In one hour, Standard, the Yxtrang Eye would be fully open, at once clearing a firing path from the battleship to Erob's House and placing the thickest layer of shielding ships between the battleship and the Passage.
Priscilla had run the math a dozen times in the last few hours, assigned the tactical comp to find the means by which the Passage could divert, prevent, or minimize the Yxtrang's beam.
The answer came back negative.
She had copied their situation files and downloaded them to Pod 77. What, if anything, that ancient non-sentient made of those facts, she had no idea. Subsequent efforts to engage it in dialog had met with no response. Perhaps it had simply stopped functioning.
Ren Zel, hastily briefed on his return to the bridge, stood silent, his eyes on the screen displaying the movement of the Yxtrang shield.
"No answer whatsoever?"
"Nothing," Priscilla said. "I wonder if I've offended it."
"Overloaded it, possibly," he returned, eyes still on the screen. "You say it is very old, and a defense logic. It would perhaps not be equipped to sift through such levels of data as the Passage—" He stopped and drew a slow, careful breath.
"Or perhaps it is."
Priscilla looked to the screen, saw the message window filling with words.
TACTICAL DEFENSE POD 77 ON-LINE.
DOWNLOAD DATA ANALYSIS COMPLETE.
DEFENSE PLAN FORMULATED.
PHASE ONE ENACTED.
UPLOADING TO MOBILE UNIT TARGETING COMP.
Ren Zel flung forward, clearing a tertiary screen and accessing the targeting computer in three rapid keystrokes. Priscilla sat rapt, the red counter in her hand, watching the words form on the screen.
ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL OFFENSIVE ACTION: 43 UNITS.
SYNCHRONIZING MOBILE UNIT TARGETING COMP.
"It's uploaded settings for guns seven and nine," Ren Zel told her, fingers moving across the board, "and instructions to fire to those coordinates in forty Standard minutes."
TACTICAL DEFENSE POD 77 ON STAND-BY, CONDITION ORANGE.
The words stopped and Priscilla stirred at last.
"Remove Pod seventy-seven's instructions from the targeting command queue, please, First Mate."
He spun his chair around, showing her a face which was entirely devoid of emotion.
"I cannot," he said quietly, and she read the effort he expended to hold to calmness. "The file is sealed."
"Sealed, is it?" She reached to her own board. "I'll pull them—"
Ren Zel cleared his throat.
"Forgive me. I should have said that the instructions and the coords are under the seal of Delm Korval."
"Under delm's seal?" Priscilla felt a thrill not unlike terror. Theonna yos'Phelium had left the power to implement delm's seal resident in the ancient defense pod. Theonna yos'Phelium had been a far-seeing delm, indeed.
Or a frothing madwoman.
Priscilla took a breath, felt the red counter warm in her hand and looked to Ren Zel.
"So, we can see it, but we can't change it." As she said that her witch sense told her it was true: some ancient Korval necessity now ruled their fate. "Fine. To my screen two, please. Let's at least find out what we've gotten ourselves into."
"Uncle Win Den!" Alys ran headlong out of the house as he was preparing to step into the flitter for an inspection of the outer ring defenses. He waited, remembering to frown.
"Well, niece? I thought you on duty at the core-comm."
"I was, Uncle. But there was a message. . ." she paused to gulp more air into her lungs. "A message on the telecoder—the old one, that never takes any messages?"
tel'Vosti froze, remembering late night fright stories told him by his uncle, too many years ago, and centering around that particular, always silent, telecoder.
"Go on," he urged Alys.
"Yes. The message says it's from the Planetary Defense Unit, and it—" her eyes lifted to his, baffled. "Uncle, it says that it's activated the meteor shielding over Erob Central Control."