The One Fanged God had clearly created the Jotoki to be slaves of the kzin. This regardless of what the digitally stored lessons of unblooded historians from Kzin-home, with their blunted claws and thinscreen-damaged eyes, might teach in kitten-school. It was ludicrous to think that these servile and ugly beasts had once been technologically superior employers of sword-wielding kzinti mercenaries!
Rrowl-Captain yawned his outrage at the very thought, baring sharp carnivore teeth. Unlike the kzin, Jotoki did not feed from the summit of the Great Web of All Life, nor did they concentrate and glorify the Life Essence of all creatures below them. The kzin had their place at the Apex of the Great Web, as ordained by the Teachings of the One Fanged God. So the fangless priests said, and so common sense agreed.
No matter who bickered to whom many light-years distant, one thing remained clear: Jotoki ate plants.
The captain dismissively spat onto the deck with a snarl. A Jotok leaped forward instantly to clean up the mess with eager fingerlets. Rrowl-Captain sat back and grunted as he watched it scrub the deck until it gleamed, one eye-tipped arm glancing surreptitiously up at him from time to time. It had taken many centuries to properly domesticate the ugly little five-armed slaves, but the Jotoki now fit seamlessly into their proper place in the Empire of the Riit Patriarch.
As eventually would fit these troublesome human monkeys, he thought, absently sheathing and unsheathing his claws in anticipation.
The monkey-humans at Ka’ashi were settling down, at least those living on the planetary surface. Pacification was almost complete, according to the tightbeam reports. Heroes would soon complete the conquest of the cowardly spacefaring feral monkeys in the asteroid belt, as well.
And Heroes would eventually prevail at Man-home, he was certain. How long had the kzin been expanding their Empire compared to these monkeys?
Rrowl-Captain ignored the green hell-light flaring at the back of his thoughts as if in rebuke. It was the destiny of kzinti to rule everywhere their spacecraft traveled, he knew in his Warrior Heart, as the favored sons of the One Fanged God.
Rrowl-Captain inserted a clawtip into a slot on the arm of his command chair, and twisted. The thin-crystal action matrix moved up from the side of the chair, unfolding a thinplate screen and console at the captain's eye level. The screen quickly lit with command functions. Rrowl-Captain purred roughly in his throat, impatient to begin the hunt.
"Communications-Officer," he rasped.
A young kzin, clearly full of liver and a naive image of the Warrior Heart, jumped to attention. "Command me, Dominant One!”
"Set up tightbeam laserlinks with both Pouncing-Strike and Spine-Cruncher. Full encryption, in case the monkeys can intercept data traffic and have learned our codes.”
Unlikely, but the green hell-light in Rrowl-Captain's mind suggested caution. He unfolded an ear at the communications officer in question.
"At once!" the other kzin replied, hands moving rapidly over his thinplate displays.
Rrowl-Captain waited impatiently, working the tip of his pointed tongue between two of his ripping teeth. A piece of Engine-Tinker still lodged there, and was proving difficult to remove. He coughed a chuckle in sudden amusement; the nameless blunt-tooth was an irritation even after he became food!
He studied his thinscreen carefully, noting with approval the prearranged course changes and varying accelerations the captains of Pouncing-Strike and Spine-Cruncher used to avoid becoming targets for monkey weaponry. The ship movements must not become predictable. All three kzin vessels were maneuvering to encircle the human spacecraft, making certain that each kzin ship had a clear zone of attack to carry out its individual mission.
Rrowl-Captain yowled suspiciously when he observed the alien vessel under extreme magnification. The tapered end of the great iceball-spacecraft, source of the now-silent but still fearsome reaction drive, had swung away from its original orientation. It was pointed threateningly toward the position where Rrowl-Captain's ships had been in convoy not long before. Blurring slightly on the screen with the magnification, he noticed that the drive section of the spacecraft was moving slowly in different directions, as if questing for a target.
"Acknowledgment pings have returned from Spine-Cruncher and Pouncing-Strike, Leader!" said Communications-Officer crisply.
The captain licked the fur on the back of his hand with his tongue, and slicked back his facial pelt meditatively. The intership laserlinks were now frequency locked, allowing burst telemetry and messages from each kzin vessel to flow to the others at prearranged points, provided there were no unplanned maneuvers. Gravity polarizers and distance made even light-speed communication difficult, particularly in times of battle.
His claws clicking and tapping across the console matrix pad, Rrowl-Captain prepared to initiate his plan to capture the alien vessel. Baring his teeth, he looked balefully into the fiber-optic pickup, and let the snap and slash of command enter his voice.
"Tchaf-Captain," he growled to Spine-Cruncher, "you will lead your Heroes against the monkeyship according to the second part of contingency plan Krechpt." He paused, then added grudgingly, "May you show Honor to the Riit and the One Fanged God." With a flick of a claw, the burst message was encrypted and sent. Many seconds later, there was a ping-return, signifying receipt of the message.
Rrowl-Captain then informed Cha'at-Captain of Pouncing-Strike that it was time to carry out his own orders. The master of Belly-Slasher grinned widely after sending that particular message. He had no doubt that the wild-eyed captain of Pouncing-Strike, a smallish kzin with much bravery in his liver and little sense in his brain, would carry out his orders. Sure enough, the ping-return of acknowledgment arrived as swiftly as he had expected.
Cha'at-Captain had been a problem for Rrowl-Captain several times during the convoy's long voyage away from Man-sun and the ignoble fate of the Third Fleet. It was only a matter of time, he knew, before Cha'at-Captain challenged him to combat, for control of the three spacecraft and their mission.
The master of Belly-Slasher preferred to spill kzinti blood to higher purposes than advances in rank.
For now, however, Rrowl-Captain still led, and chose orders for the aggressive little master of Pouncing-Strike that would remove the problem neatly. Cha'at-Captain could not refuse the orders of his superior, of course. Discipline was the litter-brother to Honor, according to the Teachings of the One Fanged God; Rrowl-Captain had reminded Cha'at-Captain of the specific verses himself.
Not coincidentally, Cha'at-Captain was a fundamentalist follower of the Traditionalist sect of Hs'sin. The Teachings of the One Fanged God were inspired works to the uneducated little Hero. Brave, but unlettered.
Rrowl-Captain cynically knew that the Teachings could be quoted by any kzin, regardless of rank or blood, even by the rare atheist Hero. It was simply an ancient book, after all, handed down generation to generation by the priests of the One Fanged God. It was darkly amusing to him that the troublemaking captain had acquiesced so tamely to his fate.
Cha'at-Captain was to lead Pouncing-Strike on a scream-and-leap directly at the human spacecraft, firing all weapons, drawing monkeyship weapons fire in turn. Spine-Cruncher would use the diversion to fly past the alien ship in a hyperbolic trajectory, and deliver the heavily stealthed monopole bomb. The bomb would detonate close enough to the human ship to temporarily incapacitate its electronics with a hammerblow of an electromagnetic pulse. The human monkeys placed great reliance on electronics.
Spine-Cruncher would then land a boarding party of Heroes to capture and secure the prize. Rrowl-Captain and Belly-Slasher would observe how the humans responded to the attacks, aid in the capture if necessary, and direct the mopping-up operation. As soon as the alien craft was secured, Rrowl-Captain would inspect the monkeyship personally, and proceed with converting it to kzinti use and the long trek to Ka’ashi.