"The sky fire," Tulo'stenaloor said with a snarl. "This small battle."
"There was no battle, estanaar," the God King admitted. "There was only the sky-fire . . ."
"Artillery," Staraquon interjected. Tulo'stenaloor's intelligence officer flapped his crest in derision. "Start learning the words."
"I am not a nestling," snarled Cholosta'an. "I do not have to take this from you, Kenstain!" The term was a terrible insult, the equivalent of calling someone a eunuch. Kenstain were God Kings who had been removed for all time from the Battle Rolls, either by their own choice or by the decisions of the Posleen Data-net. Some were God Kings that had chosen not to engage in battle, but most were those unlucky in battle or who were unable to garner riches through either fighting or deceit.
Kenstain were useful on a certain level, they provided the minimal "administration" that could not be provided by the Net. But since they were unrecognized by the Net, they could not engage in legitimate trade and had to survive at the whim of their luckier or more courageous brethren.
No one liked Kenstain.
Tulo'stenaloor leaned forward and raised his crest. "If you say that one more time I will have you killed. You agreed to obey my orders if I led you to victory. Learn now that I was serious. I want your information, but not so much as to have my intelligence officer called such. Do . . . you . . . understand?"
"I . . ." The young God King slumped. "No . . . estanaar, I do not understand. I do not understand why it matters and I do not understand why I must be put through this. It is not the way of the Path."
"Do not speak to me of the Path," spat the older God King. He fingered the symbol dangling from one ear and snarled. "The Path is what has led us to this impasse. It is the Path which has hurled us into defeat on Aradan and Kerlan. We will use the Path when it is the way to victory, but the only Path in my encampment, the only mission," he said, using the human word, "is to defeat the humans, utterly. It goes beyond this small ball of mud, it goes to the survival of the Po'oslena'ar as a race. If we do not destroy these humans, they will destroy us. And I will destroy them, root and branch, here and on Aradan and Kerlan and anywhere else they exist. Not for the Path, but for the Race. And you will either aid me in that, without question, or you may go. But if you say you will aid me and you question me or the officers I appoint to you then you will die. Do you understand me now?"
The young God King had been born on Earth in the heat of battle and since leaving the slaughter of the pens had heard nothing but the stories of defeat at human hands. Not for him the riches of the initial landing when vast stretches of land fell before the onslaught of the Race. Not for him the easy way to pay his edas debts, the crushing weight of the cost of outfitting his oolt. Until that was paid there was no way he could do anything but be a servant to more capable or lucky Kessentai. Thus, his first battle had been like all the others, a blindsided slaughter in these hills, shredded by artillery that they could never reach and he and his fellow Kessentai pecked at by snipers that were impossible to distinguish through the mass of fire. There was no glory, and certainly no loot, to be gained from those pitiful assaults. Not even by picking over their own dead.
He had seen the weakness of the Path, the Path of War that called for berserk assaults no matter what the target, and he knew there must be a better way. It was because of this that he had responded to the messages filtering through the Net. There was a new Way, a new Path, and a new messiah that would lead them beyond these trackless wastes into the promised land of the interior. It was a new Way and it was a hard Way, but he had never expected how hard.
"I . . . will obey, estanaar," the scoutmaster said. "I do not understand but I will obey." He paused and thought back. "The sky-fire . . . the artillery . . . fell without warning. Rather our tenaral told us it was coming, but only when it was on top of us. Then Ramsardal fell and when I saw the damage I began weaving; I knew it was the human 'snipers' but with the sky . . . artillery fire the tenaral were unable to find them. I bonded as many of the oolt'os as I could on the way past and moved as quickly out of the fire as I could."
"Can you read a map?" asked Staraquon.
"I . . ." The young Kessentai fluffed his crest nervously but finally laid it flat. "I do not know what a map is . . ."
"Call me 'Esstu,' " Staraquon said calmly. "I gather information about the humans. You will be given a lesson in maps later by the Kessentai of Essthree, but a map is basically a picture of the ground from in the air. I would like to know where the encounter was. Since there was sniper fire, it was from a reconnaissance team, one of the human 'lurp' teams, rather than fire directed from their sensors. If there is a reconnaissance team out there, it is probably coming to see what we are doing. We don't want that; we don't want the humans seeing what we are doing. Therefore we want to know where the encounter was and when."
The God King fluffed his crest again and clacked his teeth. "It was last night and it was closer to the human lines. I . . . knew a way to this area but it passed close to the human lines. It was the only way I knew so I took it. I could show you where it is, but I cannot tell you."
"All right," Staraquon said with a flap of his crest. "It would have been good but not necessary." He turned to Tulo'stenaloor. "I wish to send out more patrols and I want some of my esstu Kessentai included. There are detectors we have been working on that might help us find these pesky lurps."
"Was there a transmission from the area?" Tulo'stenaloor asked. He admitted that he did not have the expertise in figuring out how to gather information that Staraquon did. But that was why he had recruited him as his 'esstu.'
"No," the intelligence officer said. "It would appear that they are using some nontransmissive form of communication. Probably these laser retransmitters that they have scattered around the hills."
"Is there some way to gather the information from them?" the older Kessentai mused. "Or some way to feed it in?"
"Both," Staraquon said with a bark of humor. "But shouldn't we wait on that for when the attack takes place? I want these humans to suspect nothing until then."
"Agreed," Tulo'stenaloor said. "Very well, do what you need to, you may even draw on the Kessentai force if you think it can be kept secret. But find this recon team and kill it."
* * *
Jake took another look through the binoculars and scratched his chin in thought. The Tallulah River drained the northeast Georgia mountains, joined by numerous smaller tributaries until it became a substantial stream. At that point, however, humans had taken a hand and the river was repeatedly used for hydroelectric power generation. Currently he was observing the bit of it that flowed out of the Lake Burton Dam and, in very short order, became Lake Seed. Between the two lakes was a short stretch that, according to the map and their intel report, was supposed to be fordable. Only about thirty meters from side to side and knee deep at worst. What was even better about this point for a crossing was that there were steep, heavily wooded slopes on either side of the river. All the team would have to do was move down through the woods, pass through a blessedly small open area, cross the river and move back into the sheltering woods.
Unfortunately, the intel reports neglected to take into account the sumptuous rains of the previous few months and the power plant on the dam.
The plant was old, possibly as much as a century passed since its construction, the large multi-pane windows and antique lights scattered around made that clear. The generators inside would probably be signed by Thomas Edison himself, but the plant still functioned and it was evident that the Posleen were using it to supplement their fusion plants.