Downing closed his eyes—and saw Nolan’s smile. He smiled back. It was always your show, old boy. We’ve just been playing the notes you composed.
Downing opened his eyes. “Start the clock. And let’s get ourselves airborne. We will soon have a battlefield to assess.”
Tygg, his hand covering the ear bud connected by wire to a short-range pager, muttered, “They’ve started the clock.”
Trevor glanced at him. “Just now?”
“Yeh. Well, a few seconds ago, given the delay between the ground repeaters from the Sundas to here. The general festivities start in ten minutes. Our own special party starts in a little less than three hours. Unless everyone gets waved off.”
“Does that give us enough time for a stealthy approach?” Trevor looked out the window, saw the minarets of the Istiqlal Mosque rising up across a short stretch of the Merdeka Square.
Tygg checked his watch. “Should. Our mob is ready to gather at the head of the assault route.”
“Okay, then let’s get our own teams moving into place. Page mine along with yours, will you?”
“Already done. How do the Roaches and Sloths look? Antsy?”
Trevor raised his binoculars, made sure the laser rangefinder was off, scanned the recently walled complex that rose up beyond the Indonesian Supreme Court building which lay just to the west of the presidential palace. He looked for signs of activity at that part of the enemy perimeter. Nothing out of the ordinary. Trevor bit his lip—
Tygg’s voice was low, closer to his ear. “Thinking about the inside team again?”
“It shows?”
“Might as well wear a sign, mate. Look, the resistance agents in the compound’s domestic staff placed the breaching charges themselves. They know to stay away as much as possible.”
“Yeah, but we have no way to warn them, no way to tell them that the clock is running.”
“Which they knew when they volunteered.”
“Cold consolation.”
Tygg’s voice was lower still. “Listen, Trevor, regardless of what you Yanks like to think, and the way you try to run your ops, not everyone has a reasonable chance of survival. And you don’t always get to fight the war you planned, eh?”
Trevor looked up balefully. “You mean like the war where we assumed we’d have C4I dominance, GPS redundancy, and orbital weapon guidance?”
“Yeah, that one. But this is the war we got, instead. And it’s the war that the team inside the compound got, as well. Today, they’ve drawn the short straw and the dirty job. Tomorrow, or sooner, it might be you who has to walk point, or be bunkmates with plastique.”
“I know, Tygg. I’ve been there myself. I just hate seeing it happen to others. Particularly civilians.”
He felt the tall Aussie’s hand come down on his shoulder. “You’ve a big heart, Trev, so big that it’s blinding you to something.”
“What’s that?”
“There aren’t any civilians anymore. Not until we kick the last of these damned exos off our world.”
Trevor lowered the binoculars, said, “You’re right,” and wished Tygg wasn’t. Trevor turned, smiled at the slightly younger man. “Well, I don’t suppose we should waste any time. Let’s gather the troops.”
“You wished to see me?” As one, the room’s occupants turned from the holotank to look at Caine.
Darzhee Kut clattered forwards. “Caine Riordan, my apologies that I have been unable to share roof with you these past three days. I have been quite busy.”
Caine scanned the room, saw Yaargraukh, the Hkh’Rkh Advocate with whom he had become friends at Convocation. The smallish Hkh’Rkh stared at him without any acknowledgment. Probably because I’m too politically toxic.
However, First Fist had reared up to his full height and his crest was not merely erect but puffed out like a long fur stole saturated with static electricity. He pointed at Caine. “I will not suffer to be in the same room as this zhkh’grsh’hak’k.”
Evidently, this was an insult so profound—or intricate—that the translator could not process it. Caine looked down at Darzhee Kut, whose polyps writhed once. The Arat Kur equivalent of an “I dunno” shrug.
Yaargraukh’s voice was flat. “In your language, this would specifically refer to a courtesan who makes herself the property of one Family’s Lord, so that she may poison him in order to become the courtesan of a rival Family Lord. Only to repeat this process with yet another, greater Family Lord.”
Trading up, Borgia-style. Caine cast about for an oblique retort to Graagkhruud’s insult, but let it go. Not smart, and besides, they brought you here for a reason.
Something was going on. He could sense it in the way they were all clustered around the holotank, had been so intent on its contents that they had not even heard the door admit Caine and his Arat Kur guards. He returned his attention to Darzhee Kut, “This day, Speaker Kut, you seem busier still. May I be of some assistance?”
“We think so. Please come and view the holotank.”
As Caine came close to the tank, he bowed toward the senior Arat Kur. “First Delegate Hu’urs Khraam, I presume. I have heard your name sung, and am honored to meet you.”
Hu’urs Khraam bobbed in return. “You know our greetings; this is well. Harmonies, Spokesperson Riordan. Forgive my inability to greet you as cordially as I would wish, but tell me”—he waved a claw in the direction of the holotank—“what do you make of this?”
Caine looked. Bright yellow motes ringed the Earth in various orbits, a few others near the Moon and at the Lagrangian points, several more distributed through the vast spaces surrounding the whole tableau. But off to one side, with the Moon currently occluding them from the Earth, there was a broad and yet extremely dense cloud of angry, blood red needles. They were marked by various Arat Kur characters, some constantly transmogrifying, probably counting down range, ETA. But it meant nothing to him. Caine looked up. “With apologies, Hu’urs Khraam, if I am not given more information, I can only see a dispersed collection of yellow dots being approached by a much larger swarm of red ones.”
“Of course. Urzueth Ragh, you have leave to explain.”
First Fist closed half the distance to Caine in a single bound, the calar talons of his hands raised. “Tell him nothing!”
Hu’urs Khraam shifted to look directly at First Fist. He did not speak. First Fist did not come closer, but neither did he move away.
First Voice waved a dismissive claw. First Fist paced backward, never showing his back to Hu’urs Khraam or to Caine.
Urzueth Ragh approached cautiously. “Speaker Riordan, as you no doubt gather, the yellow markers denote our ships and drones throughout cislunar space. As you may have also gathered, the red markers are, apparently, human vessels.”
“Human?”
“Yes, Speaker.”
“Where did they come from, and when?”
“They shifted in-system seven minutes ago, arriving en masse only three light-seconds out from Earth. This is much closer than your ships would normally hazard, is it not?”
“Surely your information on our interstellar capabilities is so extensive that my confirmation of it is unnecessary.”
Urzueth Ragh bobbed once. “So it is as we thought. The lead elements of this formation will arrive here in several hours. In order to engage them in free space, and at sufficient range to intercept them before any of their drones can reach our orbital supremacy assets, our capital ships have had to commence slingshot exits from orbit.”