The Crucible of Empire (22 page)

Reflected light danced across the ceiling from the water. "You and your crew have been assigned duty on Weapons Spine C for this mission," the human was saying in accented, but quite passable Jao, though it was making no attempt to move correctly. "We are running firing drills in a short while, so you need to report for training."

Mallu flicked an ear, thinking. It would be good to be busy again, to have something useful to do to take his mind off his failure to return to Krant with his ship. "My crew numbers are too few to handle such an assignment."

"Yes," the creature said. "That is why you have been added to Baker Company, which is my command."

Mallu froze.

"They are waiting for us." The human stood and gazed down at him with those horribly static eyes.

The shame of it flooded through Mallu. They had placed his crew under the command of a
human
? Far better that they had all perished back in that vile nebula at the hands of the Ekhat than to be so dishonored! He heaved out of the pool, grunting at the bite of pain in his side.

Jalta popped back to the surface and gazed at him,
unease
written into the angle of his pool-sib's ears. "Fetch Kaln," Mallu said without explanation.

Other Jao were arriving to swim and the room echoed with their voices. Mallu met none of their eyes and kept his head down as he retrieved his harness and trousers from the hooks on the wall, putting them on while his nap was still soaked rather than endure the pain of shaking the water out of his nap. After a few breaths, Kaln and Jalta joined him, dripping, carrying their harness and trousers.

"Do not ask!" he said when their bodies hinted at
question
. Prudently, they shook themselves and dressed. Then he gestured to the creature. Blast its ears, what
was
it called—Tunny? Turly? Kaln had told him its name back in the medical bay, but now the alien sounds had slipped his mind, and he could not lower himself to actually ask.

The human stood aside, waving them to the door. "Head to Weapons Spine C," it said.

"We are required?" Kaln said, her angles
confused
.

Her mental balance was still precarious and Mallu hesitated to impart the disturbing news of their demotion to her. He turned to the human. It stood to one side, hands shoved into concealed folds in its trousers, gazing pointedly over his head and
refusing to lead the way
, he realized. The wretch was employing Jao disciplinary techniques as though it had been born to them. One of the Krants would have to go first. He turned to Kaln, who was lowest ranked, and motioned her forward.

All her lines went to
incredulity
. Her eyes blazed with green fire as she glanced at the human and made no move to obey.

"You toured the ship while I was—indisposed," Mallu said, as though they were back on their own vessel and this was merely another order to be followed. "Lead us to Weapons Spine C."

Kaln turned to Jalta as though to protest and Mallu cuffed her good ear. The rapid movement pained his ribs and made him gasp when he spoke. "Weapons Spine C, Senior-Tech!"

Kaln's angles shifted from
incredulity
to
guilt
. With a snarl, she pushed Jalta aside and lurched through the door into the hallway. Mallu motioned Jalta after her, then followed himself, not deigning to notice what the vile little human did.

The four of them entered the nearest lift and rode down to the assigned Weapons Deck in silence. Kaln kept glancing at the human with such distaste, Mallu thought he might have to discipline her again.

They got off on the proper level and found the rest of their Krant crew milling before a row of great guns, muttering and asking why they had been summoned. A number of humans in jinau uniforms were staring.

The yellow-napped human stepped into the center. "Listen up!"

The milling stopped and all the humans present fell into rows, assuming a rigid stance, shoulders back, arms straight, heads high, obviously a codified posture appropriate to the situation.

"I am Major Gabriel Tully, Commander of Baker Company," the human said in Jao, "and a member of Aille krinnu ava Terra's personal service."

Names, names, names! thought Mallu crossly. This species was obsessed with them, forcing their slippery syllables upon hapless bystanders at the slightest provocation. With their bland, almost indistinguishable faces, it was no doubt the only way for them to tell one of their fellows from the other with any degree of accuracy.

"Because everyone on this ship must make themselves of use, all Krant-crew aboard has been assigned to Weapons Spine C, which is under my command."

Mallu's crew stiffened and he saw
amazement
,
confusion
, and outright
hostility
in their postures. He stepped forward, trying to project
dignity
, but the pain in his ribs thwarted his ability to achieve the proper angle. "Whatever comes, you will not shame Krant!" he said, his ears flattened in
admonition
. "You will put your hand to whatever you are asked, and you will do it to the best of your ability. Show these dry-footed primitives that whatever they can do, a Jao can accomplish faster and better!"

One by one, his crew regained control of their emotions and schooled their bodies to a mostly respectful neutrality. Kaln stood stiffly before him, betrayed by her drooping ear, but otherwise credibly restrained.

Tully turned to him, his naked lips twisted in a strange grimace that Mallu could not interpret. "Very good," the human said. "Now we are ready to start." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "By the way, Krant-Captain, you might want to bear in mind for future reference, that while Baker Company is one-quarter Jao and three-quarters human, all the humans with whom you will be working speak excellent Jao."

Startled, Mallu glanced at the rows of waiting jinau. One of them in the front, small in stature with startling red fur on its head, closed a single eye in what seemed to be a deliberate gesture.

Kaln stood speechless while the insufferable Tully divided up the Krant crew and assigned them to teams in his mostly human unit to operate the individual gun mounts. Only Krant-Captain Mallu remained apart, ears stiff, still hunched against the obvious ache in his ribs.

Tully gave a quick orientation for the Krants: There were fourteen kinetic guns on this so-called "spine," which was actually a weapons deck. Each required a seven-man crew: one in charge of fire control radar, four to load the projectiles, a single gun operator, and one to supervise the whole process.

She, in fact, was the only Krant allotted to this particular team, Gun C-Six, though some of the other mounts had been assigned two Krants. Feeling exposed and picked upon, she shuffled behind the six jinau, one Jao and five humans, waiting before "her" designated station. Several of the humans glanced over their shoulders at her with what seemed to be curiosity in their nasty, static, eyes, but the Jao, a stocky middle-aged fellow, pointedly turned away as though tales of her bad behavior had spread throughout the ship.

The one named Tully went on to explain firing procedure in Jao, but she was having a hard time making herself follow his words. By the Beginning, he was only a primitive! As a scion of Krant, she had traveled the stars since emerging from her natal pool, had even fought the Ekhat and survived to tell about it. What could such as he possibly say that was worth her attention?

The gun mount itself, though, was sleek and deadly, crafted of a blue-gray metal which she assumed was an iron alloy. She found it oddly alluring, for some reason. Tracks had been laid into the floor so that the mount could be retracted, as it was now. Bizarre.

"—bulkheads have been reinforced for ramming," Tully was saying. He gestured at the far wall. "We found that strategy effective when the Melody attacked Terra two years ago. Ekhat ships are particularly vulnerable to structural damage."

Kaln felt ill. He was talking about actually
smashing
this ship into an Ekhat vessel. She should have known it would come to something ludicrous like that. Humans were only one evolutionary step away from clouting one another over the head with clubs.

"Senior-Tech?" one of the human crew said in Jao. The creature seemed to be female, small-boned, shorter than most of the others. A strange shade of vivid red fur topped her head.

Kaln realized suddenly that Tully had stopped talking. The gun crews had reported to their assigned stations to run firing drills. Everyone on her own crew was murmuring as they stared at her, waiting. Evidently she had missed something and a response of some sort was required. She blinked.

"I asked—which position would you like to take?" the human said, her tone respectful. "I am charged with supervising this gun as well as several others. You can serve in any capacity you wish: gun captain, gun operator, take the fire control radar, or work in the
magazine
." That last word was human. Either there was no Jao equivalent, or the female wasn't fluent enough in Jao to know it.

The little figure gestured at the gun. She looked inadequate for a soldier of any sort, as though the first strong wave she encountered would sweep her away. "You have experience fighting in space as most of us have not," the female said, her body carefully still. "We would like to take advantage of that."

"I—have not worked on this sort of weapon before," Kaln said. Her mind whirled so that she could not focus. She reached out and touched the cold metal. She did not want to be here, most certainly did not want the responsibility of trying to make this hodgepodge of species work together as an effective crew. "I will train to work in the
magazine
." Whatever that was. She hadn't the faintest idea, but one place she had no wish to be was surely as good as another.

"All right," the human said. "I rank as 'lieutenant.' "

Kaln's good ear flinched at the brash presentation of rank unasked, but then realized the female had at least not forced her personal name upon the Jao. And she had read the service bars incised upon Kaln's cheek correctly as senior-tech, impressive for a primitive.

The rank itself was typically human. One of the Jao with experience dealing with humans had already explained the bizarre customs involved to Kaln and the other Krant officers. The term "general" could mean almost anything, since as well as being a military rank it was a common term. The same for "major." The term "captain" was more tightly focused, but was still maddeningly vague. It could serve as a verb as well as a noun. Thus, a ship could be "captained" as well as having a captain—but the captainer might not actually have the rank of a captain.

Likewise with the term "lieutenant." It could either refer to a specific rank or, more fluidly, to a relationship. Thus, apparently, one general—a very high rank, that was—might still serve another as his "lieutenant."

It was all very frustrating. Only the term "colonel" seem to have any real precision. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be that many colonels.

"The magazine is below," the lieutenant said. "Access is through this hatch." She gestured at a circular opening in the floor as one of the humans climbed down a ladder and disappeared. Kaln followed, filled with foreboding.

Light flooded the chamber below, brighter than Jao eyes liked. Peculiarly-shaped objects of some sort were stored neatly in sturdy racks on one wall. Kaln stared at them blankly. They resembled missiles, in their shape, but she could see no sign of any propulsive mechanisms. She had no experience with kinetic weapons. As a military option, such tech seemed no more effective than surly children flinging rocks at one another.

A human almost robust enough to be a Jao turned to her. His hide was darker than most of the others, a mellow shade of brown. "Those are depleted uranium sabot rounds. They will penetrate any Ehkat armor we—you Jao, I should say—have ever encountered."

Kaln was able to follow that much of the logic, although the thought of meddling with radioactive material was a bit unsettling. Still, she assumed that by "depleted" the human meant that the uranium was no longer very dangerous.

"In times past," the human continued, "we would have had to load powder as well. But we use liquid propellant, these days." He pointed to a mechanism. "That's the hoist that lifts the rounds into the firing chamber. It's configured now for sabot rounds, but can be changed if we use other ammunition. High explosives, for instance, or incendiary rounds. For space combat, though, that's pretty unlikely."

So, apparently, they had different types of missiles. Kaln couldn't really see the point to that. Throwing rocks, even explosive or combustible rocks, was not going to defeat the Ekhat. The first enemy ship they encountered would make very short work of them.

But at least then her misery would be at an end. Flow stretched out so that everything was slow and murky. Kaln would rather have been anywhere but here and now. The room seemed to be buzzing.

A hand touched her arm. "Senior-Tech?"

Kaln recoiled, then normal flow reasserted itself. She saw the red-topped female who had designated herself as a lieutenant.