“Yes… At last.” The Prince’s face cleared, the words striking a chord in him. “I’ve a remote going aboard that structure within moments, and we’ll-”
Out of the corner of her eye, Gretchen caught sight of an entire console filled with v-panes wink out. The comm officer sitting at the station cried out in alarm.
“ Chu-sa! My Lord Prince!” A man’s voice echoed in the air. “We’ve lost contact with the shuttle.”
A section of the Prince’s console unfolded into a large v-pane, showing Chu-sa Kosho’s face, which was now cold and alert, her eyes flickering from side to side. Xochitl stepped back to his shockchair, intent on the Nisei officer.
“Well?” he demanded.
“The cargo shuttle has exploded, Gensui.” Susan’s lips were a tight line, her brow furrowed. “No warning, no energy emissions… we’re rewinding the telemetry, but I don’t believe there is anything left to recover.”
The Prince cursed, unable to keep rein on his temper a moment longer, and slammed a fist into the side of the shockchair. The Hjo recoiled, though Hummingbird’s grip was tight enough to keep the creature from falling down. “We must flee,” Sahane wailed, “reverse your course, human. Reverse now!”
Without considering the ramifications, Gretchen slipped free of the Jaguar’s grip-the Knight was staring at the console display, his attention distracted for a moment-and slid into a shockchair beside the horrified comm-tech.
“Roll that feed back, my dear,” she said, voice calm and commanding. “Frame by frame.”
The parchment envelope was opened and one of the octopus arms snaked from her pocket into a socket on the console without anyone noticing. Gretchen snugged her earbug tight against the background noise. The Prince and Kosho were disputing the merits of sending another shuttle towards the Sunflower. “Give me broad-spectrum passive scan at 20X for surface of the structure directly adjacent to the explosion…” Should be some impact scarring now, from the debris. Crude-but I’ll take the infopoints.
“My lord…” Xochitl turned away from Susan’s impassive visage, feeling thwarted at every turn, and advanced on the Hjogadim with a fierce expression. “We must determine the provenance of this-object-and if it poses a threat to Mexica space! Then we can-”
“ Stand away, toy!” Sahane yelped, frightened by the Prince’s fierce movement, reflexively making a form of obedience with his hand, as though the human were a servant in the house of his fathers. Xochitl staggered, eyes wide, his face draining of color.
«Heart failure induced,» his exo said brightly. «Cortex shutdown expected within ten seconds.»
The Prince collapsed to his knees, and then tipped to one side when his arms failed to support his weight. A great rushing sound roared in his ears. He saw the two Jaguar Knights lunging forward, weapons out, striking at the Hjo with all the speed they could muster. Sahane’s exposed fur shifted color and tone, and the first bodyguard to reach him-butt of his shipgun reversed as a club-saw his knockout blow glance away from a sudden effusion of spiked scales which covered the Hjo’s z-suited arm in a blur.
The creature, furious and sick at the same time, backhanded the marine with a long, gray arm. There was a crack of electricity and the Jaguar Knight was flung back, armor coiling smoke, to strike the floor, limp and lifeless.
«Cortex shutdown in seven seconds.»
Everyone in Secondary Command froze. The other Jaguar fetched up, weapon raised, suddenly unsure of how to attack the fully armored apparition. Sahane stared down at his arm, the dark, rune-scribed z-suit now glittering with a spiked metallic shell, in astonished horror. “I did not do that,” he declared in a weak voice. “I could not. This is impossible.”
“Esteemed One, stay your merciful hand!” Hummingbird’s voice was clear and direct, ringing in the air as the nauallis prostrated himself on the deck. “These shiau har-e will not serve without their lord being shun tzing. If he bends to your will, then all will be harmonious and we may flee this accursed place in speed and safety!”
Xochitl, barely able to see, gasped for life on the deck. The exo’s implacable voice continued to count down the seconds left before his brain starved from oxygen deprivation. The Hjo loomed over him, blocking out the light of the overheads. A pair of black eyes stared down and the long mouth twisted in a snarl.
“Let this toy live, when it has raised a paw against me? Why should I?”
“Think, Esteemed One,” Hummingbird said, his voice controlled-persuasive-without a hint of disobedience, “Think of your offspring in their thousands to come-we must be away from this accursed place swiftly and this one ”-the nauallis’ boot toed the Prince’s side-“is their Authority. Through him, you control the others and may achieve a swift departure.”
«Four seconds to cortical failure.»
Xochitl fought to form a coherent thought, and found he could still command his conscious mind, despite the annoying overlay of the exo. Desperate, feeling his mentation slipping away, he brought to focus a string of numbers- three, five, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty – nine and… the voice of the exo abruptly stopped. There was no audible sound, no flashing overlay informing his vision of the event-but the fail-safe tripped, shutting down his implant.
Wheezing, his chest thudding with pain, the Prince closed his eyes, hoping to avoid further agony. His mind, suddenly, seemed quiet and empty-desolate. His limbs weak, helpless. The Prince began to panic, realizing that his interface to the shipnet would now have to be managed manually-and he didn’t even have a hand-comp stowed in his luggage.
“Get us underway, nongmin.” The Hjogadim stepped away from Xochitl’s body, careful to keep his eyes averted from the vast panorama filling the v-display. Then he loped from Command, making a beeline for the lift a corridor away.
Gretchen looked up questioningly from her pirated console, trying to catch Hummingbird’s attention. The nauallis had tilted his head, watching with great interest as the Prince struggled to his feet. Xochitl’s skin had turned waxy and he blinked incessantly. Without the exo to refine his vision, he did not see well at all.
“My Lord?” The old Nahuatl offered the Prince his hand.
“We’re not leaving,” Xochitl rasped, his throat raw. He slumped weakly into the command shockchair. He pointed at Gretchen. “You-the one with the ugly hair-what happened to our probe?”
Turning slightly in her chair, Anderssen shrugged. “The relic is guarded by the same kind of protective lattice as the whole star system.” She caught the Prince’s eye and grinned. “But if we stay, I can get you inside.”
“We should leave,” Hummingbird snapped, glaring across at the Swedish woman.
Xochitl looked the nauallis up and down, realizing he did not know who the old man was or where he’d come from. “Who the devil are-wait, you’re one of the tlamatinime!” His face contorted in a snarl. “ Cuauhhuehueh Koris-get this old witch off my bridge! Put him in the brig-someplace locked tight! With nothing on him but his skin.”
The remaining Jaguar Knight rose from inspecting the body of his comrade. The master sergeant’s visor was opaque, having shifted into combat mode, but his voice boomed hollowly. “As you bid, Lord Prince.”
Hummingbird clasped his hands behind his head without a fuss and was escorted away. Gretchen watched him go with interest, wondering what the old Crow was up to now. He’ll be closeted with that alien in sixty seconds, she wagered with herself. He doesn’t really want us to leave-just nudge the Flowery One in some direction of his choosing. But, she thought, two can play that game.
Seeing the initial results from her analysis of the Chimalacatl ’s surface-even just on the battle-cruiser’s shipnet, much less after node 3^3 3 had taken the datastream apart and put it back together-had solidified a chaos of options vying for her attention. I need to set foot on this thing, if that can be managed safely; even a half-hour would make all of this worthwhile. Another certainty had formed in her heart, crystallizing out of a thousand points of long-held despair, anger, hatred, and delighted curiosity. Hummingbird needs to be there, too. Oh yes, he does.