pulled slightly to the sunward side of the planet, and most of the weapons-fire seemed to be directed at or near the end of the cone.
Suddenly, something happened to the cone. Each of the ships that comprised it seemed to burst into a myriad of tiny green lines.
“Are those your pipe-shooters, Josev?” Marshe asked quickly. Then: “Damn it! Somebody. Are those projectiles of some sort?”
“Too big,” Roland said.
“Those are two-man fighters,” Sipho announced. “They must have been bolted to the surface of the gunboats somehow.”
“Why are they doing this?” Marshe asked, waving her goggles angrily. “Why didn't they just launch them all separately?”
“I would suggest the humans are trying to confuse us,” Sipho said. “If we can be distracted for long enough...”