To this end the Rinn Fain, and all his underlings — Darhel, Indowy, and artificial, all three — manned stations that, in human terms, could only be thought of as electronic warfare nodes.
For now the Darhel avoided interference, for the most part. Except in a few cases they were content merely to analyze human radio patterns, intercepting and synthesizing the codes that the barbarians used to hop from one frequency to another.
Certainly they didn’t want to tip the humans off to what they were up to in time for the clever beasts to think of something new.
There were, however, certain of the humans who were physically out of touch enough to risk playing games with their communications. The glider pilots were a case in point. The Rinn Fain had taken considerable pleasure in remotely reprogramming their radios to make sure that anything they saw went unreported.
It was almost as pleasurable as taking control of the human’s warships would be.
USS Des Moines
“Captain,” Daisy reported, “I’m picking up scrambled signals from someone who, based on what he is trying to say and how he is trying to say it, seems to be a pilot flying at or near the front. I don’t think anyone but myself — and probably Sally — can hear him.” Daisy hesitated for a long moment, as if in communication with someone not present.
“Sally hears him, too, sir, yes. But there is something wrong with her.”
“What?” asked McNair.
“I don’t know,” Daisy answered, sounding genuinely puzzled and more than a little concerned. “She is… different from me… a normal AID. And that part of her intelligence, the part created by the Darhel, is acting a bit… odd.”
“Okay,” McNair answered. “See if you can figure out what’s wrong with Sally. Help her if you can. And see if you can patch me through to that… pilot, did you say?”
“Yes, sir, a pilot. Spanish speaking. Fortunately, I can speak Spanish.”
Along with every other human tongue spoken by more than two thousand people, she thought but, tactfully, did not say.
Diaz’s voice was beginning to take on a note of frustrated desperation. He knew it and hated it but could do nothing to control it. But there were targets below, thick and ripe and waiting to be harvested.
“Any station, any station, this is Zulu Mike Lima Two Seven, over,” he pleaded, for more than the hundredth time.
For a wonder the radio crackled back, in an achingly feminine voice, “Zulu Mike Lima Two Seven this is Charlie Alfa One Three Four. Hear you Lima Charlie, over.”
Initially Diaz was unwilling to respond. It could be an enemy trick. Frantically, he poured through his COI, the code book that gave the call signs for every unit in his army and the gringos fighting in support of it. There was nothing, not one clue as to who Charlie Alfa One Three Four might be.
The warm feminine voice repeated, “Zulu Mike Lima Two Seven this is Charlie Alfa One Three Four. Hear you Lima Charlie, over.”
Finally, realizing that if he was so useless as to be unable to communicate with his own people the enemy was unlikely to be very interested in him either, Diaz answered, “Last calling station this is Zulu Mike Lima Two Seven. Who the hell are you?”
Another voice, different from the girl’s, came on. That speaker’s Spanish was as accentless as the girl’s had been.
“Lima Two Seven, this is the heavy cruiser, USS Des Moines, Captain McNair speaking.”
“Captain, this is Lieutenant Julio Diaz, First FAP Light Recon Squadron. I have targets and I haven’t been able to raise anyone.”
The radio went silent. Diaz knew what the captain must be thinking: how the hell do I know this snot-nosed kid is really a snot-nosed kid and not the damned Posleen?
“Can you patch me through to my father?” Diaz asked. Then, realizing that, as phrased, it was an incredibly stupid, second lieutenant kind of question, he added, “He’s the G-2. Major General Juan Diaz. My father can verify my voice.”
In half a minute a different, and angry, voice came over Diaz’s radio. “Julio, is that you? Where the hell have you been? I was about to call your mother…”
“Father,” Diaz nearly wept with relief, “I haven’t been able to get a hold of anyone since shortly after I went airborne. I can see everything, Father, and just as I thought, the beasts are simply ignoring me. I can see where Sixth Division is engaged. And I can see the enemy massing. But I can’t do a fucking thing about it.”
The other Spanish voice came back. “General Diaz, Captain McNair. I can do something about it. Do you acknowledge that the voice claiming to be Lieutenant Diaz is your son and that he is in a position to adjust fire?”
The elder Diaz spoke again. “What did I say when I caught you and your girlfriend in the gardener’s cabin, Julio?”
“Father! You promised never to bring that up!”
General Diaz’s voice contained a chuckle in it as he said, “Yes, Captain, that’s my boy.”
“Very good then, sir. Lieutenant Diaz, I want you to find me a huge concentration of the enemy. I don’t know how long we can pull this off before they shoot the shit out of us. So let’s make it count, son.”
“All hands, this is the captain speaking. Battle stations, battle stations. This is no drill.”
“I’m receiving Lieutenant Diaz’s call for fire now, Captain.”
“Prepare to engage.” McNair was pleased to hear no note of fear or hesitation in his own voice.
“Captain?” Daisy asked. “Would you and the crew care for a little mood music as we make our run?”
Raising a single, quizzical eyebrow, McNair answered, “Go for it, Daisy.”
“In nomine patri, filioque et spiritu sancti,” Father Dwyer intoned as he made the sign of the cross over a half dozen of the crew that knelt for a brief and informal service, pending action. Dwyer could have sworn at least one of the present flock was a Moslem but the man took the host without hesitation and eagerly grasped the two-ounce plastic cup of “sacramental scotch” Dwyer proffered.
No atheists in foxholes, they say. I think that, given the power of the Holy Spirit as manifested in the Glenlivet distillery, there shall soon be only good Roman Catholics afloat. Well… and perhaps the odd Presbyterian. Now if only I can find something suitable to bless for the benefit of Sinbad and his Indowy.
Before he could continue that line of thought Dwyer heard, “Battle stations…”
“Boys,” the priest said, “here aboard ship or in heaven or in hell, I’ll see you soon. Now you to your posts and I to mine.”
With that, the Jesuit headed towards sick bay. Worse come to worst he had a fair chance of saving a couple of more souls there.
McNair was startled twice over. The first time was when Daisy’s avatar blinked out of existence on the bridge. The second came when the ship itself began to vibrate with music.
Through the narrow slitted and armored glass-plated windows of the bridge, it seemed to McNair that a glow began to arise from the hull, spreading out into a perfect circle. The normal wake made by the bow as it sliced through the water disappeared, as did the waves.