“Ceding control to you, sir.”
“Thank you, Echidna. All sections please confirm secured.”
I waited as six thousand tiny flecks of light gradually flickered from the amber of self-reported readiness to the green of confirmed. They did so smoothly, individual telltales flicking to green, then squads, and on up until Guy and Quick each reported their sections ready for combat or whatever else might await us at the other end of our jump.
“Okay, everyone. We expect our refueling stop to be a dead lump, but if it is a ‘Sect world, we’re ready and able to show them exactly why you don’t let enemies near inhabited worlds. Jumping in five…”
I continued my count mechanically, reviewing options and backup plans in my head. I had half a dozen plans for ‘Sect patrols, even more for a ‘Sect world, and even a few for a full Hive. The count reached zero.
I jumped. Pocket space screamed at me, and all my Links save two flickered into unconsciousness. Guy grimaced in pain from the force of my mind, and the Empress radiated insanity like a crazed star.
We slipped from the pocket. I oriented on the distant world. It glowed a beautiful blue, with patches of green indicating continents and wisps of white clouds in the sky.
A living world. This close to ‘Sect space, in all likelihood a ‘Sect world. With that much biomass, almost certainly a Hive. I grabbed at the imagery, slipping through a tiny micro-jump backwards in case any weapons were already homing on our initial emergence point. I slugged image after image of the planet for Echidna’s immediate attention when she woke, all the while maxing out every absorber we had to mask our signature.
Echidna woke and dove into analysis while I continued to move. No flash of light marked the death of anything arriving at our initial emergence, but that might just mean the Hive had enough resources to send a semi-sentient Scout instead of a warhead.
I readied a single ship-based ship killer, replacing its complex, fragile warhead with a simple kinetic device. Planetary targets could be armored to a fare-thee-well, but they didn’t dodge. I hid and waited for Echidna to show me a target.
“Sir?” She hadn’t sounded that shocked since the first day she woke. Something big lurked starward of us, and that might spell doom for us, for the fleet, and for the Unity. She didn’t continue, so I prodded her.
“What is it, Kid?”
In answer she slid me a single image cropped from our surface scans.
‘Sects built massive mounds reminiscent of terrestrial anthills. They had living solar collectors shaped like a Junior’s impression of a tree. They even had massive Beetles, sometimes dubbed ‘Dreadnaughts’, which crawled across the surface of a planet, their refractory carapaces thick enough to shed orbital bombardment, their physiology robust enough to survive when the ‘Sects ate the planet out from under them. The ‘Sects were and made many things.
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They didn’t build log cabins.
***
“Sir, I still don’t think you should be the one going down there.”
I looked over at my First, who stood beside the three Cadets he’d just helped suit up. A pointed glance let him know how much I’d debated with myself about taking them with me. In return he frowned and raised a single eyebrow, his wordless question clear. I sighed.
“I don’t like the idea myself, but we’re working under some pretty severe constraints. Other than the fact that they’re tool-using humanoids, we have no idea who these people are. Some kind of distortion in the atmosphere is preventing a solid view of them, so that’s all we know at the moment. We can’t even detect any of their signals, and there’s no sign of what we would call a beanstalk. If we want to have any hope of communication, we need to send a telepath.”
He nodded, understanding, and shifted seamlessly into his role as my devil’s advocate. “Sure, but we’ve got two. Why not send Delnot?”
I sucked at my teeth; a bad habit, but my bodyguards, my First, and my steward all knew about it already. “Two reasons, and I’m honestly not sure which one is motivating me more. The first is that when we’re out of combat, he’s actually filling more critical roles moment to moment.”
“You could take over as Doctor, and you’d probably make a better Commandant.”
A quick shake of my head told him what I thought of that. “No. Whether I would or wouldn’t, by the time he got down and back, all I would be able to do is royally muck things up, cost him a few days training at best, ruin everything he’s done at worst.”
He frowned, but didn’t reply immediately. “What’s the other reason?”
“I don’t trust him.” I took a deep breath to center myself. “That’s a terrible reason, I know, but it doesn’t invalidate the other one.”
Finally, he nodded his grudging acceptance. I didn’t need it, but I did want it. A Captain who started ignoring her First’s advice wasn’t likely a good one, and Echidna deserved a good one. “I wish you’d at least go down armored up. All of you are fitted now; you might as well use it.”
“Nope. That’s another reason I’m going, along with the telepath thing. I’m one of the two fully augmented people aboard.”
He frowned. “No chance you could send the other one?”
“Well, he’s a telepath too, but we just discussed the reasons I’m not sending him.”
“Oh.” His frown disappeared into a carefully cultivated mask. “I suppose I understand why you want one of our augmented people down there, but if our unaugmented Cadets are armor, it won’t really matter if they’re augmented or not.”
“That’s not entirely true and you know it, but that’s not the point.”
He shrugged acceptance of the fact that our armored Cadets weren’t the equal of fully augmented Marines in full sized armor. “Okay, then what is?”
“We can’t even detect their signals. The odds they could scan everything we’re bringing down are way too high. That’s why we’re not heading directly to their population centers as well. If we drop into a city ready for a fight, we’re likely to find one. If we drop in on a few folks at the edge of their settled areas with no weapons to speak of, they might believe that we’re just looking to talk.”
He shook his head, rallying for one final argument. “But what if they don’t, or if they’re just not willing to talk?”
I smiled at him, rolling my eyes at how his enormous chest puffed out when I did. “That’s when you’ll remind them why it’s never a good idea to argue with the people who control the sky at the moment.”