Chapter Five
The Hkh’Rkh did not float upward; he stood slowly, one arm raised until his hand made contact with the ceiling. His digitigrade stance and thin, round tail formed a tripod which, with steady downward pressure, kept him steady and stable upon the deck. “Since almost all our equipment remains locked behind the bulkhead doors separating the crew and engineering sections, there is little for us to carry. Our primary loads are the survival packs found in the lockers of the cryogenically suspended factotums. It was unimportant that there was not one for me; because Hsontlosh had no supplies for a Hkh’Rkh I retained access to my own supplies. Only my weapons are in aft storage. Including additional gear, pressure suits, and EVA packs, the average personal load is thirty-four kilograms.”
“Everywhere you go,” Miles quipped, “it’s a forty-kilo pack. ‘Or near as dammit,’ as my meemaw used to say.”
Caine managed not to react to the revelation that Miles O’Garran had a “meemaw” back on Earth.
“I have adjusted loads to address differences in capability,” Yaargraukh continued. “Notably, Mister Eku’s pack is significantly lighter due to his broken arm.”
Dora’s suspicion had transformed into a frown. “I’ve seen you, Craig, and Miles making piles. I divide that by the thirteen of us. No way we’d be carrying thirty-four kilos on the average . . . unless someone is going to hump a lot more.” She crossed her arms. “So how much are you carrying, Yaargraukh?”
The big exosapient’s pebbled hide twitched. “Slightly over the average.”
Caine shook his head. “I want to know precisely; how much over the average?”
The Hkh’Rkh lifted his head, his voice simultaneously entreating and defiant. “Eight-seven kilograms.”
“Yaargraukh, that is—!”
“Commodore, that is comparable to the loads with which I trained. I shall have no problem maintaining any pace you might set.” He glanced almost furtively at Newton. “Frankly, my greatest concern is for Dr. Baruch. Given his greater size, I was compelled to increase his load to thirty-eight kilograms.”
“I have carried more,” Newton replied at the same moment that Caine silently congratulated Yaargraukh on shifting the focus away from his own load.
Yaargraukh’s response—a stuttering grunt—signified grudging acceptance. “However, Sergeant Girten and I did discover several problems when we conducted inventories of the survival packs themselves.”
“Coño!” Dora spat, “why is it that every time someone says the words, ‘survival pack,’ the next thing out of their mouth is, ‘but there are some problems . . . ’”
Eku’s comment sounded slightly defensive. “The equipment is quite good, actually.”
“Just as long as it’s better than the crap we had when we crashed on Disparity,” Dora muttered.
Caine’s wave for silence almost set him twirling. “What are the problems, Yaargraukh?”
“In three packs, the original contents are gone. They’ve been replaced by various human and Dornaani personal items.”
“So instead of a dozen packs, there are only nine.”
“Correct. None of those nine contain the orbital uplink set indicated on the packing list. Two lack the smart blade, sampler, monoscope, and standard issue firearm. One of which does not function.”
Dora gestured toward the Hkh’Rkh, eyes appealing to Caine. “See? Why do they even make survival packs?”
Yaargraukh’s eyes had swiveled toward Liebman, who was frowning deeply. “Sergeant, you appear concerned.”
“You could say that.”
“I just did. What are your concerns?”
“We were counting on twelve survival rifles, but now we’re down to six. And last I counted, there are thirteen of us.”
The Hkh’Rkh’s eyes retracted slightly. “Correct, but we also have replacements for most of the missing weapons.”
“Such as?”
“The extremely powerful coil gun with which Hsontlosh’s primary proxrov was equipped. There is also Mr. Eku’s keepsake antique—the Ruger nine millimeter—and there are two grapple guns from the EVA locker.”
Liebman shrugged, apparently mollified.
Duncan, however, had caught his frown. “So, are any of these weapons something you can use?” Caine had begun wondering the same thing: the size and structure of Hkh’Rkh hands made most human-scaled weapons too small and awkward to operate. During the final, desperate day of the Battle of Jakarta, they’d cut away trigger guards to use the firearms of the slain insurgents.
Yaargraukh pony-nodded. “The grapple guns have grips designed for use with your EVA gloves. They will be adequate.”
“Yaargraukh, you know as well as I do that those aren’t really weapons. Your targets will have to get damned close before you can engage.”
“Then that will be most unfortunate for them.” The tip of the Hkh’Rkh’s tongue wiggled out for a moment: ironic amusement. “If enemies are within five meters, I assure you, the grapple guns will prove quite effective . . . more so than the survival rifles, depending upon the target.”
Liebman spoke without looking up; his voice had become hollow. “That’s four replacement weapons and six working survival rifles. That’s only ten weapons for thirteen people.”
Ayana sat slightly straighter. “I have always traveled with a family katana. It is with me aboard this ship. It will suffice.”
“And,” Miles said brightly, “I made sure to get one of the packs with a Dornaani smart knife in it. That will suit me just fine.”
“No,” said Yaargraukh.
“What?” Miles’ laugh had perplexity behind it. “You won’t even let me have a knife?”
“No, Chief O’Garran. You will have the knife. But you will also have the second grapple gun.”
The SEAL seemed to grow two inches. “For your information, I happen to be quite good with knives. And I like them. A lot.”
But Caine was studying Yaargraukh, who had assured him that the armament shortage had been solved. But apparently not to everyone’s satisfaction. Riordan folded his arms, gave the situation a chance to play out as the Hkh’Rkh intended.
“Chief O’Garran, I mean no insult. We are comrades; my honor is tied to yours.”
“Then what are you going on about, Yaargraukh? You think I can’t get by with a knife?”
“Chief O’Garran, you are a redoubtable warrior and an excellent comrade. I doubt few humans could match your ability to survive armed only with a knife.” The Hkh’Rkh’s pony-pangolin neck swayed and then sank slightly. “I also know how hard and well you have trained for such a challenge. But I have lived that challenge, from earliest youth. It is part of my peoples’ upbringing.” The two did not so much stare at, but study, each other for several long seconds before the Hkh’Rkh bowed slightly. “As one comrade to another, I request you let me do this,” the Hkh’Rkh finished, using a tone in which Caine heard hints of . . . a plea? From Yaargraukh?
Miles stared at the other for a moment, then shook his head and looked away with a surprised grin. “You get points for style, I’ll give you that. Okay, I’ll pack the grapple gun.” He pushed off the bulkhead, faced the room. “I’m sure it will surprise and delight you to hear that my report is the last and that I am not going to repeat every step of the descent profile. I’ll do that again, but just before we insert. However, this is your last chance to ask questions about the drop or your gear. Who’s first?”
Caine felt sorry to see Craig Girten’s hand raise, dragging with the weight of embarrassment. “So when the ship is done with its maneuvers, we’ll get into the descent frames.”
O’Garran nodded.
Girten looked reassured. “And then we jump out once we reach the drop zone.”
Miles shook his head—a bit sadly, Caine thought. “Well, not immediately. And it’s not jumping. And the term isn’t drop zone; it’s optimal insertion vector.”
“But, uh, isn’t ‘insertion vector’ just another way of saying drop zone?” Girten sounded lost all over again.
“Nope. They’re related—call ’em cousins—but they’re not twins, not by a long shot.”
O’Garran leaned forward. “Think about jumping from an airplane. You lose your forward momentum really quickly. Mostly, you fall downward into a pretty tight footprint; usually a long oval.
“But in a LOHO drop, you are in near vacuum, so your vector will match the ship’s: more forward than downward. Only when the descent frames’ automated descent systems are synced will they fire their thrusters. That’s what pushes you deeper into the atmosphere. But even when you come out of the frame on your personal ’chute, you’ll still be going forward as much as you’re going downward.”
O’Garran scanned the faces in the compartment. “No more questions?”
“Just one,” Liebman said quietly. “If the drop does put us all over the map, that means that all of us might start out alone. Craig, me, maybe others, have never had to survive in a place that is totally, well, alien. But half of you have, so I figured you’d talk us through what we don’t know. But we still haven’t been told anything about radio range, discipline, or . . . well, or anything.”
O’Garran shook his head. “That question is above my pay grade,” he explained as he pushed himself back toward the bulkhead.
Faces rotated toward Riordan. Half were puzzled, half wore tightening frowns of consternation. Caine nodded at them. “The answer is that until an hour ago, we couldn’t really answer those questions. We had to wait.”
“Wait?” Katie Somers asked. “For what?”
But it was Duncan, finger pointing beyond the limit of the hull, who answered before Caine could. “For the STL ship that’s hanging out there.”
Craig’s head snapped erect. “You all said it was a wreck!”
Caine raised his hands for calm. “We know that now, but we had to wait to see if it, or anything in the system, was sending signals. And nothing is.”
“So then it’s not a problem,” Girten concluded. “Is it?”
Riordan sighed. “The problem isn’t the ship itself; it’s what it signifies. Specifically, its structure closely resembles that of our own long-duration STL craft: so much so that it is probably a human design.”
“But it can’t be one of ours!” Craig exclaimed. “You said Earth can’t get to, well, wherever we are.”
“You are correct,” Ayana said quietly. “But so long as we are within a thousand light-years of Earth—and for a variety of reasons, I suspect we are—then we are not the only polity that might have constructed it.”
Katie nodded, admirably calm. “The Ktor.”
Ayana returned her nod. “The Ktoran Sphere has been expelling defeated families for thousands of years. The region of space they reserve for such exiles—the Scatters—extends away from their borders and the rest of known space.”
“How far?” Craig asked.
Ayana was very still as she answered. “There is no way to know.”
Duncan nodded. “We could be near, or even in, those Scatters right now.”
Even Chief O’Garran was frowning now. “Okay, but if we haven’t heard any radio chatter, why all the worry?”
Ayana’s reply was low and careful, as if she feared summoning the entities she named. “Death Fathers.” The compartment fell silent. “During my captivity among the Ktor, they demanded I show them how best to operate my ship, threatening to execute the crew if I refused. Eventually, I became so invisible to some of them that they began engaging in conversations about the Sphere. Some of these concerned how the hegemons dealt with exiles like themselves.
“In short, the leaders of the great Houses—the Death Fathers—unleash their ‘unblooded’ lordlings to destroy any world where exiles no longer observe the two restrictions to which all of them must agree: no long-range radio transmissions and no supraluminal travel. So if the wreck out there”—now it was she who pointed through the hull—“brought such exiles to this place, their descendants might still listen carefully, fearfully, for radios. It is also possible that the long arms of the Death Fathers might have already smitten the world beneath us, or simply visited it preemptively. Either way, they would likely have left listening devices.”
Liebman sounded as though he was speaking through a drunken stupor. “So we can’t use radios at all.”
Caine shook his head. “We can, but we’ll be restricted to low-power squelch breaks. From orbit, or beyond one hundred fifty kilometers on the surface, they’ll be indistinguishable from static.”
He surveyed the now-solemn group. “Anything else?” When there was no response other than a few headshakes, he shifted into a crisper command tone. “Yaargraukh: you will, with Colonel Rulaine’s assistance, commence assembling your frame. Everyone else: you have ninety minutes to double-check your gear. You will then present your rig to Chief O’Garran for inspection and sign-off. We will then gather to deploy. If you have other concerns regarding safe descent or survival on the ground, you will bring them up at that time. Any questions?” After two silent seconds, he turned to Ayana. “Are you ready to execute final hands-on maneuvers?”
“Aye, sir. Automated commands are synced to begin when we commence the pre-deployment countdown.”
“Very well, Ms. Tagawa. Take us in.”