Earth Song: Twilight Serenade (16 page)

Again the female bowed low. “You must understand, great one, the coding of even this simple system is many thousands of lines, and the basic coding is very cryptic. We’d like to do a full analysis.”

“How long would this take?”

“Approximately forty days.”

“Unacceptable,” Agan spat from where he’d been listening. “This foolish female wants us to hover here around these cursed stars for forty days while they waste time staring at computer code?”

The female groveled before the raging assistant fleet commander. He bared his fangs at her and spat.

“We should just kill this one and put another in her place. One female is just as useful as another.”

“This female has proven competent in her job,” Singh-Apal said, “and you will not kill my staff without my permission.”

“Apologies, leader,” he said with a bare bow.

“I am in favor of allowing this. The station will refill EPCs while we decipher the code.”

“And ship them off to the enemy though the portal, gaining us nothing.”

The damnable underling had a point. “Sally, can you remove or disable the code that ships the portals off world?”

“Yes.”

“There, you see?” he asked his assistant. “We can sit here while the technicians make sure it is safe while the inventory of this place fills up. Already transports are starting to arrive. In forty days we’ll have enough to justify beginning shipments to our shipyards.”

“The Matriarch would consider this an unnecessary delay,” Agan said quietly.

“The Matriarch put me in charge, not you. I stand for her will. That should be good enough for anyone.”

“As you say, leader,” he hissed.

The female went to work on the computer code, and more fleet elements arrived as Singh-Apal waited somewhat patiently. But less than a week into the wait, he got a communication from high command.

“You are ordered by word of the Matriarch to proceed with loading of EPCs from the conquered station post haste – The High Command”

“That lickspittle tail biter,” Singh-Apal raged in his quarters. There was no other possible explanation except that Agan must have gone behind his hood and told one of his own allies on the council. You didn’t get to the level of a fleet command without having allies in high places. Or at least without first killing all your enemies.

When he arrived on the bridge a short time later, he was not surprised to see Agan there curled around the command pedestal. “You have news?” the upstart asked.

“You know quite well that I do, and what the orders are,” Singh-Apal snapped as he slithered toward the command deck.

“I’m afraid I do not,” Agan insisted.

Singh-Apal gave him credit for sticking to his story. “We are ordered by the high command to occupy the station and begin transferring power modules immediately.”

“Indeed? There must be urgent need.”

Singh-Apal didn’t doubt there was. The T’Chillen controlled more than half of all the power stations in the Concordia. Were they to divert all that production to war it would be more than sufficient. However those power stations fueled hundreds of minor species. By themselves they were no threat to the mighty T’Chillen, but cut off from vital energy they could well ally, and together…

Starships consumed frightening amounts of energy, as did their construction. He had personal knowledge of just how stretched their resources were. Still, rushing was a mistake he hadn’t intended to make, and now his hand was being forced.

Singh-Apal reached the command deck and Agan relinquished the pedestal without any hesitation. He turned to look at his technical leader. “Sally,” he hissed.

“Order me, leader.”

“Do you have any results?”

“It is too soon in the analysis. However I was… concerned we would be hurried so I instructed my team to look for tags indicating changes.”

“What did you find?” he asked.

“There are thousands of edit points in the code, leader. Many thousands. I personally examined several and they are either innocuous, or actually appear to improve the original operating system. It is most confusing.”

“Were our enemies just bored?” Singh-Apal wondered aloud.

“A waste of valuable computer processing time,” she stated plainly. “It would take my team nearly a year to do all of this work. And it is flawless coding.”

Singh-Apal nodded and turned to his assistant whose lidless eyes watched him with intent.

“Orders, leader?”

He considered just ignoring the high command. It would take another week for a follow up order to arrive at which point the females may have uncovered some trap or trick left behind in the code. Of course, if nothing was wrong he was extending his throat for a bite by Agan. He spat in frustration before giving the order.

“Form up a cruiser squadron to escort a transport. Tell them to proceed with extreme caution.”

The orders were again relayed and the ad hoc squadron formed up on four cruisers. In short order they were diving through the maelstrom of Dervish. The bigger, slower transport drew the energy vortex much more effectively so the cruisers were forced to stay in tight formation, their shields overlapping to provide maximum protection. By the time they reached the station all four warships’ shields were glowing orange with massive energy loads.

Finally they were inside the station’s shields, safe and sound. Everyone on the command dreadnought’s bridge breathed a sigh of relief. Singh-Apal noticed none more than Agan. It’s not over yet, he thought as the cruisers took up station around the docking area and the transport began to move in closer.

Not having been designed to load EPCs directly, they were forced to move modules the same way the Beezer had. T’Chillen in suits and bots to assist began to swarm from the transports as external bay doors swung wide. Less than an hour after the order was given the first EPC floated out of the station and Singh-Apal began to think his instincts were wrong.

The programs that ran the station were indeed complex and interconnected. Five distinct programs worked to make the systems function together with no one program having supremacy over the others, as was common with autonomous non-combat facilities built by the People. Sally and her team of programmers were busily combing the station internal control programs and handling system for signs of dangerous modifications. Lilith had inserted thousands of changes to those systems, but none of them were hazardous in any way whatsoever.

If she’d had time, she would have branched out into the other less innocuous systems of the station. In particular station keeping, and shield control. She did notice that one of the programs that monitored ships in close proximity to the station had a new subroutine. It was to note when more than six ships were within its shield, and report to another program.

She’d made a note of that and moved on. In her section of the ship she was isolated from tactical so she had no idea that a new group of ships were now in the station’s shield perimeter until she ran a compile on the stations monitor program and found it had altered itself. Sally instantly stopped what she was doing and compared the code against her original recording.

On the bridge, sensor operators made note that the station was shifting positions. It had done so dozens of times since their arrival, so this was not unusual. They made note of it, transferred the data to the gathered fleet, and went back to work.

Sally finished her comparison an hour later and verified it was that reporting subroutine that was now gone. The program was doing something and covering its tracks. Instantly her assessment of the programmer changed from confused or perhaps unskilled to dangerous.

“Control,” she called, “please verify how many ships are next to the station?”

“Six,” was the terse reply from the CIC liaison.

Sally looked at the missing subroutine again to find out what other program it reported to. Maneuvering.

“I’m going to the CIC,” she told her assistant programmer. “Retask all analysts to the maneuvering program, I’m sending you a program call tag to search for. This has maximum priority!”

Sally reached the CIC and requested audience with High Leader Singh-Apal Katoosh, and was promptly told to wait. Females in the T’Chillen didn’t go far if they didn’t follow instructions from males. Those who ignored protocols just didn’t live long. Sally had risen high within her field. A few more steps and she’d move into the command structure and receive an appointment. Perhaps even fleet command or analysis on the home world.

She saw the humans in this. Ever since her interaction with them at the Lost firebase she’d been fascinated by the hominids and made them a personal study. Every bit of news and information that became available on them was carefully reviewed by her and cataloged. She knew that the few in her species which were aware of them considered the enigmatic species to be nothing more than pawns of the Tog. Sally knew they were much, much more.

They were impressive warriors, having defeated both the Rasa and the Tanam. They’d fought the Mok-Tok to a standstill on Planet K (mostly classified), and stolen a ship right out from under her own people’s snouts. For some reason she didn’t understand, Sally had never told her superiors about that. She was the only T’Chillen to survive who’d physically seen the humans. Instead the Rasa took the blame, and they’d all died for it.

The humans were now major players on the food market within the galaxy as well through a joint venture with several leaseholds considered less than useful for just that purpose. They’d began selling space capable shuttles as well, useful to many small species with remaining orbital facilities. And they now had soldiers they were hiring out for military operations, if doing so carefully to avoid angering other species.

This programming seemed beyond such a young species. But its sneakiness, cleverness, and stealth spoke of no one else she’d dealt with. And there had been a Kaatan with those transports and other ships, she was certain of that.

Long minutes went by as she waited outside the CIC. She dared not request to enter again, and now that the high leader knew she was there. If anyone were there to see her they’d think her hiss of frustration almost sounded like a male’s.

Finally the door slid open and a tactical officer stuck his head out. “You the female computer coder?”

“I am,” she bowed her head low.

“The high leader will see you.” She followed him inside.

“Why do you want to see the high leader?” demanded his assistant, Agan, as soon as she was inside. Singh-Apal was on the far side of the CIC, wrapped around the command pedestal watching the myriad of displays.

“I believe this is an elaborate trap.”

“Absurd, what would a female know about combat traps?” he demanded with as much disdain in his voice as he could manage towards a lowly female.

She desperately wanted to admit that she’d been studying spaceship combat tactics since their defeat at the Rasa home world years ago. That she’d accessed records as ancient as time speaking about combined fleet actions against the People, both wins and losses. She watched the battle fought here days ago and knew the mistakes that had been made, and said nothing. “Not a thing,” she said and lowered her head. “I know only technology and computer coding.”

“I thought as much. I should have your worthless body ejected into space for wasting my time,” he hissed, though not very loudly.

You’d like that, she thought, to have me gone from helping Singh-Apal. “I have found that the various computer programs have been communicating between each other.”

Agan made a dismissive gesture and the two armored door guards moved towards her. She spoke quicker. “The programs are responding to our presence and doing something, then deleting the records of what they are doing!”

The guards, not caring or understanding what she was talking about, curled their powerful arms around her and started dragging her towards the exit. Agan had turned, but stopped at her last comment. “Has the station begun to maneuver, leader?”

“Wait,” he ordered the guards. “Tracking, report on the station’s position.”

“It has been maneuvering for the last four hours.”

“How far?”

“A little over one light second closer to the K class primary.”

“Why wasn’t tactical informed,” he snapped, whirling on the suddenly terrified sensor operator.

“Sir, the station has maneuvered often since we arrived. This was the first time it has demonstrated an extensive maneuver. We were about to—”

Agan spat and cursed, turning to Sally. “What do you know?”

“Six hours ago there were six ships next to the station, is that correct?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “What is happening?”

“I need to speak to the high leader.”

Agan slithered towards her with blood in his slit eyes.

“Is that Sally?” came an authorative voice from across the chamber.

He stopped his advance, turned and bowed slightly. “Yes, high leader, I was about to tell you she may have some information of note.”

Singh-Apal had already left his pedestal and was moving towards them. Agan could see he was looking past him and at Sally. “Yes, that is why the guards have her restrained.”