“Any word?” asked Darzhee Kut when he was sure no humans were close enough to hear.
“About the fleet or Riordan?”
“Either. Both.”
“Nothing on the fleet,” answered Urzueth Ragh. “None of our ships are in radio range any longer. The human Wu is unwilling to share much information, but I believe that Riordan was already on his way when I asked.”
The first good news in an hour. But Urzueth did not seem encouraged. “What distresses you?”
“On this day, what does not? But just this moment, I was reflecting that even if your countermand of the Final Directive reaches our ships, their masters may not elect to follow the orders of an unknown Delegate.”
Darzhee Kut bobbed once. “Yes, but at least they cannot scuttle their ships immediately. Not until they restore full computer control.”
“Darzhee Kut, why do you place this importance upon their computers?”
“Because the instructed means of scuttling is to sabotage the antimatter or fusion containment fields.”
Urzueth Ragh angled to look at him sideways. “Rock-sibling, Shipmasters have other means at their disposal.”
Darzhee Kut felt his intestine twitch. “What do you mean?”
“Darzhee Kut, surely you have not forgotten that the humans are not the only ones who possess nuclear ordnance—”
“Oh, Christ—Mr. Downing!”
The bump of the VTOL’s hasty landing coincided with a panicked, almost electric pulse that jumped so hard through Downing that he felt pain at the rear of his skull. But there was relief, too. The bad news had finally arrived. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“Sir—the Arat Kur are destroying their ships.”
So. Not as harmless as they seemed. “How many?”
“I don’t know, sir. It’s going on right now—six, seven, eight.”
“How?”
“Nukes, sir.”
“And our boarding teams?”
The lieutenant turned very pale very quickly. “Our—?”
“Yes, Lieutenant. What about our boarding teams?”
Ruth Altasso turned to Ira. Lateral lines, straight and stacked like the slats of a washboard, stretched across her forehead. “Admiral, Commander Dugan on tac comm one. Urgent.”
Damned straight it’s urgent. His teams are on those hulls. “Put him through. What’s the count, Ruth?”
“Nine scuttled so far, sir. Dugan is online.”
“Lincoln actual. Go.”
“Admiral—”
“I know what’s happening, Tom. Don’t waste time with a sitrep.”
“Okay.” A long pause. When Tom Dugan spoke again, he sounded more like a green second looey than a seventeen-year veteran with the Teams. “Ira, what do I do?”
Good God, now SEALs are asking me what to do? “Secure the prisoners. Isolate them from all systems.”
“Impossible, Admiral. On most hulls, I’ve only got two squads of boarders. That’s twenty-two troops for hulls that are often more than two hundred thousand kiloliters in volume. And my men don’t have intel on floor plans, standard complement, or command circuitry. My guys are working blind, and from what I can tell, they can’t figure out how the Arat Kur are blowing their ships. I was in contact with Joe DeBolt when the smallish hull he took went up. His squads had corralled all the Roach bastards. Nobody threw a self-destruct switch or anything like that.” Dugan stopped for a moment, then resumed. “Orders?”
Ira clenched his molars. I know what you want me to say. And, God forgive me, you’re right, because we just don’t know how they’re doing it. Hell, if they set this up as a worst-case contingency, they might not even need access to their ships’ systems—
Ira discovered that Altasso was looking at him. “Skipper, for all we know, the Arat Kur could have implanted themselves with remote triggers.”
Ira closed his eyes. Great God, does she read minds, too?
“Sir.” It was Dugan again, tense. “Orders?”
“Are your men still buttoned up?”
“All suits are still sealed, sir.”
“Do they have control over internal systems? Such as bulkhead doors?”
“In most cases, yes sir.”
Eyes still closed, Ira felt himself creating generations of hatred and mistrust as he allowed the next order to ride out of his mouth on the crest of one long sigh. “Remove the Arat Kur from their ships. Immediately.”
Silence. “‘Remove’? Sir, don’t you mean—?”
“Commander, I know what I mean and what I said. Have your teams secure themselves to interior fixtures with lanyards. Then open the airlocks. Then open the bulkhead doors. All of them.”
Darzhee Kut noticed the small human soldiers guarding the ruined headquarters crouch cautiously, then snap upward into a respectful, oddly erect and rigid stance. A superior approaching? Riordan, perhaps?
Larger humans with long, wicked-looking rifles swarmed through the door, followed by Trevor Corcoran.
Who had changed. Darzhee Kut had his claw half raised in greeting, but brought it down: he was suddenly fearful, more fearful than he had ever been around the Hkh’Rkh. He did not know humans well, but everything he had learned told him that there was death in Trevor Corcoran’s eye. Not hatred, not outraged pride, not fury. Just cold, passionless, implacable death. Death for Darzhee Kut, for Arat Kur, for all exos—maybe for anyone. Darzhee shivered back into his carapace. That was Trevor Corcoran’s face, but that was no longer Trevor Corcoran.
But arriving behind Corcoran was Riordan, his head turning, seeking, insistent, pushing past the human warriors into the room, over the body of the Hkh’Rkh that had guarded and then attacked him, still seeking—and stopped, staring in the direction opposite Darzhee Kut. His head and eyes were aimed straight at the silent, faintly fuming tank of Apt-Counsel-of-Lenses. Riordan’s eager, ready expression bled away. For a moment—just a moment—Darzhee Kut thought his eyes were going to match Trevor’s own.
“Caine Riordan!” As Riordan turned his head in the direction of Darzhee Kut’s call, some measure of engagement came back to his eyes. “Caine Riordan, we need—”
“Radios. Yes, we’ve heard about the ships. And your soldiers, are they also—?”
“Yes. It is a perverse contingency plan discussed by some of our leaders,” Darzhee Kut lied. “But I believe we can stop my forces from following them—many of them, at least. But I have no way to reach them. I need radios—”
But Caine was already turning away, shouting to the other humans—
Caine faced Trevor. “Darzhee Kut is now in charge here and trying to ensure that the rest of Arat Kur surrender goes smoothly. He needs a long-range radio in order to communicate with his people, and tell them it’s safe to cooperate with us.” Caine saw Elena enter the room, felt a flash of misgiving at having her here, shouted over Darzhee Kut’s continuing, and somewhat shrill, entreaties. “And we’ll need to patch him through to his ships if he’s going to stop them from being scuttled.”