''Too good?'' Kris whispered.
Moose glanced up from his board, a tight grin on his face. ''Not as good as me and my raven buddies. No, he's not as good as he thinks he is. If he was, he'd have brought this stuff up a bit at a time. Tickled us with one, see how we react. Play with us, the way a good fly fisherman plays a wily trout. Let it ran a bit, pull to set the hook, then ran, pull, ran, pull.'' He shook his head. ''This fellow is all brute force.''
Kris hoped brute force was not all it took to win.
''Young man, I understand you have a song for the battle net, a song to cheer us on our way and make it harder to crack our communications,'' Moose said.
''Just a moment,'' Tom said, and tapped his board. ''Battle net going active … now,'' he announced.
Drumming began, then a distant pipe, growing closer. A woman's voice, husky with confidence, filled the bridge.
Axes flash, broadsword swing,
Shining armour's piercing ring
Horses run with polished shield,
Fight Those Bastards till They Yield
Midnight mare and blood red roan,
Fight to Keep this Land Your Own
Sound the horn and call the cry,
How Many of Them Can We Make Die!
Follow orders as you're told.
Make Their Yellow Blood Run Cold
Fight until you die or drop,
A Force Like Ours is Hard to Stop
Close your mind to stress and pain,
Fight till You're No Longer Sane
Let not one damn cur pass by,
Kris eyed the main screen with its six red hostile dots coming at them. She mouthed the refrain as the singer came to it: ''How Many of Them Can We Make Die!'' She wasn't alone.
Guard your women and children well,
Send These Bastards Back to Hell
We'll teach them the ways of war,
They Won't Come Here Any More
Use your shield and use your head,
Fight till Every One is Dead
Raise the flag up to the sky,
How Many of Them Can We Make Die!
Now the whole bridge echoed as each word was bitten out. The singer took a step back, leaving the music to drum and pipe and other things Kris couldn't quite place. Studying the music just wasn't in her. Feeling it riff up her back, harden the muscles of her gut, her fists. Now that was something she felt like doing. The singer tiptoed back.
Dawn has broke, the time has come,
Move Your Feet to a Marching Drum
We'll win the war and pay the toll,
We'll Fight as One in Heart and Soul
Midnight mare and blood red roan,
Fight to Keep this Land Your Own
Sound the horn and call the cry,
How Many of Them Can We Make Die!
Axes flash, broadsword swing,
Shining armour's piercing ring
Horses run with polished shield,
Fight Those Bastards till They Yield
Midnight mare and blood red roan,
Fight to Keep this Land Your Own
Sound the horn and call the cry,
How Many of Them Can We Make Die!
''Da … amn,'' the raven breathed. ''I'm supposed to slip message packets in among that.''
''Where did a nice peaceful boy from Santa Maria lay his hands on something like that?'' Kris asked.
Tom actually turned a light pink around the edges. ''When I wrote my granddame about how hard it was for me to become a trigger puller for you on Olympia, no matter how bad the hard men were, she asked me if I didn't remember that song, ‘The March of Cambreadth.' I told her of course I did. I'd sung it since I was a wee kid, but, well, it was just a song.
''When she came to our wedding, she took me aside, told me that maybe she and Granny Good Good had been, well, maybe a bit too good. They didn't tell us kids, growing up, how it came to be that we still sang that song on Santa Maria.
''You see, back when the lost scientists finally realized they were lost and never going to see Earth again, we were all taught in school that they had a rough hundred years, the Hungry Years, when the colony could have died. What they don't teach us kids in school is that not all the grownups were as willing as the textbooks say they were to go to bed hungry and get up to hard, killing work every day. Some took to the hills.
''And some came back as raiders. Trying to steal what they weren't willing to work to grow. There were fights, and men died to keep food in their kids' mouths.
''Me, now, I'm thinking it was stupid of them not to tell us kids the real history, especially now that we're heading our separate ways to face what we are, but Granddame gave me back a song I've known all me life, and now I've given it to you.''
Behind Tom, the song was on repeat: ''Guard your women and children well.'' Yes, in the long peace, maybe a lot had been forgotten. A lot had been softened too much.
''Granddame says the song came with the original crew from Earth, that it dates from the twentieth century. With all its talk of axes and swords, armor and horns, I kind of think it's older than that, but it was good enough to get us through the hungry time.''
''How Many of Them Can We Make Die!'' Kris and Tom, Penny and Fintch sang together.
''It ought to get us through today,'' Tom finished.
''Yes,'' Kris agreed.
''Follow orders as you're told,
Make Their Yellow Blood Run Cold.''
''What the hell is that?'' the Admiral snapped.
''We're intercepting their battle net, sir,'' the Duty Lieutenant said. ''That's playing on all their ships. Intel thinks they're burying message packets somewhere in the carrier wave, the song or somewhere. We're searching it, sir.''
''Well, what's it telling us?''
''There seem to be a dozen or so ships separating from the transports, sir. They appear to be on a one-g course to a lunar orbit, sir. Intel expects they will do a midcourse flip, decelerate at one g, and loop around the moon—it's called Milna, sir—and then come at us on a converging course. They should be sending it to your battle board very soon, sir.''
The battle board winked, and the course was now displayed as the net announced, ''How Many of Them Can We Make Die!''
''How many ships do we face? What types? Are they armed with anything but this song?''
''Just a moment, sir. They are reviewing the data.''
The Admiral stomped over to the intel boards that his own technicians were overseeing. He watched lines of all different colors go up and down, squiggles that told him nothing while a woman sang, ''Send These Bastards Back to Hell / We'll teach them the ways of war, / They Won't Come Here Any More.''