Siffaith glanced around. The two aliens were some distance off, hunched over a console together, apparently conferring. The dark, hairy one, M'eioi, was checking some hand-held device, while the mechanical, Pearl, studied the console readouts. They looked strange, alien... but were they dangerous? Though that weapon still rode on Pearl's hip....
"I am not sure we have a choice," he said to Dyegh. "They are here now, and I do not see how to eject them."
"It is as I said it would be. Temporary alliance, followed no doubt by another, and then another, until -" He was visibly trembling. Siffaith reached out and touched his arm.
"Until what, Dyegh?"
"Until they become as the old gods. The Iconians. The Iconians owned the Progenitors, Siffaith."
Siffaith looked from him to the two aliens, and back again. "That will not happen, Dyegh," he said firmly.
"How can you prevent it? You cannot trust them, Siffaith!"
"I can prevent it very easily," said Siffaith. "We tell them no, Dyegh. That is all we need to do. Even if they threaten with their weapon, they cannot follow through on that threat. They need our specialist knowledge of the Home's systems, and if we withhold it, they can do nothing."
"They are learning," said Dyegh. "They are not like the People, Siffaith." He made a swift, dismissive gesture in Tyonovon's direction. "They have quick minds and a willingness to acquire knowledge. How soon will it be before they no longer need us? How soon -"
"I think they can be trusted," Tyonovon said suddenly. Siffaith and Dyegh both turned towards her. "They did not kill. The others, the Voth, they killed, wantonly... People, who had offered them no harm. But these two - I do not believe they take pleasure in killing. I think they are what they say they are - peaceful people, perhaps driven to violence if the need arises, but not killers by nature."
"They killed one of the Voth, if your account is correct," said Dyegh.
"But the Voth was a killer. It is -" Tyonovon waved her claws, searching for words. "It is different, Dyegh."
"Self-defence," said Siffaith. "We are killing in that cause, Dyegh. Or, at least, I am sending the swarmers out to kill on our behalf, and that amounts to the same thing."
"Even if that is true," said Dyegh, "their own self-interest may lead them to take control of the Home. To use it for their own purposes, not for ours."
"They have laws -" Tyonovon began.
"They say they have laws," said Dyegh. "Can we believe them? Can we believe they will hold to these laws, if they see advantage in breaking them?"
Tyonovon made another exasperated gesture. "We do not know. We cannot know. But perhaps - perhaps we must trust, Dyegh. One thing we do know. The Voth will take the Home if they are not stopped."
A footstep sounded on the deck plates nearby. It was the dark-furred alien, M'eioi. "I hope I'm not interrupting," she said.
"What is it you want?" Dyegh was fairly vibrating with suspicion, Siffaith saw. Did the alien notice? She was so very different from the People....
"We've finished setting the security measures in place around your populated sectors," said M'eioi. "I think the force shields will hold against any portable weaponry the Voth can bring to bear - unless they use the firepower of their ship against the spire, in which case all bets are off anyway. But the shields will stop antiproton fire from a personal weapon, or the larger cannons mounted on a cyborg dinosaur or a battlemech." She touched one black, hairy hand to her face, smoothing the long whiskers that grew above her mouth. "Part of the problem, I guess, is going to be persuading the rest of your people to stay in the safe areas. You'll have to talk to them yourselves, I think. They won't want to take orders from weird aliens like me and Pearl, that's for sure."
"That can be arranged," said Siffaith. "There are communicators, we can make announcements."
"Even so," M'eioi continued, "the secure areas will only stay secure if we can maintain the force fields, which means keeping the power running throughout the spire. If the Voth can hit critical distribution nodes or generators, we're in trouble. Pearl and I have been running some scans, and, well, there's some stuff we'd like your thoughts on."
"What is it?" Siffaith asked.
"There seem to be some problems already, balancing the power load on the spire's systems. It's as if some parts of the distribution network - your equivalent to our EPS grid - has failed already. Like - sections of it burned out, or something."
Dyegh made a wordless sound. M'eioi started at it, and stared at him. "It is - possible," he said. "It is something I feared - the Home's systems are very old, the whole of the Land is very old - it is possible that the Voth damaged something when they subverted my systems -"
Or that Dyegh's ambitious project had already stressed the Home to its limits, Siffaith thought but did not say.
"If you could come and take a look at our sensor readings," said M'eioi, "you might be better able to identify the problem areas and work around them. You're the ones who know this place and its systems, after all."
"Yes," said Dyegh, "it is our Home." He shuffled towards the console, M'eioi walking at his side, Siffaith and Tyonovon following.
The mechanical, Pearl, turned to face them, metal eyes gleaming. They looked deeply forbidding to Siffaith. "I've set up the power flow diagrams," she said. "You can probably see the problem areas already -"
"The north-east capacitor banks at level 22372," Dyegh muttered. "Always a problem - I will initiate automatic reset.... There are others, though, more than there should be. And what is that?" He tapped the display with one claw. Siffaith leaned in, peered at the images, tried to make sense of them.
"Self-contained power sources," said M'eioi. "Not part of your network, but they're registering anyway. That one is almost certainly the Voth ship."
"There are others. Smaller ones. Let me refine this...." Dyegh's claws almost caressed the icons on the console. Siffaith could not quite make out the sequence of instructions, but a schematic of the Home glowed to life in mid-air, speckled with bright dots in seemingly random patterns. There was a brilliant group of them in one place... a smaller grouping lower down, inside the Home... individual dots moving about....
"Voth battlemechs," said M'eioi, "they must be. Dyegh, this is invaluable. It's giving a complete real-time readout of the disposition of Voth forces inside the spire."
"What is that group there?" Dyegh asked, indicating the smaller grouping. "It is radiating on somewhat different frequencies from the Voth...."
"It must be my ship, the Timor. If we could get a message through to them," said M'eioi, "it'd be a big help."
"Your communicators do not work?" asked Siffaith.
"I can't break through all the additional interference since we raised the internal defensive shielding. If we could interface our combadges with your comms net, now -"
"It should be possible," said Dyegh. He gave a wheezing sigh. "It will divert more computer resources from what should be our main aims... but it should be possible."
"Let's try it," said M'eioi. "Please."
"Another thought, sir," said Pearl. "If we can extend this scan outside the spire, we might be able to locate the Tempest and the Tapiola."
M'eioi's head bobbed; a gesture of assent, Siffaith realized. "Those ships will have resources we can use, too."
"You ask much," Dyegh complained, but he started to tap in commands on the console. "I will set up the display to discriminate between you and the Voth... and I will extend the range.... That is strange." He pointed with one claw. "Very faint, but... one of your power sources. Not ours, and not Voth. And some distance from your ship... I do not see how they can have reached that point, with the security fields up...."
M'eioi peered at the tiny glowing point near the tip of Dyegh's claw. "A straggler, maybe. Lost like I was. If we can open comms, maybe we should talk to them, guide them home...."
---
"We are encountering heavy resistance from swarmer groups." Davrak Karzis was using a light pointer to place icons within a three-D schematic of the spire. Stannark glowered at the display. A depressing percentage of the map was still blank - unexplored, and outside Voth control. "We have also encountered force-field barriers, at the following locations." The spec ops analyst sprinkled a different set of icons about the map. "The fields are resistant to even our heaviest mobile weapons. I am forced to an annoying conclusion."
Stannark grunted. "Which is?" He turned around, to pace irritably across the command deck of the Gendratis.
"That the Starfleet primates and the Solanae arthropods are combining forces. Starfleet cannot have command of the spire's systems, cannot erect these force shields... but the Solanae appear very well informed as to our troops' capabilities."
Stannark's scowl deepened. "Our capabilities are insufficient. I should have been assigned a Viriosaurus Rex for this mission."
"The heavy dinosaurians are needed for combat missions on the ground. And I do not think a Viriosaurus could easily traverse some of these tunnels."
"It would have the capacity to defeat any force shield! And in situations like these, they can make their own tunnels. It is no secret that I am unhappy with the management of the ground battle zones. I was discussing this matter with General Folluma, during his last hospitalization -" Stannark stopped. He took a deep breath. "Well. I must work with what I have. What are our options?"
"Computer subversion, of the type which gave us control of the tetryon emitters. It will be slow and chancy, though. The Solanae will be alert to the possibility, and Starfleet can advise them on some of our protocols. They have experience, painfully gained."
"Implement what measures you can. What other choices are there?"
"Our troops can secure segments of the spire's power generation and distribution network. They cannot generate force shields if they have no power - and, if we shut down their replicators, they will eventually run out of security swarmers, too."
"Eventually," Stannark repeated, in tones of contempt. "No. The spire is too large, my troops too thinly spread. Striking at their power supplies would take too long."
Karzis turned his head. There was something quizzical in his expression, even though his eyes were hidden behind his implants. "Then I am bereft of suggestions, Commander."
"I have an idea," said Stannark. "Hostages. Take a substantial number of the Solanae arthropods prisoner, and use them to compel cooperation."
"A wise move, Commander, but I fear it may be impractical. I would be, frankly, amazed if the bulk of the arthropod population was not already safely hidden behind those force shields."
Stannark stomped across the command deck once again. "Then we will try a different approach. You suspect Starfleet is cooperating with the Solanae?"
"It make sense. And I did see Admiral M'eioi in company with one of them." Karzis rubbed his neck with a rueful expression.
"Then we will break that cooperation by taking Starfleet hostages. One of the advance scouting parties reported radiation emissions and comms chatter consistent with the mammals' activities. I believe we have a provisional location for the absurd Admiral M'eioi's ship." Stannark turned, and stabbed one taloned digit into the holographic map. "Somewhere near here. We will send a squadron, in force, and we will find the Timor, and take it."
No comments:
Post a Comment