Thrarm-Captain knew zh-Sensor was waiting for his response and, gallingly, also knew that zh-Sensor was right: it was time for them to abandon the rearguard. The terrible strength of Thrarm-Captain’s hull was not intended for hunting or attacking, but for protecting. Only chance and dire need had put his ship, Guardant Ancestor, in direct engagement with the enemy. His job, and his hull’s very design, dictated that he keep his precious passengers out of harm’s way. But, today, the humans had made nonsense of everyone’s supposed missions: now, simple survival would be accomplishment enough.
“zh-Sensor, I need a close sweep of surrounding space. Helm: plot a course-shortest possible-to rejoin the main van. Communications, open a channel-”
“Thrarm-Captain.” It was zh-Sensor again, but his voice sounded different. Intrigued. Maybe puzzled. Possibly both.
“Yes, Sensor?”
“There is a Raker-class escort approaching from our aft port quarter low. It seems to be heavily damaged, Thrarm-Captain. It is venting volatiles and its energy output is irregular.”
A Raker-class? Well, there still were some in the Fleet, but not many. They had been far more numerous in the formations of the Second Fleet, but very few of them had come back. Designed for stealth and swift action, they had been optimal hulls for conducting operations within the peripheries of the Sol System’s asteroid belt. Unfortunately, their speed and diminished radar signature had been acquired at the expense of armor and protective screens: the Rakers had ultimately proven far too vulnerable to the humans’ weaponry. “Can you establish communications with it? What is its transponder code?”
zh-Sensor shook his fine-boned head. “No response to our hails, Thrarm-Captain. Their transponder is only transmitting intermittent characters.”
“Can you verify that the characters are in the Heroes’ Script?”
“Yes, the symbols are clearly Kzanzh’ef, but the sequence is too broken up for us to know if they are part of an authentic Third Fleet identification sequence.”
Thrarm-Captain felt a tinge of caution war with the stronger desire to save any of the other true Heroes of this fleet, particularly those who had fought a delaying action with weak ships against an overwhelming enemy. “How badly damaged are they?”
“Unclear, Thrarm-Captain. But energy spikes indicate thermal flares, probably from internal fuel explosions. There have been several combustion plumes-hydrogen, we presume-that support this analysis.”
“And other than the transponder signal, no communication whatsoever?”
“None, Thrarm-Cap-wait.” zh-Sensor’s ears stood up rigid, like wind-filled half-parasols. “They have shut down their fusion plant and are running off capacitors. Which they are turning on and off. Repeatedly.”
“So?”
“Sir, the pattern of the on-off sequencing: it is the Scout’s Tapping, Thrarm-Captain!”
The Scout’s Tapping? Thrarm-Captain’s lower jaw hung slightly; his angry, tooth-lined maw reflected faintly in the glass of an inert display screen. The humans had rarely, if ever, encountered the archaic code known as the Scout’s Tapping, so it seemed increasingly likely that he stood in a position to rescue Heroes who had fought well from ships that were outgunned and outdated. But until the other ship could officially prove its identity, he had to ignore it. He knew he should not feel a simmering rage against those protocols-the monkeys’ tendency toward guile and deception had made these precautions necessary-but still, they were now keeping him from doing what his instinct and the Hero’s Creed told him to do: save a ship that was obviously manned by his brothers.
zh-Sensor cleared his throat. It was a sound like a small motor starting. “Thrarm-Captain, are we to return the Raker’s signal?”
“What are they Tapping?”
“That their hunt is over, Thrarm-Captain. They must abandon their ship; they ask us for lifeboats.”
“Lifeboats? Why?”
zh-Sensor’s voice was low. “Because their commander knows that, with his transponder damaged, we cannot authenticate his vessel as belonging to the Fleet.”
The gesture was either the mark of a truly brave Hero-willing to take his chance among the leaf-eaters in lifeboats-or of a truly audacious deception. Maybe, reasoned Thrarm-Captain even as he recoiled from the implicit weakness of the act, it would be best to simply send over some lifeboats…
“Thrarm-Captain, human small-boats inbound.”
Thrarm-Captain swiveled toward the targeting screens. “Where?”
“Approaching us from the lee side of the Raker, Thrarm-Captain. Our firing solution lies directly through it.”
“Fire self-guiding seekers,” Thrarm-Captain yowled, but knew it would not be enough. The defensive batteries of three human smallships, coordinated in interlocking fields of fire, would certainly defeat his anemic missile attack. At most, he was buying the Raker some time.
zh-Sensor swallowed. “The Raker is turning about to engage them, sir. It is re-starting its fusion plant, but it seems to be having trouble.”
Well, of course; they had to shut down the fusion plant so that their on-off power pulses would come through as the Scout’s Tapping. The output of a live fusion plant would have drowned out the fluctuations in the smaller energy signature, much as the roar of nearby waterfalls had, in primeval times, made the original Scout’s Tapping useless. But, from a cold restart, that same fusion plant would take some time before rebuilding to optimal output.
On the main plot, the small vermillion speck of the Raker was gamely trying to come about and intercept the three, leaf-green lancets bearing down on Guardant Ancestor. Thrarm-Captain felt his gorge rise in frustration: frustration at not turning to fight, at failing to lend his aid and firepower to the stricken Raker, and above all, at not having immediately offered to rescue his fellow Heroes.
zh-Sensor started: “The Raker is firing beams and missiles-many missiles! Large-warhead drones, evidently. Two human craft have slowed their approach, and one has been damaged and broken off. The drones are slowing, though-”
Thrarm-Captain narrowed his eyes, felt his vocal chords vibrating, quaking, as he held back a scream of impotent rage. “Those are not drones. They were his lifeboats.”
“Thrarm-Captain, the lead human craft has been hit and destroyed. The second is damaged, but now reapproaching.” zh-Sensor blinked at his relays. “And-and you were correct, Thrarm-Captain; the Raker discharged its escape pods and lifeboats along with its missiles-”
“-thereby making it look, for a moment, like it had superior armament. Which disrupted the coordination of the human attack. Buying more time for us, but dooming themselves when the humans resume their attack. And see, they do so even now. This time, the leaf-eaters will finish the job. And the crew of the Raker has no way left to escape.”
But the Raker’s fusion drives surged to life and it discharged its beam weapons in the same moment that two human missiles hit the spindly hull, along with a brace of x-ray laser bursts.
The lasers hit the Raker’s tankage sections, but without any free oxygen, the result was simply a profound out-gassing of most of the remaining fuel. The human missiles, however, hit the gunnery decks, which fell suddenly and ominously silent. The interior explosions seemed a bit smaller than Thrarm-Captain might otherwise have expected, but for all he knew, the Raker’s racks were dry, and one of the human warheads might have been a dud. Either way, the Raker was now all but dead: fuel already low, and its systems evidently failing, the fusion plant died out again.