Kosho sat easily in the captain’s chair, one leg crossed over the other, comp control surfaces arrayed to the left to allow an unobstructed view of the engineering stations on her right. Midafternoon watch was nearly half over and there were crewmen at every station. The threatwell forming the center of Command was filled with light-the hard diamonds of the battle-group and a contorted maze of filaments representing the dust clouds they had been passing through for the last three days.
On her central board, the transit shielding status displays were flickering crimson and amber much like the fluttering of hummingbird wings-nearly too swift for the eye to follow. One of the graphics surged into red, and then scarlet, and a soft ding-ding sounded. Susan looked up from the readiness reports filling her displays and frowned, a sharp crease splitting her forehead.
Gravitational densities were fluctuating in an uncomfortable way, causing the protostellar debris to congeal in ever-moving eddies. The Naniwa ’s newly installed deflectors were easily shrugging aside the constant stream of impacts, but she was beginning to worry about the other smaller, older, ships in the convoy. At present the combat elements made a widely dispersed globe around the Fiske, Eldredge, and Hanuman. The squadron was currently arrayed to prevent wake overlap and further damage to the smaller ships following the heavy warships.
Kosho brushed the readiness reports closed with a flick of her wrist, then keyed into battlecast with her stylus.
After a few minutes of considering telemetry from the noncombatants, she tapped her earbug awake and paged Engineering.
“Hennig here, kyo.” The Kikan-cho was a dough-faced Saxon of very conservative mind. Kosho found him refreshingly direct and, like many engineers, disinterested in politics of any kind. Had he shown any flickering of concern for the past glories of Imperial Denmark-of which Saxony had been long part-he would not have found a posting in the Fleet at all.
Which would be a shame, Susan thought, because we are short enough of talented officers as it is.
“Emil,” she said aloud, “how does the shielding on the Fiske or Eldredge compare to ours, in this dust, at our current velocity?”
“Poorly, Chu-sa.” He looked off-pane, and Kosho was heartened to see that the engineer already had the ’cast telemetry on his own monitors. “We’re pegging up to five or six percent capacity-that last bolus deflected from the port shielding at nineteen percent-but Fiske is showing sixty or seventy percent just in the easygoing.”
“You’d agree the densities are increasing, the deeper we go?”
He nodded. “ Kyo, whatever gravitational sources are causing all of this debris to collect are-more or less-dead ahead. The closer we come, the tighter the influx spirals are going to be. Right now, if you plot back to our entry point, you can see we’re cutting across deeper ‘valleys’ in the clouds. The interval between each ridge is growing shorter as well.”
“Sensor efficiency?”
“Declining, Chu-sa.” Hennig smoothed back short-cropped gray hair. “Have you been watching the cycle-rate on the battlecast itself?”
Susan shook her head, no.
“Increasing as well. Tachyon relay times are starting to vary-which indicates we’re getting deep into a gravitational eddy as well-and ’cast timing is starting to slow. Not noticeable to you, or I, kyo -but our ability to supplement the navigational suites of the smaller ships is starting to degrade.”
“And if-when-we’re attacked?”
Hennig showed a set of small, pearl-like teeth. “ Chu-sa, below-decks chatter says the gunnery officer on Mace nearly lit off a sprint missile into the Falchion two watches ago… a distortion interposed between them and he lost ident lock. So it will be interesting.”
“Delightful.” Susan sat back, her face calm and composed. “Thank you, kika-no. ”
Thirty minutes later, after reviewing the incident reports from the rest of the battle-group-or at least those she was privy to-Kosho lifted her chin and caught the duty Comms officer’s eye.
“Pucatli- tzin, I would like to talk to the battle-group commander on the Tokiwa directly, captain’s line.”
The Chu-i stiffened and then immediately began speaking into his throatmike. Kosho stood up, stretched, and took a roundabout of the bridge. This caused a wave of activity to move with her, as the staff checked and rechecked their status displays. When Susan came around to the threatwell, she was standing well away from everyone else. Only Oc Chac had remained on-task with the gunnery control officer, testing the launch control relays for the main missile batteries spaced along the “wing” of the battle-cruiser. Six or seven control modules had already been replaced, having failed their workup.
Now the Mayan’s attention was fixed on her from across Command, and he lifted one eyebrow in question.
Susan shook her head, then tapped her earbug live as Pucatli reported the channel was open, secure, and the admiral on-line. A holocast of the Chu-sho ’s face appeared before her, surrounded by a wedge of informational glyphs. Xocoyotl was a little overweight for a Mexica officer, with hard cheekbones and a northern-or Anasazi-cast to his features and a deep, gravelly bass for a voice. So swift had been their departure that Kosho had yet to actually meet her commanding officer in person.
“Report.”
“ Chu-sho, battle-group ’cast is showing increasing shipskin erosion from the cloud. Naniwa ’s deflectors are fresh from the yards and we’re still failing to make a perfectly clean channel-the smaller ships are doing worse, with an increased risk of equipment failure.”
“Your point, Chu-sa? We are still behind schedule to reach rendezvous. If we slow-”
“Understood, kyo. If I may-our projections show that slowing one-half-or reorienting the battle-group for overlapping coverage-will reduce the chances of losing the Fiske, Eldredge, or Hanuman by almost sixteen percent.”
The admiral’s expression did not change-it was habitually disapproving-but Susan thought there was a brief flicker in the deep-set, black eyes. She missed Hadeishi again-discussing something like this with him would have been brief, efficient, and to the point.
“We’ve no time to experiment,” he said at last. “All ships will stay on course and make do.”
“ Hai, Chu-sho! ” Kosho nodded sharply in acknowledgment. Then she paused, wondering if there was enough of an opening to The v-cast folded away in the air before her with a soft ding!
Shaking her head, Susan returned to the captain’s chair, her fingers tapping in thought on the shockframe. Oc Chac was almost immediately at her side.
“What were you going to ask him, kyo?” The XO asked in an undertone.
Susan tilted her head, considering the engineer for a moment. Then she said, “What we discussed earlier: live-fire exercises for our command and gun crews. But given the rush, I doubt he’d approve the expenditure of munitions or time that it would require.” She sat down in her chair and flicked open the v-panes on her control surface. “Not that I am easy about pulling power from the deflectors in this muck-even without the stress of gun exercises-it’s eating my ship.”
Oc Chac stiffened at the light tone in her words. “This does not seem amusing to me.”
He stared at the convoluted patterns in the threatwell for a long moment, then continued in a low voice: “I cannot laugh, kyo. All this reminds me of Hunahpu’s description of the road to Xibalba:
Here there is no light but what we wayfarers bring with us. We grapple in the dark with degraded, phantom faces. Only treachery awaits us.”
Susan frowned. “It’s long since I read the Popol Vuh; what canto-”
“It is as if we are finding our way to the underworld, To the dark stairs which bisect the sky.”
The low, chanting tone to his voice began to raise the hackles on Susan’s neck. His face-normally striking, given the strength of his features-now seemed cold and still. The long oval shape, the distinctive nose, the wide lips punctured by labrets of jade and turquoise-a living statue dredged up from the wreck of old Palenque or Copan.
“ Chu-sa, you know the legend of Mictlan?”
“I do, Sho-sa. The tutors of Chapultepec are diligent in their application of Mexica history.”
He waited expectantly. For what? she wondered.
“ Kyo, did they teach you that the Mexica Kingdom of the Dead is but a weak shadow of Xibalba, place of phantoms, place of fear? That deadly trials and cruel, prankish Gods and whirlwinds of knives bar the way to that awful kingdom?”
Susan frowned. The Mayan had her full attention. “You believe we’ve chosen such a road ourselves?”
“Those who go that way have no choice, kyo. It is only for those who are dead.”
Before she could reply, Susan’s earbug crackled with the peculiar static endemic to the region. Pucatli was speaking, his normally calm voice tight with adrenaline.
“ Hai, Chu-i, put him through.”
“ Chu-sa Kosho,” Xocoyotl’s voice rumbled in her ear. “I have decided to reform the squadron. Tokiwa, Asama, and Naniwa will lead with the cruisers forming a secondary wedge. Set your transit shielding at maximum extent and clear a path through the dust for those who follow. New vectors will be on your navcomm within the quarter hour.”
“ Hai, Chu-sho! ”
Susan turned, feeling the chair motors kick in quietly. She tapped up the intraship channel and waited for Pucatli to confirm green across his repeater boards. Chac said nothing, his attention turned inward. Kosho’s attention lingered on him for a moment, before she shook her head and opened the channel.
“All hands, all section officers. Be advised that Chu-sho Xocoyotl has commanded the squadron to reform our flight pattern. We will be shifting vector in fifteen-I say fifteen-minutes. Engineering sections be aware that we are going to full transit shield power. Stand by for maneuver on my mark.”
When she closed the circuit, Oc Chac was standing at the edge of the threatwell, seemingly lost in thought.
“Do you truly believe what you just said, Sho-sa?” Susan’s voice was soft, given they were surrounded by a busy Command deck. “That we’ve stepped onto some cursed road, leading only to destruction?”
Chac turned, his face somber. “Such thoughts come to me in this place unbidden, kyo -and if they assail my mind, they will afflict the soldiers, starmen, and scientists aboard the squadron doubly so.”
He nodded sharply to her, and now everything about him seemed professional and direct once more. “There is work to be done, Chu-sa .”
“Dismissed,” she replied, and then watched him with interest as he strode off.
Can he really make the men forget-or put aside-this apprehension? That would be a boon indeed.